The Winning Ticket in 2016

The Trumpdozer rolls on, showing the world the real America. The article How America Made Donald Trump Unstoppable by Matt Taibbi (Rolling Stone) makes the case that Trump is the logical result of the American electoral process, which is not to be confused with the presidency itself, which while often cruel and capricious is not really a joke. People die because of it. As Taibbi says,

“The presidency is serious. The presidential electoral process, however, is a sick joke, in which everyone loses except the people behind the rope line.”

How likely is it that Trump will get elected? People have been saying “impossible” since Trump took the lead last summer and never let go—in almost every single poll. But Taibbi says it much more eloquently,

“A thousand ridiculous accidents needed to happen in the unlikeliest of sequences for it to be possible, but absent a dramatic turn of events – an early primary catastrophe [didn’t happen, –ed.], Mike Bloomberg ego-crashing the race, etc. [“almost zero” chance –ed.] – this boorish, monosyllabic TV tyrant with the attention span of an Xbox-playing 11-year-old really is set to lay waste to the most impenetrable oligarchy the Western world ever devised.

“It turns out we let our electoral process devolve into something so fake and dysfunctional that any half-bright con man with the stones to try it could walk right through the front door and tear it to shreds on the first go.

“And Trump is no half-bright con man, either. He’s way better than average. (Emphasis added.)”

He’s been conning people successfully for 69 years, he understands that there’s no such thing as bad publicity[1] and he seems to have just the right mix of insane racism and hatred of “the man” that a good part of America shares. I wouldn’t be surprised if his actual base spreads into disgruntled Democrats and independents as well.

So that’s depressing. Of all of the candidates, I find Jill Stein to be the most appealing, with Bernie Sanders second behind her. While I don’t play politics with my vote—I vote for whom I want, not the least-worst candidate I think has a shot of getting elected—I must consider electability in this case because, for me, Stein and Sanders are close enough for the “yooge” difference in electability to matter.

So here’s my plan for how to get Bernie elected.

Just in advance: you’re not going to like it.

No-one is going to like it. It’s appalling and Machiavellian, but it will work.

1. Hillary will get the Democratic nomination. There is no doubt about that. She’s got the Democrats by the balls six ways to Sunday.
2. The Republicans, not realizing that their party is already dead, will refuse to nominate Trump even though he’ll have the most delegates by far, because even they have a modicum of shame. He will have won the nomination, but he won’t get it.[2]
3. They’ll also pass over Cruz, who is the likely runner-up, but who is possibly worse than Trump[3], though the dimensions are so great it’s like saying that 10²⁸ is technically larger than 10²⁷. It’s true, but who cares?
4. The R’s will go with Rubio, if he’s still alive. His vulture-fund sugar daddy just won a fuck-ton of money from Argentina[4], so he probably has enough cash flow to keep stumbling his dumb ass along. I’ve also heard that the enemy of budgetary arithmetic and owner of an Ayn Rand blow-up doll Paul Ryan’s name is being bandied about, even though he’s not even running. Desperate times, as they say.[5]
5. Trump will be tempted to announce independent. He certainly isn’t interested in a VP nod from Rubio, should the R’s even be able to contemplate chugging on that shit sandwich. Given their extended, slobbery slow-dance with Ms. Palin in recent years, I would hazard that they are very much able to do this, in order to get that precious 40% of the Republicans vote that Trump seems to have sewn up. He won’t take them up on it, though, ‘cause he couldn’t play second fiddle to Rubio or Ryan. It would be ridiculous to have Trump’s overconfidence as Veep to Rubio’s weakness.[6]
6. Bernie will also be sorely tempted to run as an independent, but he would be GOING BACK ON A PROMISE OMG NO HOW COULD HE HE’S NOT A REAL POLITICIAN
7. Or is he?
8. Does Bernie have a shot against Hillary as an independent in the real race? No. Hillary’s campaign will eviscerate him in the most savage way possible. That’s how she do. It’s why she’s besties with Kissinger. In the back of the smoke-filled room, those two homunculi see eye-to-fucking-eye. The more savage she is, the more people from Trump’s camp will jump on her coattails just for the sheer skull-fucking glory of it, their greedy eyeballs drinking in the pathos like vampires sucking a wild boar dry. Sure, a hardcore group hates Hillary with white-hot blinding fury, but some will jump ship just get away from Rubio/Cruz/Ryan.
9. Does Trump have a chance as an independent? He might. He’s got a solid 40% of the Republicans, maybe more in a general race when people realize what a putz Rubio is. (Or what a fucking sociopath Cruz is … you see, Trump is the guy who’ll pay a kid $10 to pull the wings off a fly and eat them. Cruz is the kid who would do it, but for free, CAUSE HE’S DOIN’ IT FOR JESUS, his crazy eyes jiggling in their sockets the whole time. Next up? Cats. Then…hobos.)
10. So Trump has a chance, but even he must know how shitty he’d be at being President. Also it would be BORING. He might also realize just how close he is to Bernie on a bunch of issues.[7] Sure Trump’s a racist psychopath on everything else, but on jobs, economy, foreign policy, they’re both more closer to each other than to the outright Genghis-Khan-style war criminals in the race (yeah, I’m looking at you Hillary, over there, taking short bets on how many flies Cruz can eat). Also, they both can’t stop talking about corruption in politics, a topic on which Hillary keeps quite mum.[8]
11. So Bernie won’t win, but might come close and could BE president. Lots of experience.
12. Trump could win, but has no idea what to do with the presidency
13. What to do…
14. Aha.
15. Do you see it?
16. The Sanders/Trump ticket
17. Are you feeling it?
18. Vice President is the PERFECT JOB for Trump. Close enough to power—and he can say he won, more or less—and best of all: no real responsibilities. He’ll definitely go for it, especially with Bernie, who he grudgingly respects. This also works out for America, because he will have failed upward to the least effective post in America. Could he really be dumber/worse than Joe Biden?
19. Bernie only has to break one (STUPID) promise and he will ride to victory on his own supporters plus all of folks Trump takes with him. He can let the Trumpdozer demolish whatever opposition Hillary dares bring.[9] And no-one will jump ship from Trump if he’s still technically in the race. He won’t even have to share a campaign bus with Trump, ‘cause Trump flies everywhere.
20. Added bonus: absolutely everyone is even more disgusted with the campaign than they are now. Absolutely every voter will end up holding their nose and there will be no more wide-eyed evangelists, just realists who are forced to acknowledge what a sham the elections are. E.g. You end up with Bernie, so you have to vote for him, right? But he chose Trump as VP? So you can’t trust him anymore, … but he’s still better than the others… right? Yum, this shit sandwich is so delicious. THANK YOU SIR MAY I HAVE ANOTHER?

There ya go. Bernie in the White House in 2016. Trump for ongoing entertainment value.

And the media and parties and the establishment and the virulent and simplistic economic system have paved the way for this all-around catastrophe. The very nature of the media and parties makes them institutionally unable to prevent any of this. They have broken the voters and they are no longer in control.[10]

Sanders/Trump 2016. You read it here first.