by Robert Wilkinson
Regardless of what comes down tomorrow, we confront the fact that the media has utterly failed the American voter. On the eve of the most important election in American history, the media has given a totalitarian spouting fascist hate speech a free ride and a free pass to impending dictatorship should he win. [ADD: I thought he wouldn't.] This election has exposed the major flaw in our corporate capitalist media model.
In elections past, I’ve done extensive articles on the Dixville Notch chart, the charts of the candidates, and examined various horaries and other charts that are indicators of election results. This year I made my call on internet radio in late July, early August, and a few more times in between and since. This year I am not motivated to comment astrologically, but rather as one who has been a political analyst for over 35 years and cares for what limited democracy we still have here in the US.
The media have traditionally been the watchdogs for the American public, getting the hard stories, vetting lies, exaggerations, and misrepresentations, and generally fact checked the candidates throughout history. This year the media have obsessed over one candidate’s relatively unimportant emails, while ignoring the other candidate’s well established connections with several mob families, as well as hostile foreign governments and overseas banking interests, which in many cases are ultimately one and the same.
The media has utterly failed in its role as investigator of facts, and making clear the difference between propaganda generated by factions and the actual facts in evidence. This is a very bad development for our nation, since as a result of decades of dumbed down undereducated voters being told that “government is the problem,” we now have seen that millions can be aroused by the most vile language and imagery appealing to the basest animal instincts of those who would destroy the American experiment in self-government.
As a result of polarized propaganda going back to Reagan and the first Bush, we have a population that values slogans over substance, ignorance over knowledge, opinion over fact, and party over nation. I have been viciously attacked by people with little if any formal education, political and otherwise, demanding that I answer every one of their concerns, and regardless of what I offer, they merely switch the subject into even more concerns, and when finally held to answer, they just write something ugly.
So this is an election where the online dialog is between those who want to discuss problems and solutions, and those who have no intention of being honest or open in that dialog. This election set a record for paid trolls, both domestic and those paid by hostile foreign powers.
I have seen ideological purists on both sides of the spectrum irrationally attack any and all who don’t agree with their ideological stance. I have seen progressives make the possible good into the enemy of the perfect. I have seen regressives insist that Democrats are demons, traitors, deniers, and every other vulgar epithet they could throw, while ignoring their own treasonous stances and slavish devotion to a miserable excuse for a man who gropes women as he pleases, steals from thousands of contractors to enrich himself, uses the law to beat workers up, threatens to go to war against those who offend him, and generally is not qualified to be the mayor of Mayberry, much less the leader of the free world.
This is one of the “fault line” elections in history. Not only because it’s the first to feature a woman candidate opposing the good old boy system, but also because it’s the first election where the male candidate has alienated so many women that it’s clear there is a gender division in the electorate that has been awakened. This will prove to be the beginning of the end of the Republican party.
The women’s vote has been awakened, and the fact that so many have come forth to decry Trump’s numerous sexual abuses is a sign of things to come. This may be the first election where how men treat women entered the public dialog as an underlying issue driving the electorate. This issue will not die down or go away just because Trump loses in a probable landslide (unless Putin hacks our servers, which is always a possibility). [ADD: I believe the election was stolen through a variety of means, but I won't go into that here.]
This is the election where long term demographics are put into play which will inevitably lead to the end of the Republican party as it has existed since Reagan. In my estimation, the Republican party will cease to be a national force by 2024 due to the reapportionment following the 2020 census.
It is said that once a demographic group settles on a party it believes will advance its interests, that loyalty factor stays in play for at least two generations. If that’s the case then the Republican party has lost the educated, progressives, liberals, moderates, women, Hispanics, African Americans, Asian-Americans, Muslim Americans, millennials, and everyone else who has been demonized by Donald Trump and those Republicans who refused to dissociate themselves from his hateful, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, and misogynistic platform. To note, each one of these groups will only grow in their influence in future elections.
This has truly been a miserable election season. I have lost “friends,” been treated with impossible hostility and disrespect by total strangers, screamed at by people with little if any grasp of actual facts, and been called names by people who do not have the slightest idea of who I am, what I believe, what I know, and my work to make this world a better, more civil place where each finds their unique part to play in the fabric of our society. We have survived, but many of our relationships have not.
So I see more turmoil in the future, since there are millions who would defend torture, treason, brutality, hatred, and selfishness. They feel entitled in their grievance to destroy the American government, the American compact, and American society as it has survived for over 230 years. Like children, they want what they want because they want it.
While the future is unknown to a large degree, we have rough waters ahead, regardless of the probable outcome of this election. Yet in the end, we will survive, and the violent hateful ones will destroy themselves. We just have to make sure we’re not standing near the dinosaurs as they fall.
© Copyright 2016 Robert Wilkinson
Thank you for your thoughtful analysis. My wife and I continue to be dismayed at the vast number of Americans that are willing to support this demagogue. The Hopi prophecy of the split between the one hearted and the two hearted comes to mind. As the atheist Bill Mahr said: "Please Jesus!"
Posted by: dcu | November 07, 2016 at 10:38 AM
Thank you Robert for your integrity and for sharing your truth.
As you say, many of us made up our minds months ago. Many of us, months ago, also tuned out of the hateful display of the ugliest aspects of individual behaviors.
I agree that the media has given the candidates equal treatment, and in doing so, has given the electorate the semblance of fairness and a great disservice by paying attention and given credence to such claptrap.
I agree the R's have written their death warrant. And that gives me hope for the future.
Thank you for your courage and your commitment to a better world.
Posted by: Jo Garceau | November 07, 2016 at 12:11 PM
Thank you!
One of those dinosaurs is "the media".
Posted by: Vetch | November 07, 2016 at 12:13 PM
This morning I had to decide how I personally would handle a trump presidency. As a strong woman of spirit and steel standing in her own power refusing to be physically,mentally, spiritually, emotionally, financially "raped" by this guy. I will hit him where it hurts most. I will simply ignore him.
Posted by: Peggy | November 07, 2016 at 08:28 PM
Thank you! & remember to appreciate/find/offer quietude and kindness in the midst of the clamor.
Posted by: cc | November 07, 2016 at 11:31 PM
Great analysis and a courageous one too because of its honesty. You know I am an outsider to the American Politics as I am not an American. Yet, there are many patterns that are not only American in nature, they reflect issues, thoughts, ideologies that also manifest elsewhere in the world. Part of the process of moving from the old Pisces era into the Aquarian era with all that that entails, I suppose.
There is a lot to learn and comment from your analysis. The Media did let the American (and world) public down, they allowed what should not appear in a democratic world. You are right and I agree, but I wonder why they did it? How come the Media got away with it? Why did the American public react as they did to the Media's poor performance? Maybe, the outcome of the election is going to be very different to what the Media says and there is my answer. I wonder?
Love and light to America.
Blessing be to all .
Posted by: Nic | November 08, 2016 at 02:42 AM
Beautifully spoken Nic. As an outsider I can only wonder how this all could happen. That said I truely hope that someday we will understand the deeper meaning of all this. For now it feels really sad...
Posted by: Ilse | November 08, 2016 at 01:18 PM
2016. The year that insanity was normalized. I am stunned.
Posted by: sw | November 09, 2016 at 08:41 AM
https://thehistrionica.bandcamp.com/track/trumpelstiltskin
I think this pretty-well sums up what has happened!
Posted by: JP | November 09, 2016 at 02:42 PM
Hi all - Ever since I was a very young boy, one of the recurring questions has been "How did Germany ever elect such a one as Adolph Hitler? How could a free people ever elect such a madman?" I have heard that question over a thousand times in my long life, as though no one could ever understand how a demagogue such as Hitler could ever win a democratic election.
We now know the answer. Put up a windbag who promises everyone that he, and only he, can restore the glory and greatness of the nation. One who demonizes a religion. One who demonizes immigrants, minorities, poor, and infirm as parasites on society. One who lies, and then lies again and again, asserting falsehoods as truths, and truths as falsehoods. One who conflates lesser problems with greater evils. One who promotes power over civility, and demonizes all who would disagree. One who steals from others and mocks them for being weak. One who encourages his followers to beat up protesters at his rallies. One who threatens the lives of those who could bring his sexual assaults into the public view. One who has an infallible view of himself, his party, his henchmen, and is ruthless in demonizing all who oppose him. One who rallies disaffected illiterates to believe he is their savior, and can deliver all that will ease their ills by putting millions into camps, destroying families and lives.
We never need to ask again how Hitler was elected. We know the answer.
Posted by: Robert | November 09, 2016 at 03:44 PM
Master
i am sorry for your country and for the world at large since yours is the most powerful country on this planet, for good and evil as well; populism though is on rampage all over the world, so you're not alone
God bless You and us all
namaste
Posted by: barbara | November 10, 2016 at 04:10 AM
Well said Robert...
Ode to the odious and their mediocre crew
The stagnancy of a sold out soul sticks like glue to you...
Posted by: sue | November 10, 2016 at 06:55 AM
I stopped by this website today because Aquariuspapers is one of my favourite places to visit online for sanity in an increasingly insane world.
Yesterday morning here in England, I woke up and turned on the radio straightaway. (The last thing I'd heard before going to bed was a BBC Radio 2 interview with Gloria Steinem; everything was hopeful.) When I heard the outcome of the US election, I wept at the news. Here in the UK we had the shock of the Brexit vote just a few months ago, so I feel some of your pain.
What I will say is that Trump's victory – like the Brexit victory – hasn’t only incited division, it's also made us all painfully aware of the differences that exist between people who call the same nation home. And (oddly) with that awareness, there is hope. The problems of division and divisiveness are no longer hidden in the shadows; they are out in the open and we are aware of them, which means we can begin to deal with them - learning from history to work towards a better world where a result like this never happens again.
Aum and blessings, as you would say, dear Robert.
Esther
Posted by: Esther | November 10, 2016 at 08:36 AM
Century 2-16 ... New tyrants.
Posted by: sue | November 11, 2016 at 08:42 AM
It is American karma - for putting profit before people and people before principle. It is the beginning of our darkest hour before dawn. I just hope when the sun finally rises (which I heard one astrologer equate with Pluto moving into Aquarius) we will find that not all has been lost. I love this planet and will do everything I can to save her. Thank you for your tireless commitment to the same.
Posted by: Judy Kennedy | November 11, 2016 at 03:19 PM
Hey diddle diddle the media played fiddle
The don jumped over the moon
The people laughed at all the sport
Till their dish ran away to his spoon.
Posted by: caliban | November 16, 2016 at 05:22 PM