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Fricke column: America needs an election do-over

Randy Fricke

Randy Fricke

A zombie apocalypse is the best way that I can describe the Democratic National Convention.

The Republican National Convention seemed almost quiet compared to the Democrats’ convention.

The fireworks started early with the DNC in Philadelphia. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was ousted as the chair of the DNC due to her reported work against the Sen. Bernie Sanders campaign during the primary elections. WikiLeaks got into the act by releasing 20,000 e-mails by DNC staff that revealed how they undercut the Sanders campaign. This was just the beginning.



Against my own will, I followed the DNC events on the corporate networks of CNN and MSNBC. I confess that I skipped some of the major speeches by President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and a few others. I knew what to expect. I did like Michelle Obama’s speech.

I was more concerned about what was happening on the convention floor. Eyewitness sources reported on social media that DNC officials and Clinton surrogates were exerting heavy pressure on Sanders delegates to fall in line with Hillary Clinton’s nomination. Apparently, it got ugly. There are unconfirmed reports that the DNC hired extra people to crowd the convention floor to pump up Clinton’s cheerleading squad.



I am not so sure that they were cheerleaders. Eyewitnesses reported on social media bullying, pushing and shoving of Sanders delegates on the convention floor. The walk-out protests by Sanders delegates went unreported by the media. The chants of “no more war” during one or two of the early convention speeches were technically muffled by the media.

It seems that every attempt was made by the media to block out any disruptions. Also, there was very little media coverage of the protesters outside the convention. The DNC built a fence that was 8 feet tall and 4 miles around the Wells Fargo Center to keep protestors many yards away. It was my understanding that big donors with the Democratic Party paid for the fencing and security.

Hillary Clinton’s acceptance speech fell short of my expectations and possibly a few others. The Associated Press performed a fact check on Clinton’s speech revealing that she provided little in the way of new ideas or programs that would help the country. The AP basically said that Clinton advocated the same ideas and proposals that President Obama is already using. She also repeated most of Sanders’ platform amendments. So, there was a lot of cheering about nothing.

Was Bernie Sanders a sell-out?

He fell into the abyss of the Clinton political machine and the Democratic Party. According to social media posting of a conference call by Sanders, Sanders was forced into the Clinton endorsement if he wanted his platform amendments of $15 an hour minimum wage, the health care public option, no TPP and other amendments. I believe that Sanders felt compelled at the time to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to get his agenda into the Democratic Party platform.

Sanders was trying to reform the Democratic Party. The fact that he had to force these amendments into the platform should have been a giant red flag. Sanders should have bailed when the Clinton endorsement was imposed on him. As you know, I always wanted Sanders to bail on the Democratic Party. He would have beaten Trump easily.

I want to thank Sanders for getting in Clinton’s way. The Sanders campaign allowed America to see how corrupt our politics really are. Thank you, Bernie, for your great sacrifice. With or without Bernie, the revolution will continue.

Let’s recap both conventions. Donald Trump destroyed the Republican Party on national television. Hillary Clinton has no original ideas of her own and never has to go to jail. Bernie Sanders and America took a beating by the zombies at these conventions.

The Clinton and Trump nominations were not handed down to the masses on stone tablets. The corporate mainstream media is forcing these candidates on all of us. Don’t allow yourself to be placed into the position of voting for the lesser of the two evils. This is no longer an option.

America needs a political do-over, and soon. Where have all of the George McGoverns and Eugene McCarthys gone? We need some old-fashioned flower power from the 1960s to get some form of democracy back to America.

Randy Fricke of New Castle is an environmental advocate and a political activist. He is the author of: “If I Were President/Saving Main Street America.”

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