Top Democrats Making a Case for Donald Trump to Be Our Next President

The 2016 Democratic Convention has been very newsworthy in so many ways. There is no shortage of people willing to speak, mostly on the stage, with some smaller groups offering their unsolicited opinions from the audience. This long list contains many well-known individuals who hold high-ranking positions within the Party plus spokespeople for many special interest groups; each taking center stage to pledge their support for candidate Clinton. Some of the most notable speakers we’ve heard so far are First Lady Michelle Obama, Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and former President William Jefferson Clinton. As the Convention continues, both President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will take the podium, and finally Chelsea Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will step up to officially take the nomination. Additionally there will be no shortage of celebrities from Hollywood including Meryl Streep, Lena Dunham, and Alicia Keys. Anytime a gathering of such well-known people happens, the amount of press coverage increases exponentially, as do the side stories and in the case of this convention, the protests.

The race between Senator Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton did have its share of drama, but in the end, Mrs. Clinton clearly held the upper hand with the Superdelegates and secured the nomination. Senator Sander’s supporters made repeated claims that the nominating process was fixed and they believed that the Democratic National Committee was biased in handling the primaries. Although he planned to hold out until the Convention, Senator Sanders changed his strategy and seemingly fell in line with the Clinton camp, even sharing the stage with her in a joint campaigning event. His supporters were described as shocked, amazed, angry, and resentful of the fact that their leader would so easily give up on the momentum he had built and follow Mrs. Clinton so easily. And with his capitulation, it appeared that Mrs. Clinton would have a flowery and supportive audience at the Convention; that is until the perfectly timed release of a trove of internal e-mails from the DNC by Wikileaks.

The organization’s founder Julian Assange, an avowed enemy of Mrs. Clinton was quite clear that his organization intended this e-mail release to harm her chances at securing the Presidency. By underscoring the drama surrounding Bernie Sanders treatment by members of the DNC, Assange managed to stir the pre-Convention pot to near-boiling. The first batch of nearly 20,000 e-mails focused on the day to day activities of seven key figures at the DNC; Communications Director Luis Miranda (10770 emails), National Finance Director Jordon Kaplan (3797 emails), Finance Chief of Staff Scott Comer (3095 emails), Finance Director of Data & Strategic Initiatives Daniel Parrish (1472 emails), Finance Director Allen Zachary (1611 emails), Senior Advisor Andrew Wright (938 emails) and Northern California Finance Director Robert (Erik) Stowe (751 emails). Many of the e-mails point to the fact that the DNC did indeed discuss ways to undermine the Sanders candidacy. America was also shown how harsh the members involved communicated with and about others. The fallout was so terrible that DNC Chairman, Debbie Wasserman-Shultz stepped down as chairperson and when she appeared at the opening of the Convention, was basically booed off of the stage.

Strong connections to the Clinton camp were shown in the e-mails. In one instance, Clinton’s own lawyer was shown to be giving guidance on how the committee should respond to questions raised by Sander’s supporters on the financial arrangements of the Party. Also multiple instances of collusion between the DNC and the media to spin stories or arrange for interview questions in advance were demonstrated; which many had always assumed occurred, but was now galvanized. There were also conversations about donors, President Obama’s role in the primary, and a heap of criticism for Senator Sanders across many areas. The e-mails really showed Sander’s supporters that the system was rigged against them; maybe not to the level they were claiming, but to a moderate degree. It was enough to re-energize them to come to the Convention prepared to protest, heckle, and generally disrupt the cast of speakers and attendees.

The top leadership in the Democratic Party is insisting that the Russians are behind the DNC hack, but Sanders supporters weren’t concerned with who brought the information to light, only the contents of the e-mails. The DNC is insisting still to this point in the discussion that Russian President Vladimir Putin is conspiring with Republican nominee Donald Trump to somehow “steal” the election from Clinton. This tactic has some merit since Putin and Clinton are far from being close. In fact, reports are that Putin hates Mrs. Clinton and he too wants to publically humiliate and embarrass her while simultaneously derailing her chances at winning the election. They disagree on global policies almost always, but when Clinton compared Putin to former German leader Adolph Hitler and said he had no soul, that was the “crossing the line” point. When Clinton served as Secretary of State, she routinely spoke out about Putin’s ambitions to consolidate his power and when he annexed the Ukraine, the Hitler comparison came out. Putin and the Russian people took the off-color remark very personally and it’s a grudge which will stand the test of time. Assange is countering the DNC claim by saying there is absolutely no proof that the Russians were responsible for the hack and that the Russian angle is simply a diversion away from the information the e-mails contain. The DNC is doing damage control as there have been reports that this batch is only one of many yet to come, and if that’s the case, the subsequent ones will be more damaging to the powerful players on the Democrat team. With this e-mail leak by the DNC and the questionable use of a private e-mail server by Secretary Clinton, voters are being forced to ask themselves if the Democratic Party has a problem with data security.

With so many potential issues on simmer, the management of the Democratic Convention, in a move which most-likely created more negative backlash than expected, put a large barrier wall up around the outside of the venue. Additionally there was a blue barrier wall inside the building which separated the stage from the crowd. Republicans and immigration hawks immediately pounced on the issue making statements about how the Democratic Party elites can be protected with a wall, but not the Southern border of the nation. Yet, with so many other issues, this quickly lost momentum, at least for now. As earlier mentioned, the resignation of chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was view by many Sanders supporters as a “new day” in the Party leadership. But when they learned that she almost immediately accepted a position in the Clinton campaign, abruptly turned their hope into renewed anger and it pointed back to the “fix being in.” The evening’s main event speakers on day 1 added fuel to the fire.

Both Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, two of the Democratic Party’s most recognizable figures, spoke at length on day 1 of the Democratic Convention. They both clearly were positioned on day 1 instead of later because in some way they are both questionable supporters of Mrs. Clinton. What’s amazing is that they both spoke at length of just how many problems exist in America today; Obama’s America. And they both reluctantly were supporting Hillary Clinton; who will carry the water and continue those failed policies and in some cases double down on his failures. Neither of them made any attempts to address the division that is simmering in the Democratic Party, perhaps hoping that attacking Donald Trump would bring some unity to the unruly crowd in Philadelphia. What was supposed to be a coming together of the party was instead a mob-like scene with constant interruptions, catcalls, and boos from the audience.

Senator Sanders made it clear near the opening of his speech that he was the figurehead of a revolution; one which would transform America. Quite similar in tone to the Hope and Change message delivered by President Obama in his bid for the Oval Office, however Sander’s fell short. What’s interesting is that both President Obama and Senator Sanders felt the need to tell America that our nation needs to change, and it must be done so in a drastic way. If you review Senator Sander’s speech, it calls out just how much of a failure President Obama’s two terms in office were. Most of the things he cited that need changing have been in the Democrats control for many years, under the current President. It also brings rise to the question of why should we keep trudging forward on a similar “change” path when it’s not working?

Bernie Sanders wanted his audience to know that America is a wreck. He wanted to make sure that everyone knew that millions of seniors, disabled vets and others are struggling with the outrageously high cost of prescription drugs and the fact that Americans pay the highest prices in the world for their medicine. This is a direct connection to the failure of Obamacare. He further went ahead and said he and Hillary want to move America toward universal health care, adding more expense and problems to the already broken system. He wanted America to know that we have a broken immigration system. Yet, President Obama’s immigration policies and failure to enforce current immigration laws are the biggest reasons why the system isn’t working. He wants America to know that this election is about climate change, when climate change hardly registers on the radar of things voters see as important. He gave praises to Hillary Clinton because he thinks she is the climate savior and her administration will create jobs, by cutting fossil fuel use. Of course he fails to mention how much unemployment that would cause. Eliminating an entire industry that provides high paying jobs doesn’t really seem to be a solution to fixing the economy, especially when the replacement plan can’t come close to providing the amount of power America needs to sustain things.

Bernie also loves to discuss free college, and he’s convinced Hillary to jump on that bandwagon. Instead of demonstrating how the Democrats are going to reduce regulations and incentify businesses to stay in America and provide good jobs for Americans, Bernie wants to discuss free education. I guess they think having almost 100,000 million people out of work would be fine if everyone was better educated. And it has to be on the public’s dime, of course. There are millions of people with advanced degrees that can’t find work but the Democrats think free college will fix it. Sander’s wants America to know that the level of income and wealth inequality that we are currently experiencing is the worst it has been since 1928. Yet he fails to mention that it’s climbed significantly during President Obama’s tenure. And the poverty level has increased as well. And although Senator Sanders doesn’t mention it, the National Debt grew more under Obama than all other President’s combined. Bernie certainly is rolling out the red carpet for the Republicans to take his talking points and inflict political damage.

Senator Elizabeth Warren shared her personal history as part of her opening remarks, in addition to taking some large swings at Donald Trump. She then jumped right into the fact that Americans are unemployed and underemployed and struggling, all under President Obama’s watch. Yet while America is suffering, the stock market is breaking records. Corporate profits are at all-time highs. CEOs are making tens of millions of dollars. Maybe it’s because companies are buying back their outstanding shares because of the frightening low interest rates and the fact that they are terrified to invest into any new business venture. The burdensome regulations of the Obama administration have all but strangled any job creation. The massive borrowing and the Federal Reserve policies managed by the Obama Administration are driving the market higher. Follow the borrowed money and you will see how the market is being played like a shell game.

She then jumped on the “game is rigged” topic that Mr. Trump and to some degree Senator Sanders has been focused on. She said that when giant companies wanted more tax loopholes, Washington (Obama) got it done. When huge energy companies wanted to tear up our environment, Washington (Obama) got it done. When enormous Wall Street banks wanted new regulatory loopholes, Washington (Obama) got it done. Basically she telegraphed that things are working right in Washington under the leadership of President Obama and the Democrats. She tries to deflect it as something Congress is responsible for, but we all know that Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell have implemented nearly everything President Obama wanted implemented. They too are part of the broken system in Washington. She spent the rest of her speech attacking Donald Trump, but the message was clear; America has lots of problems and they were mainly caused by President Obama and his policies, check.

Day 2 brought with it a whole new set of issues and problems as the Democratic Party searched for unity. The vocal Sander’s crowd was less of a distraction but they did stage a walkout after Hillary Clinton was nominated, wearing tape over their mouths in a symbolic gesture of being silenced by the corrupt DNC tactics. The protest group called “black lives matter” was very visible and very vocal, taking what many are calling a prominent role at the Convention. The mothers of slain black youth were featured on the main stage speaking against the police and portraying all law enforcement as racists. Meanwhile outside of the barricaded Convention center, BLM protestors marched through Philadelphia with messages on their banners that clearly show no support for Clinton. They were chanting anti-Hillary verses and calling for her to delete herself, which one can assume connects to her e-mail scandal.

The day finished with former President Bill Clinton taking the stage. In one of the first speeches he’s made in years without collecting a paycheck, Bill Clinton vigorously endorsed his wife for President. He, like the other speakers talked about change and how much change was needed, seemingly calling out President Obama’s policies as failures. He went on to tell a lengthy account of his and Hillary’s life story and tried to make her efforts while in government sound larger than life. He took time to pander to all of the special interest groups before summing things up with an emotionally charged finale. He made attempts throughout to counter the major criticisms Hillary receives from the media and her opposition; he tried to humanize her. He made sure to focus on the fact that in his opinion she was “trustworthy,” a fact that 70% of America disagrees with. He made her sound dependable, even though she hasn’t really done anything to prove it despite all the years in public office. But the one thing that he really worked hard to do was to make Hillary seem like a devout family member, mother, and grandmother. With Donald Trump’s family and children making such an amazing impact to viewers on the RNC, Bill tried to counter punch but unfortunately came up short. One major news anchor called his speech, “shocking and rude.”

In reviewing the high points of the first two days, everyone who took the stage called out major problems we have in America today. In what felt like a Convention year where the Democrats were in the minority, Party leaders made reference after reference to major weaknesses in the current administration. The lack of jobs, the poor condition of the economy, problems with our healthcare system, racial divisions, immigration, and many more were mentioned repeated by the speakers. With nearly eight years of Democratic policies in place and the nation under Democratic leadership, the number of problems and the severity of them has increased. It’s not a political talking point that the Democrats should be proud of when in fact it’s a banner of shame. President Obama had the opportunity to make America a better place with his Hope and Change approach but he instead made Americans turn against one another by fueling the flames of racism. He had the chance to shore up the American job market, but instead he turned a blind eye and watched as illegal aliens flooded our country. He watched as ISIS murdered and destroyed much of their world and then he invited them to come here and destroy ours.

Secretary Clinton presided over the worst foreign policy America has ever had, and she seems proud of it. All of her so-called accomplishments were tentative at best with none really holding, except for allowing Iran to have nuclear weapons. When police officers are being murdered, Democrats are supporting the killers. When Muslims are killing, beheading, and slaughtering people across the world, the Democrats ignore the threat as if it will somehow go away. Meanwhile they want to increase the number of refugees coming into America. No one makes any mention of how we are going to survive financially under their list of future burdensome regulations and the “take from the rich” though process still reigns supreme with Democrats. Even though there are many issues that could be covered and several days of the Convention still to go, the message is clear. The words of her Party members clearly identify that their policies are failures. America has the choice to continue these reckless and destructive policies by electing Hillary Clinton or take a chance on Donald Trump, who has his faults without a doubt, but has an agenda that focuses on fixing the problems, not making them worse.