When The S*** Hits the Fan

The Disastrous #2016 #Election Has Triggered a Third Party Revolution #LP

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(ANTIMEDIA) United States — While tumultuous, chaotic, contentious, outrageous, erratic, fraudulent, random, disheartening, and certainly unpredictable, could simultaneously describe this presidential election cycle, perhaps the most unanticipated development surrounds the categorical shunning of the soured, traditional duopoly — despite its previously adamantine grip on American politics.

This year, constant evidence substantiates the people’s collective scream: Enough!

In particular, once Ted Cruz and John Kasich abruptly halted their bids for the nomination this week — sending shockwaves across the already tempestuous election climate — the country’s umbrage against the establishment gained momentum. Again. Third parties and alternative candidates — and not just anti-establishment candidates conniving the system by running on one of the duopoly’s tickets — began blowing up the previously gaining trend in popularity.

In just one example following the sudden void in options for GOP voters, the Libertarian Party experienced massive and atypical interest in their platform — a doubling of applications for new members. More to the point, LP Executive Director Wes Benedict told the Washington Examiner in an email there hadn’t been a recent recruitment push for new members on social media — and surmised the sudden interest must be due to Trump’s unofficial clinching of the Republican nomination.

Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson noted the surge of interest yesterday on Facebook:

“Of course they are scared of Trump,” Benedict penned. “Trump sounds like an authoritarian. We don’t need a deal-maker. We need more transparency, and a smaller, less intrusive government that provides a level playing field for all and has fewer deals for special interests.”

In the last few months, in fact, once the primary season began in earnest, new donor contributions to the LP skyrocketed — even more so once Trump became the all-but-presumptive GOP nominee.

April 2015, simply for reference, saw 106 new donors to the Libertarian Party; but, as the Examiner noted of statistics Benedict provided, “in February 2016, after Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina held their caucuses and primaries, the LP saw 323 new donors. In March, they had 546 new donors, and in April, after everyone but Trump, Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich had dropped out, the LP signed up 706 new donors.”

Benedict’s conclusion that the LP’s spike in popularity came from, essentially, fear of a Trump presidency, further illustrates the abysmal sentiment regarding establishment politics in the U.S. However polarizing Trump might be, an astonishing approval rate has helped slingshot what many originally wrote off as a publicity stunt into a direct counter-establishment torpedo with the potential to win the White House.

On the flip side, Bernie Sanders similarly continues to garner fanatical support — while his campaign’s very foundation took root by countering establishment rhetoric. Sanders, an Independent running on the Democratic ballot, remains wildly popular despite media suppression of his success and continued election fraud almost certainly employed to obstruct his possible nomination.

Disillusionment and voter disenfranchisement collided in a mid-April Gallup poll, perhaps revealing another underlying motivation in the mass exodus from the traditional political duopoly — just a hair over one-quarter of the U.S., 27 percent, believe the election process currently functions as it should.

Sick of politics-as-usual, the American populace appears to have cleaved chasms in both the traditional Republican and Democratic Parties. Whether more interest in third parties comes now or after November’s election results are final, it’s clear the political climate in this country will never be exactly as it was before 2016.

This article (The Disastrous 2016 Election Has Triggered a Third Party Revolution) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please edits@theantimedia.org.

 

From theantimedia.org Team

Watch #RonPaul Destroy the Two-Party System on Live TV

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“I’ve never bought into this idea that the lesser of two evils is a good idea.” — Ron Paul

Nick Bernabe
April 4, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) San Diego, CA — Longtime congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul made it clear in a recent interview on CNN that he will vote 3rd party if the presidential race comes down to Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton.

Though Paul didn’t specify which candidate he would vote for, he did say Libertarian or Independent party candidates are a possibility. Paul also said he couldn’t support Ted Cruz, who has since dropped out of the race, because he’s a “theocrat” who wants to rule with religion. Paul didn’t comment on his specific reasons for not supporting Clinton, but one can speculate the fiercely anti-war Paul opposes her militaristic tendencies.

Then Paul went even further, saying both the Republican and Democratic parties — from Reagan to Obama — are controlled by the “Deep State” and powerful special interests. Watch the interview below:

This article (Watch Ron Paul Destroy the Two-Party System on Live TV) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Nick Bernabe and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

Author: Nick Bernabe

Nick Bernabe founded Anti-Media in May of 2012. His topics of interest include civil liberties, the drug war, economic justice, foreign policy, geopolitics, government corruption, the police state, politics, propaganda, and social justice. He currently resides in Chula Vista, California, where he was born and raised.

From theantimedia.org Team

One (Extremely) Important Policy that Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump Both Agree on

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Claire Bernish
February 23, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) An increasing number of politicians have joined the call for an audit of the Federal Reserve, including several presidential contenders — most surprisingly, Donald Trump.

Senator Rand Paul drove the recent push for the audit, following in the footsteps of his father, Representative Ron Paul, with a proposed bill that drew condemnation from corporations and the Obama administration, as well as anti-Wall Street Senator Elizabeth Warren. Though the bill was ultimately defeated in January in a close 53-44 vote, the proposition to audit the Fed increasingly garners widespread attention and support.

Though Senator Bernie Sanders, with his apparent populist, socialist platform, might not be such a surprising supporter of the proposal, billionaire mogul Donald Trump is. In a tweet on Monday, Trump asserted:

“It is so important to audit the Federal Reserve, and yet Ted Cruz missed the vote on the bill that would allow this to be done.”

Cruz had backed the bill, but failed to show up for the vote. Sanders, Rubio, and a bipartisan assortment of senators all voted in favor of it.

Questionable Fed policy decisions and the handling of the financial crisis of 2008, namely the multi-trillion dollar big bank bailout, are cited as major concerns by those who support both the audit and oversight of the notoriously secretive central bank. Fed officials ambiguously argue against legislative oversight, and Fed chair Janet Yellen claimed prior to the vote that Paul’s bill would “damage the economy.”

In a statement before Congress in 2015, Sanders questioned the lack of transparency from the Fed in its refusal to disclose which financial institutions had received trillions in “zero-interest, or near zero-interest loans” after the crisis, courtesy of the American taxpayers.

“This $2 trillion [recent estimates have placed the figure above $3 trillion] in zero- and near zero-interest loans does not belong to the Fed,” Sanders declared. “It belongs to the American people, and the American people have a right to know where trillions of … their taxpayer dollars are going.”

He added that tracking where the money wound up seems a reasonable request, and “is why millions of Americans — whether you’re conservative, whether you’re progressive, or whether you are in-between — have come together to say that we need transparency at the Fed.”

Though the Vermont senator favors an audit, Ron Paul previously criticized what he called Sanders’s efforts to “water down” previous legislation to initiate one in 2010.

Nevertheless, however strange it may seem to find Sanders and Trump — and even Rubio — siding with a movement begun in earnest by Ron Paul, the importance of an audit has become the one point where an unlikely amalgamation of individuals of widely varied political camps can agree.

Despite the bill’s failure last month, the push for an audit of the Federal Reserve continues undeterred. Borrowing a choice mantra of government, the Fed should have nothing to fear in transparency — if it has nothing to hide.

This article (One (Extremely) Important Policy that Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump Both Agree on) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

From theantimedia.org Team