Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley are Traitors

I had the night to sleep on the madness I witnessed yesterday, and I still woke up angry today. I also did not sleep that well because of the anger I was feeling. I watched the news for about five hours, give or take, and I never watch the news. I was glued into CNN all night. I know that CNN is very liberal, but so am I, and when I do watch news, that is the channel I choose. Going through the late afternoon, into the evening and into the late night, I found myself getting more and more agitated. I just kept thinking about what happened, how it happened and how it was stoked by the sitting "president".

This is not okay. This is not normal. Far, far from it. I thought sleeping on it would help, and while it was nice to get a little rest, as I said, I was, and still am, very angry, for many different reasons. First off, Trump is a terrorist. He is a cultist. He wanted this to happen. According to some reporting, he was "giddy" when he saw these terrorists attack the capitol. He is unwell. He is unstable. He has been unfit to run this country since he took office, and it came to the worst possible conclusion we could have imagined yesterday. To see him say what he said, to not act on it, to put out that absolute embarrassment of a video, filled with lie after lie, to not want to deploy the National Guard, and then to egg on senators to still object, the man is mentally ill.

Trump must be removed. This is not okay. Something needs to happen. I am scared of what he might do in the next 13 days. Who knows. He may seem "stable" today, but who knows how his mood may shift this evening. I do not feel safe as an American with him being the president. It is terrifying.

While Trump deserves pretty much all of the blame, there is plenty more to go around. First off, the people that enabled him for four years, who let him fan the flames of hatred, let him spew his rhetoric, they could have stepped up so much sooner and stopped him. They could have said something. They could have told him to stop. They could have forced him out. They didn't, and we were left with what happened yesterday. This is a man who surrounds himself with yes men and women, who also happen to be racist. Remember this summer when Black Lives Matter were peacefully protesting in DC? Do you remember that they were tear gassed? I sure do. Where was that last night? Why did some of the police involved seemingly invite these domestic terrorists into the Capitol building? Why wasn't the National Guard called in sooner? This could have been avoided. But Trump and his cronies did not act, just like they have not acted on anything or anyone that disagrees with them for four years.

I do want to single out two senators, that even after what happened yesterday, still had the nerve, the gall, to object to states electoral votes. Ted Cruz is, and always will be, an utter scumbag. He started these shenanigans yesterday when he objected to Arizona. He himself said he knew it wasn't going to change the outcome, but he did it anyway. This was clearly a selfish move on his behalf, done in haste because he wants to run for president in 2024, and he wants those terrorists from yesterday, he wants their votes. What a slimy, disgusting and embarrassing human being. He deserves just as much blame as Trump.

Yet Cruz was outdone by the one senator who really deserves to be dragged, to be called out, and quite frankly, should be removed from his post, is Josh Hawley. He was egging on these terrorists before the insanity. There are photos everywhere of him cheering along with these terrorists. Then he disappeared when the madness started, but still found it important to object to Pennsylvania's electoral votes.

Who the hell does Hawley think he is? What kind of privileged asshole does something like this? What was he thinking, after seeing what happened, to still object to Pennsylvania? And, like the coward, and punk he is, he objected, but ceded his speaking time. That is one of the biggest punk moves I have ever witnessed. He wanted to object, but he refused to speak. What a coward. What a sheep. What a yes man. Hawley has blood on his hands. He is just as responsible for the deaths of the four terrorists yesterday as Trump is. His actions prior to the attack and after are despicable. He is the worst of the worst. I despise that he is a senator from the state that I preside in. I am embarrassed that people voted for him, and that some still support him. His actions, to still object to Pennsylvania, when people like Kelly Loeffler and Lindsay Graham and Lankford, and almost all the other republican senators that decided to back off after the attack, are appalling, scary, disgusting and messed up. Hawley is clearly an egomaniac, a psychopath and a narcissist. He only cares about himself and his political career. He is a scary person, and I sure as hell am going to do all I can to get his punkass out of his senate seat. I don't know what I can do, but I will find ways to have him removed from office, or have him tried in court. He is a monster. He is equally responsible for the attack on our democracy and our country by these domestic terrorists yesterday. He is a shameful human being.

I will never, ever forget yesterday. This is forever burned in my brain as one of the worst days in American history. It is clear that Trump, Cruz and Hawley could care less about anyone other than themselves. I hope they know karma is real, and their actions yesterday will forever haunt them. We need Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in office ASAP. I know January 20th is Inauguration Day, but I would like them in office sooner than that. With both Democrats winning their runoffs in Georgia yesterday, the sooner we get Biden and Harris in office, the sooner we can start to heal.

January 6th is a day that will live in infamy, and I will never forget, or forgive, those who stood by and did nothing. We need people in positions of power, Biden and Harris, who will do their jobs, and do them exceptionally. We need to recover from this mess. But we also need to always remember what we saw, and how it made the majority of us feel. It is more than time for the Biden/Harris staff to get to work. Hopefully they will sooner rather than later.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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Hillary Clinton vs Donald Trump is the Least Important Choice on Your Ballot

Somehow we got to use this picture again.

Who is ready to do some voting?

At long last, the greatest election in American history is coming to an end. Jay Z has sung, Ted Nugent has grabbed his crotch, the most important voices have told you who to vote for. It is now the general public's turn. On election day, less than two thirds of eligible voters will make their choice. Hillary or Donald will emerge victorious in the days after the election, and America will enter a new era. The choice of the people will be ready to lead.

Unfortunately we are all already know what will come after the election. Trump will lose, and he will throw a temper tantrum. If in some weird way Trump does win, the Clinton supporters will lose their minds and accuse people of election fraud. The new President will be deligitimized immediately by the opponent's partisans in the media. The idea of respecting the outcome of an election is long gone. The new President will have an incompetent group of partisan hacks in the US Congress who will do everything in their power to stop any meaningful idea from the executive branch. The millions of people who vote for the loser between Clinton and Trump will feel left out of this new America, and they will react poorly.

The thing is, we have ourselves to blame for this dangerous division. The supporters of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have made the election only about themselves. Clinton does not do rallies with down ticket Democrats, and Donald Trump has flat out refused to endorse some very powerful congressional GOPers. The media, national and local, spends 99% of its time on Trump and Clinton, and the other 1% on other races. The public is uninformed, and not curious, about any thing outside of the freakshow that has been the 2016 Presidential campaign. That attitude has created a broken America.

This is a huge problem. Barack Obama won in 2008 and 2012 by a wide margin. He is the first President since Eisenhower in 1956 to win over 51% of popular vote twice. What do we remember from Obama's eight years? We have the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare if your nasty. We also have a ton of Republican obstructionism. That is pretty much it. There was the increase in LGBTQ rights, but that came from the courts. Obamacare and Republican obstructionism is pretty much what we saw over eight years. There has been a record number of votes to overturn Obamacare, all failed. We have now long past the record for the most amount of time a Supreme Court appointment has gone without a hearing. If Obama is so popular, how can Congress keep being do nothing obstructionists and get away with it?

Obama, like Clinton and Trump today, never made their supporters care for the down ticket races. It takes a whole lot of money, and personpower, to run for President. The hording of resources is what we have called the Ohio Problem (you can read all about on this fine website). The general electorate, or less than two thirds of it, get excited to vote for President, and forget everything else. Midterm elections struggle to get half the amount of voters in Presidential elections. There is very rarely times where people are excited to vote for the Senator, or school board member. That lack of excitement has given us a popular President, and a Congress more concerned with partisanship than with doing actual work. The most important races, the people running who can actual affect your life, are being pushed to the side for the dog and pony show of modern Presidential campaigns. 

In 2000 many people thought George W Bush was way less qualified to be President than Al Gore. In 2008 Hillary Clinton and John McCain made the case that Barack Obama was a celebrity, not a seasoned politician. The press liked the camera friendly Bush, and the dynamic Obama. The people followed the press. The American people elected the popular kids over the hard working salutatorians. The idea of celebrity was overshadowing the solid resumes of the DC lifers. People wanted to be part of a movement, they wanted to join the cult of personality. The experienced workers were squares who most of the electorate ignored.

While these media friendly neophytes were winning, the public forgot about the people who actually make laws. In the last two decades, a freshman member of the US Congress has more power than the President. Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul have stopped legislation supported by both parties. Members of the House of Representatives you have never heard of are currently blocking vital federal funds from solving the water crisis in Flint, Michigan and containing the Zika virus outbreak in Florida. The most powerful members of our government were being reelected with no competition from the opposing party. Even in the swing state of Ohio, the Democratic party has ceded the election to a man who was once the Budget Director and trade representative to George W Bush. Hillary Clinton is working hard to expand the Democratic Party's electoral college map, but her hording of state resources are allowing the GOP to keep a stranglehold on Capitol Hill. Her supporters believe electing Hillary will be enough. It won't be.

How the Democratic Party keeps missing the lessons of 2012 are baffling. Hillary will probably win, and the Republican party will still control Congress. Senators John McCain, Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee have promised not to hold hearings for any Supreme Court appointments for the next four years. That is unconstitutional and anti-American. Nationwide, people running for office as Republicans have promised to waste more taxpayer money by have a thousand more showboat votes to defund Obamacare. By ignoring down ballot races, the Democratic Party is embracing gridlock and giving up any chance of change until the next election.

This needs to be the next election. We have made the case for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, but their victory is unimportant. Many people have expressed their frustration that both candidates are terrible. Then don't vote for the President, or vote third party. Who cares? Trump will not have the power to do what he wants to, and he will act the child he has been his whole life. Clinton will not have a Congress that will work with her, and she will use the office to enrich her family and her donors. Ok, they stink, but there are other people on the ballot. The person you elect to the US House, the Senate, your state legislature, town council, school board, they have real power. Your taxes are decided by these people. The education your child receives is in these peoples hands. Feel like you do not know who these people are, check out your local ballot. Think you don't know these people, Google them. If you plan on going to vote for Hillary or Donald anyway, it doesn't hurt to take time and vote for the people who really matter.

We get our chance to end this nightmare tomorrow. Clinton V Trump will not be listed as one of the more inspiring Presidential campaigns in US history. The good thing is we have a moment to take power back. Sure there all third party candidates like Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, Evan McMullin, and Cthulhu, but we should focus on the not as well known names lower on the ballot. When we focus on getting a working Congress, a school board who thinks of children over partisan interests, and judges who focus on the law over special interests, then we will have a government who has real hope and change. 

Go out and vote.

RD  

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. Be a thought leader of tomorrow and write for SeedSing. 

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The Day After: Democratic National Convention Edition

The halls are empty, beware your front door

History has been made. Hillary Clinton is like the 40th woman to ever run for President of the United States. She follows in the grand footsteps of Victoria Woodhall, Lenora Fulani, and Roseanne Barr. I know about all of these other women because my Republican leaning friends on social media want everyone to know that Hillary is not making history. Republicans need to find anything that will take the spotlight away from the Democratic party. Plus, they have been playing the hate Hillary Clinton game for over two decades. Sorry to say, but all the Republican apologists out there are wrong. Hillary Clinton is the first women to ever be the nominee for President by a major political party. The former First Lady, US Senator, and Secretary of State is the first women ever who has a chance at actually winning the election. The Republican voter can continue to try and deny progress. The fact is that history was made in Philadelphia this week. A woman has a legitimate chance of becoming President of the United States.

Once the unpleasant affair with Debbie Wasserman Schultz was swept away, he 2016 Democratic National Convention was everything the Republican National Convention was not. The star power was real, and not filled with c listers from 30 years ago. The speakers talked about the growth and greatness of America. The candidate was not a suprise usurper, but someone who has been working to this moment for almost a decade. The defeated rival gave a full endorsement to the nominee. The four days in Philadelphia saw the Democratic Party celebrating their recent past, and getting ready to create a new future.

The speakers of the 2016 Democratic National Convention were the exact opposite of what was seen in Cleveland and the best of the GOP. It is clear that the Democratic Party is currently blessed with a group of great orators. Former President Bill Clinton can give a speech to thousands of people, and make each every one of those people feel like Bill is talking only to them. Current President Obama can build excitement like no other politician. Vice Presidential nominee Tim Kaine did his duty by attacking the bluster of Donald Trump. Vice President Joe Biden talked of personal tragedy, and the need to be a servant to the people. First Lady Michelle Obama used her place in history to talk about the evolution of American society. Khizr Khan, whose son died in Iraq protecting his squad, showed the backward looking GOP what being a 21st century American is all about. It was the best speech of either convention.

Late last night, Hillary Clinton walked out to engrave her name into the history books. Dressed in a white pantsuit, a clothing style owned by former Secretary of State, she took the stage and gave the most important speech of her career. Last week I showed dissapointment in the overly long, and incredibly gloomy Donald Trump speech, Clinton exceeded expectations with her address. I was worried that she could not deliver on the same level as all the other DNC speakers. Clinton is not known for giving many speeches in public. Yet for nearly an hour, Hillary Clinton laid out her plan, and knocked down her opponent. The GOP's nominee used hate and fear. Clinton used the words of Ronald Reagan and FDR. Trump said America was failing. Clinton said our greatness is still growing. The thing I kept thinking is that if this was a high school student council election, Clinton is the candidate that actual cares about student government, and Trump just calls out the football team (San Dimas high school football RULES). The goody goody always wins the election over the meathead. 

The dark cloud hanging over the Democratic National Convention was that of the Bernie Sanders supporters. After Ted Cruz used is time to not endorse his party'e nominee last week, many feared the Vermont Senator would do the same thing. Sanders enthusiastically endorsed Clinton, even to the misguided boos of his supporters. As the week went on, anytime someone referenced Sanders, the tv cameras would cut to the runner up looking quite disgruntled. The inept media kept trying to make it look like the Democratic Party was fracturing, and unity was not going to happen. Outside of a few ego filled protesters chanting during big speeches, the Sanders revolution fizzled like the Never Trumpers. In order to have a story, the press need a split party, like that of the GOP. Poor Fox News, and even venerable PBS, could never get that fight going. Lord did they try.

The long grueling primary season is officially at an end. Trump v Clinton: Dawn of an Ugly Presidential Race is now upon us. Battleground states will be terrific, until their not. The endless narrative of the Clinton scandals will occupy our television sets. The only thing I know at the end of July is that Trump will somehow make America great again, and Hillary Clinton will try to be the liberal icon Democrats have been waiting for since Mario Cuomo. Oh I also learned that the White House was built by some well fed slaves. Thanks Bill O'Reilly, your idiocy is the thing that never changes with each Presidential Election.

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He would be happy to go on The O'Reilly Factor and tell confront Bill on his lack of historical knowledge and his lack of human feeling. Come on tough guy, contact us.

The Day After: Republican National Convention Edition

Time to move this mess to Philadelphia

It is now official. Donald J. Trump is the official Republican Party nominee to be President of the United States. I never thought this would happen. Even today I am filled with confusion and apprehension. The ascension of the New York businessman, and reality television star, to being one of two assumed choices for President is a story for the history books. For four days in Cleveland Ohio, the country got to witness what the Trump Republican Party was all about. Last night, for over an hour, candidate Trump had the attention of the nation all to himself. No more debates with ten or more people. No more primaries or states needing to hold a caucus. No more wrong media analysis. The GOP of 2016 has been solidified, and now onward goes the campaign for victory on November 8th.

The 2016 Republican Party National Convention was feared by many, and hoped by some, to be one of chaos and fighting. There was an expectation of political fisticuffs in the convention hall, and real violence from protesters who had descended on Cleveland. The Never Trump movement had one more chance to derail the nomination. Stories of the 1976 Republican Convention, and the Ronald Reagan supporters trying to block Gerald Ford's nomination by changing the rules at the last minute, were being linked to what may go on in Cleveland. The Cleveland police were requesting help from other cities. Public officials wanted to suspend the right to open carry firearms. The nominee himself was promising an exciting and non-traditional list of speakers. I for one was not looking forward to the violence and hate, but was intrigued by what a showman like Donald Trump could pull off. The 2016 RNC was going to be unlike anything we have ever seen in American politics.

The reality is that the 2016 Republican National Convention was a bit of a letdown. Thankfully we did not have any horrible violence in the streets of Cleveland. The protests were typical for any political event. Flag burning, yelling, and being drunk while political, typical protester stuff. Inside the convention halls, nothing much happened. The Never Trumpers tried, and failed. They failed in a spectacularly quick manner. The speakers were nothing to be that excited about. Typical Fox News republicans like Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, and Chris Christie did the same tired act they have been doing for years. An endless parade of actors and sports figures most of us have forgotten about would take the stage and yell about how horrible President Obama and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton are as Americans. Vice Presidential nominee Mike Pence put a lot of America to sleep. Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made their expected speeches, and both men were not welcomed with open arms. The Trump children were the only speakers that garnered any bipartisan praise. Possible First Lady Melania Trump stirred up some non-news by possibly plagiarizing a 2008 Michelle Obama speech. It was a dumb story kept alive by an underwhelming convention. 

Then there is Texas Senator Ted Cruz. The 2016 Presidential Primary contest was one of the most personal, and drawn out, contests in American history. Senator Cruz and Mr. Trump were both trying to run as outsiders, and Mr. Trump came out as the eventual winner. To the surprise of no one, Trump used personal insults and general bullying to gain voters. Florida Senator Marco Rubio tried to use Trump's tactics against the New York blowhard. Rubio was out of the race a few weeks later. Senator Cruz and his family were prime targets for Trump. It was ugly. By giving Senator Cruz a Wednesday speaker slot at the convention, many Republicans thought the Texas Senator would move past the primary, and endorse Trump to show party unity.

That did not happen. Senator Cruz instead used his time to take a passive aggressive swipe at his own party's Presidential nominee. Why show up and do this? Marco Rubio and John Kasich, who both have ambitions in four years, were smart enough to stay away and not take a chance at ending their national aspirations. The only reason I can see Ted Cruz going this route is that the man must be crazy. He has an irrational want to be the GOP's next Ronald Reagan, and maybe his speech was supposed to start an inter party revolution like Reagan's 1976 convention speech. The thing that the Texas Senator seems to forget is that the Gipper did not try to undermine the nominee, Reagan endorsed Ford and worked to try and get the incumbent President reelected in 1976. Cruz has tried to undermine his party and has used shady tactics in every campaign the man has ever run in. He attacks Republican and Democrats alike. The only reason Cruz could last as long as he did in the 2016 primaries is by being shady and because the Republican party on the national level is a mess. By allowing so many people to run in the primaries, Reince Preibus doomed any hope of a moderate Republican from emerging. Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump, should have been done in January, but incompetence at the RNC allowed their fringe campaigns to survive. By not supporting Trump, Senator Cruz has given up any chance of ever being the Republican Party's Presidential nominee. He is not a smart man who has shown everyone that the only thing that matters to Ted Cruz is Ted Cruz's own political ambition. The end of Senator Cruz's Presidential dreams is one good thing to come out of the Republican National Convention.

Finally, late last night, Donald Trump ended his speech and officially became the flag bearer for all Republicans this November. I for one was really looking forward to seeing the Trump acceptance speech It was going to be unlike any political speech in my lifetime. Unfortunately is more of the same from Trump, just louder and longer. I went to bed feeling a bit let down. It was boringly typical Donald Trump. America is a hellhole of crime. Illegal immigration, pointless war, and free trade have led us down a dark path. Hillary Clinton is incompetent, a crook, and dangerous to all Americans. President Obama has failed for almost eight years. The only thing that can save Lady Liberty is the awesomeness of Donald Trump. There was no actual solutions to these problems, just the awesomeness of Donald Trump is the only cure needed. Oh, and for the first time ever a Republican Presidential nominee said we should be nice to the LGBTQ community, and he was applauded. That was weird.

The balloons dropped, confetti fell, and my brain is still trying to accept that Donald J. Trump is on the ballot as the Republican candidate for President of the United States. The entire Republican National Convention felt like a big letdown. No grand solutions, only problems. The action on the convention floor did not seem to be well planned. Most of the speakers did not embrace their nominee. Many people gave rambling, or over the top, speeches that only incited the fringe of the right wing. Conspiracy theories were being given more time than actually trying to court new voters. From my perspective it seems like the RNC has given up on the Presidential race and is going to rely on Democratic Party incompetence in the down ticket races so the GOP can hold onto everything below the executive office. That is probably the party's best path forward. Donald Trump's new Republican Party had its star shine bright, and dim with the four days in Cleveland. 

RD 

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. We are looking for people to talk about the 2016 election from their local point of view. Have something to say? Come write for SeedSing.

Donald Trump and the End of a Center Right Nation

Our political compass has no direction

No matter how many times the political experts predicted the end of Donald Trump (see the many, many times I have said so) , the New York businessman is going to be the Republican nominee for President in the 2016 national election. This means we will have six more months of Donald Trump and his great ideas to make America great again. Six more months of the national press treating these ideas as credible ones. Six more months of the liberal pundits on HBO and Comedy Central being apoplectic about Trump's ideas.  We have six more months of Donald Trump's Republican Party. A party that can in no way claim to be conservative or center right. The days of a center right nation are gone.

Shortly after the election of Barack Obama as President in 2008, the professional media class started to use the term "center right". Center right meant that Americans did not fully subscribe to the ideals of the far right or far left, but sat somewhere in the middle. Americans sat in the middle, but were leaning more to conservative ideas. The media class thought that Americans were moving away from supporting social safety programs, moving towards national defense, and wanted to slow down on changing excepted social norms. The term center right was used to make it look like the country still believed in the brand of conservatism that President Reagan and Bush II practiced. Barack Obama may have been elected President, by a very large margin, but the country was not willing to embrace the Democratic party's plans to implement health care reform and to scale down on military intervention around the world. 

The media was invested in the idea of the United States being a center right nation because of the disaster that was the George W. Bush presidency. By the end of 2008 the US was mired in an endless war with no real purpose, an economy that had crippled the middle class, and public confidence that was at an all time low. The media of the early 2000's was built to cater to Bush and the conservatism of John Boehner, Paul Ryan, and Mitch McConnell. The tea party had not been given a national platform in 2008. Fox News gained strength in the first part of the 21st century because they embraced the notion of being the "news channel" for the right. The other media outlets quickly raced away from journalism and into republican propaganda to try and catch ratings on the coat tails of Fox News. NBC, CBS, and ABC used their nightly newscast to gin up support for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Journalism was replaced by ratings friendly war mongering. The same "fair and balanced" media were also defending the destructive economic ideas of the republican party. Story after story of a booming housing market were being fed to the Americans, while no one was talking about the obvious coming collapse. Vice President Dick Cheney made secret deals with the energy industry, there were no investigative stories until after 2008. The media was an accomplice to the bad policies of the Bush administration, and they wanted to cover their own rear ends. Saying America is a center right nation took the blame off of the media, and put the blame on the voters.

The idea of America being a center right nation was wrong in 2008, and it is wrong today. The Republican party may hold the US House of Representatives and the Senate, but that has more to do with shady manipulation of the electoral process and general incompetence of the Democratic Party. In 2008 and 2012, President Barack Obama easily beat his republican challengers. Neither of those races was even close. Obama still won with the media allowing the right wing to paint the President as a foreign born communist who hates America. Rights for the LGBTQ community have grown at a fast, and much needed, rate. The press keeps giving the bigoted side a voice, but the large majority of Americans are on the correct side of history. Hillary Clinton is having trouble sealing the deal on the 2012 Democratic Presidential nomination because most Americans are not supportive of protecting the wealthiest of our citizens at the expense of everyone else. The media has tried to marginalize Senator Bernie Sanders, yet here in the middle of May and Clinton is still not the nominee. America was not center right in 2008, and we have been moving further and further left since then.

Now that Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican Presidential Nominee, the center right lie can finally be buried on the ash heap of history. The story surrounding Trump's ascension has centered around how much everyone got the New York businessman's rise so wrong. Even liberal darlings like Nate Silver and the people at fivethirtyeight.com have egg on their face. The real story should not be how wrong everyone was, but how in the world did the Republican party nominate someone who has held mostly Democratic Party ideas his entire life. Trump has a history of being pro-choice, pro raising taxes on the wealthy, and pro healthcare reform. The Paul Ryan's and Mitch McConnell's of the Republican party have used their entire careers railing against these ideals. Ohio Governor John Kasich could only win one state, and rarely broke 10% of the vote in any other state. Texas Senator Ted Cruz, the poster boy of Republican obstructionism, only gained traction in the primaries once he was deemed the true Republican alternative to Donald Trump. No one in the classically defined Republican establishment could take Trump down. One could say that Trump's win in the 2016 Republican primary means that the GOP is becoming a center left party.

The rise of Trump is unfortunately not the rise of a center left Republican party. In hindsight it is very easy to see how Donald Trump was able to beat the rest of the Republican field. The blind hatred of the GOP towards Obama and the Democratic Party has created a lot of tiny fractures in the national Republican party. The tea party was built on blind racism. Radio and television personalities like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity demanded purity in the philosophies of elected republican officials. The right wing worship of the founding fathers (most of them were slave holders) and the original Constitution (where African-Americans were counted as 3/5ths of a person) started to show the party as being unreasonable and not have the ability to properly govern in the 21st century. The national identity of the Republican Party was split into many pieces. The fiscal conservatives never found their candidate, and that hurt voting. Kasich, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush could never gain any unified support. The religious conservatives had incompetent buffoons as their choices. Former Governors Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee, and former Senator Rick Santorum were so idiotic even the media could not shield them. Ted Cruz was hated by most of his party, Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson were so bad that they helped bring the GOP brand further into the dirt. The only unique option int he filed was Donald Trump. His persona appealed to the angry white man. His ideas fueled the racist, misogynists, and bigots, in the Republican party. Donald Trump was the only Republican in the field that had a voting block to himself. This voting block turned out in high numbers, and Trump was able to survive the cage match that was the 2016 Republican Presidential Primary. His victory is actually quite easy to understand, now.

A minority of the Republican Party was able to nominate a life long Democrat to be their 2016 Presidential candidate. White male christian persecution complex has replaced conservative social and economic philosophy in the GOP. Donald Trump may be a Republican now, but many of his ideas lean to the left. The professional media created Donald Trump, and helped destroy their own narrative of a center right nation. For better or worse, America is stuck with Donald Trump and his new Republican Party. For at least six more months.

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing. Hear RD and Ty talk about Trump and the 2016 Presidential election on the latest episode of the X Millennial Man. 

The Days After: I Give Up

In the beginning I had a plan to look at every single Presidential primary / caucus result and try to use my education and work experience to give the good people out there on the internet my own personal views of what the results meant. Things were going well for a while, and then the mid-March primaries made me lose interest in the whole process. Why? Because it is an incredibly undemocratic, hateful, and pointless exercise. So today I decided that the primaries do not deserve any more of my attention, because they do not respect the will of the people. Recapping the days after countless show elections, I give up. 

Elections are incredibly important. When people do not show up to vote, the results can be disastrous. No matter how toxic the process has become, we must get out and vote. Your town council decides how safe, clean, and valuable your neighborhood is. Many neighborhoods do not even offer recycling because their local officials would rather not deal with the expense and hassle of trying to clean up the planet. Your school board is directly responsible for determining how your children, and all of their friends, will be educated. Science teachers around the country are being forced to give lip service to non-science because of uninformed religious zealots being elected to the school board. Most of our judges are elected and not appointed. These judges are being swayed by private interest to send more people to jail. These jails are constantly being sold off to private companies because the governors we elect need to plug gaps in their respective state budgets. Access to good healthcare is being dictated by members of your state legislature. Most of these state lawmakers have more extreme views than anyone we see on the Sunday morning political shows. What I am saying is that elections are extremely important. You should always get out and vote.

The highest voter turnout is always during the US Presidential election. I have personally never thought the election of the President of the United States is that big of a deal. My ambivalence to the Presidency is probably directly related to the men who have held the office in my lifetime. Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush I, Bill Clinton, George Bush II, and Barack Obama - that is a pretty mediocre run of Presidents. Ford pardoned Nixon and told America that the President is above the law. Carter was listless and allowed his opposition to weaken his Presidency, Reagan destroyed the economy, bankrupted social security, ignored the AIDS crisis, and represented only the rich and religious interests in the country. Bush I started the destabilization of the Middle East. Clinton embraced republican economic ideals and weakened the social safety net for our most vulnerable citizens. Bush II was one of the top five worst presidents in US history represented by his disastrous foreign and economic policy decisions. Obama has been filled with empty promises and policies that only go half way in addressing our true problems. This run of Presidents is comparable to the weak, ineffectual, and political hacks that occupied the White House during Reconstruction (without looking it up on the internet, try and name three Presidents in order between Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, not a memorable group). Why should I care about who is the President, when ever single man who has been in office the last forty years has been there to represent a very small group of rich political donors. Every four years I vote for the President, and it is the least important vote I cast.

The 2016 election has already been one for the history books. We may have the first woman to sit on top of the ticket for one of the two major political parties (we will). The first candidate of Hispanic descent could be the nominee for the Republican party. The first Jewish presidential nominee. The first brokered convention in generations. There is a lot of history being made, too bad the people making the history are uninspiring and self serving. The modern media, and the two major political parties, have given the American people the most deplorable slate of Presidential candidates.

The Republican Party has little to no chance to ever win another national election with the current state of their party. Decades after Richard Nixon's southern strategy, the Republican Party has enhanced their platform of fear and hatred. Anytime there is a push to suppress voter turnout, it is the Republicans. Any effort to redraw congressional district lines into a gerrymandered atrocity, it is always the republicans. Blame the poor or a minority group for all of America's problems, you better believe the Republican Party is creating the talking points. The modern Republican Party has been built to not grow voters, and to make sure that voting is as undemocratic as possible. The nation has taken notice of how unamerican the Republican Party has been when it comes to elections.

The three remaining Republican Presidential candidates perfectly represent a party of feudal lords. Ohio Governor John Kasich, the moderate according to the national press, embraces all the bad ideas of the GOP. Under his leadership Ohio has added a lot of low paying jobs, and lost a whole lot of jobs with good pay and benefits. The religious right, with the help of Kasich, has put Ohio near the bottom of the country when it comes to women's health. The public education system is being gutted by "moderate" Kasich so his charter school donors can get rich off of the taxpayers. Bad businessman Donald Trump is filled with hate and has no meaningful ideas to actually make America great again. His campaign has been an embarrassment to the entire country. The press keeps egging Trump on because they care about money and have killed the concept of journalism. Texas Senator Ted Cruz is a crazy person, surrounded by crazy people, and has some very antiquated crazy ideas. People like Glenn Beck paint Cruz as some kind of religious savior, and Cruz plays the part. The Texas Senator is so ineffectual and unpopular that a large majority of his own colleagues refuse to endorse Cruz for the Republican nomination. All three of these bozos can not win a national election, no matter how bad the Democratic nominee is.

Speaking of how bad the Democratic nominee will be, Senator Sanders and former Secretary of State Clinton have their own laundry basket full of issues. Bernie Sanders has captured a lot of the millennial imagination, but that really doesn't matter when half of the millennials will not even vote in the election. What really bothers me about Sanders is that the Vermont Senator is not even a member of the Democratic Party. It seems to me that Sanders is using the infrastructure of the Democratic Party for his own personal gain. With Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee has thrown all of their resources behind a candidate who has economic values equal to those in the Republican Party. Under a President Clinton, Wall Street will continue to run unregulated. When the big banks sink the economy again, Hillary Clinton will make sure that US taxpayers bail out the 1% again. It continues to trouble me that scandal and bad PR follows the Clinton's everywhere they go. Benghazi may be a show trial, but it never ends. Hillary's hubris keeps it around. Former President Bill Clinton whitesplaining his administrations horrible record on race and crime, that is another unfortunate event that seems to keep happening.  A Hillary Clinton Presidency would be a whole lot of the same we have seen the last 25 years. Endless war in the Middle East, Wall Street giveaways, and weakening of the social safety net. That sure looks like Democratic Party values.

In my eyes we have five self absorbed, power hungry rich people fighting with each other to win the pageant called the US Presidency. Like a beauty pageant, the US election is not be decided by the American people, it is being decided by a select group of judges. On the Democratic Party side we have the super delegates. Hillary Clinton only needs to win a few states, not even half, and the super delegates will giver her the Democratic Party nomination over Bernie Sanders. In Wyoming, Senator Sanders won over 50% of the popular vote and still only took under 40% of the states delegates. DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz has altered the rules constantly to only favor Clinton. The Democratic Party does not care at all about the voice of the people, they only care about the rich and connected. 

Somehow the Republican Party is a bigger undemocratic mess than the Democrats. Donald Trump is a horrible choice for President, but so is the rest of the field. RNC chairman Reince Priebus and the Tea Party created this fractured hateful Republican Party to win local races, and now their hate is on full display for the nation. By making your base feel like they are always under attack from terrorists, minorities, the poor, social justice warriors, children, martians, whoever, then your base will flock to biggest strongman. Kasich is not filled with enough pure hate, Cruz is a creepy fellow with very few friends, someone had to lead the angry white man. Trump is a master of marketing, and he knew that his hate filled rhetoric would inspire the very vocal persons who believe in white christian male victimhood. These people demand someone pay for their insecurities, Donald Trump has promised them restitution. No wonder they are so upset that the RNC has tried to remove Donald Trump from the Republican field. The Republican Party has been advocating Trumps positions on immigration and women's health for decades, they just soften the hate with terms like conservative principles. The base has rejected these code words and wants action. Trump promises action, and the establishment is now trying to silence the voice of the people. Trump is the reflection in the mirror of the modern Republican Party, and the party does not like what they see.

The candidates all stink. None of them care about actually fixing anything. Sanders may want to deregulate the big banks, but he still believes guns deserve more protection than people. Clinton could break the gender barrier, but she will bend over backwards to protect the richest Americans. Kasich may not seem crazy, but embraces all the same backward ideas of his colleagues. Trump may be a true outsider, but he wants to make sure we are a country of hate and fear. Cruz is, well there really is not anything nice I can say about Ted Cruz. His children are adorable, there I said something nice. The brokered Republican Convention may bring a new, or old, face to the race. It doesn't matter, the next President will be another in a long line of political hacks who care very little for the problems facing our nation.

So I give up. The Republican and Democratic Parties refuse to let the people have a say. The fact that we keep talking about super delegates and brokered conventions means that the primary elections of 2016 mean nothing to the political party elites. The election of our next President does not need the will of the people. Why should I care what the RNC and DNC think, they do not care about me. No more primary updates, it has been over a month since the last one. I have nothing more to say on a process that deserves no more words. We will continue to talk politics here at SeedSing. Our goal is to give the non wealthy and connected a voice. I am not going to waste time on the primary dog and pony show. I give up. We will talk about this electoral mess when the mud clears, or when the mud consumes us all. 

Please do not forget to vote. Our voices will only gain meaning, and the political parties will lose their power, if we ALL vote in EVERY election. Get out and vote.

RD Kulik

RD  is the Head editor at SeedSing and the host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He may think the US President is pointless, but every other race needs your attention. Donate to the National Campaign Training Committee today and support your local candidates.

The Day(s) After: Super Saturday and Tuesday 2 Edition

The Saturdays and Tuesdays are about to get a lot more Super

Looking at the results of Super Saturday and Super Tuesday 2 one can see that the Republican and Democratic Primary season is far from over. Both political parties are facing scenarios not thought of one year ago. Hillary Clinton's clear path is becoming more and more clouded. The rise, and inability to stop, Donald Trump is  becoming more and more troublesome to the Republican establishment and the national media. The 2016 primary season is making a fool out of a lot of the self identified experts. Maybe the people are really taking the power back.

On Saturday Texsas Senator Ted Cruz took his turn as the latest Republican establishment hope to take down Donald Trump. With a commanding win in Kansas and a tight upset in Maine, Cruz won the most overall delegates on the first Super Saturday. Donald Trump scored a few more small victories in Kentucky and Louisiana to pad his delegate totals, but Cruz closed the gap on the New York businessman's lead. Once the votes were tallied on Super Tuesday 2, Trump put a bit more distance between himself and Cruz with wins in Hawaii, Michigan, and Mississippi. Cruz eked out a win in Idaho and held second place in the other contests to stay in the primary race. Florida Senator Marco Rubio again underachieved on Saturday and Tuesday, winning zero delegates yesterday. All of the love and hope the Republican establishment and national media had for Rubio is evaporating quickly. Ohio Governor John Kasich finished where he normally does, far behind the leaders. With one week to go before the big winner take all prizes of Florida and Ohio, Ted Cruz is the only hope the Republican party has in derailing Trump's hold on the party's nomination for President of the United States.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton continued to separate herself from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination with the help of a few southern states and super delegates. Blow out wins in Mississippi and Louisiana added to Clinton's lead, while Sanders closed gap with wins in Kansas, Nebraska, Maine, and surprisingly Michigan. When the delegates are added from Super Saturday and Tuesday 2, Clinton and Sanders won almost the same amount. Where Secretary Clinton is separating herself from the Green Mountain State Senator is in the super delegates. These Democratic party officials do not need to follow the will of the people, and can vote for whomever they please. Clinton has spent years cultivating this valuable resource, and no matter how many close races Senator Sanders wins, she will still have the numbers advantage because of the super delegates. In order for Bernie Sanders to capture the Democratic nomination, he needs to win some of the big primary prizes, such as Ohio and Florida, and convince the super delegates to support his candidacy at the Democratic National Convention. That seems unlikely. 

Six months ago no one thought that Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Bernie Sanders would still be in this race. Cruz has received no endorsements from any of his Senate colleagues, and is generally disliked by the Republican establishment. Every week Donald Trump seems to do something that would end the political career of any other person. Bernie Sanders is constantly smeared by the national media as some sort of socialist boogeyman. Not one of these three candidates has the support of anyone of influence in the Republican and Democratic parties. How is it that we are approaching mid March, and all three men are still able to win their respective party's nomination? How did everyone get this primary season so wrong?

In the case of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, the Republican party has been grooming their voters to hate governance. The rise of the tea party created a culture of obstructing anything that President Obama and the Democratic Party wanted to get done. There was absolutely no support for the smallest bits of bipartisanship. Then Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in 2010 that his number one job was to make Barrack Obama a one term president. He failed. While the Democratic Party failed at supporting down ticket candidates, a new breed of obstructionist Republicans started to take office. The Glenn Becks and Fox News personalities celebrated this culture of discord. Any one who compromised was severely punished. John Boehner, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, was the highest profile casualty of the new Republican Party. Boehner's failure to lead his own party was embraced by many Republicans. Ted Cruz was celebrated by the right wing media for attempting to stop any kind of legislation that required compromise. Donald Trump just yells about how other people are losers. The Republican Party embraced these tactics, and now they want to deny their champions. The voters were trained to want the bombast of Trump, the inflexibility of Cruz. The Republican voters want demagogues, not leaders. The party created this want.

The lingering campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders represents how much the Democratic Party has wasted the potential of the millennial vote. The Clinton campaign was embarrassed by the upstart Obama in 2008, and they did everything in their power to not make the same mistake again. The Democratic National Committee purposely limited the number of debates early on to help the former Secretary of State. The Clinton campaign has been raising money for years, to the detriment of many lower profile candidates. Any other Democrat who showed an interest in running for President was quickly met with scorn from the national party. Hillary Clinton's coronation as the Democratic nominee for President was one of the most undemocratic processes in modern political history. Senator Sanders, who is not even identified as a Democrat in the U.S. Senate, was so far outside of the established party that no one took his candidacy serious. The voters who identify as Democrats, but have felt betrayed by the party, flocked to Sanders campaign. The Clinton campaign has once again underestimated the voices of the disaffected Democrats, and it is costing them votes. Many thought Sanders could only win a few small liberal New England states, and now his campaign has claimed victory in Michigan. Without the advantage of super delegates, Sanders and Clinton would be neck and neck. The mistakes of 2008 seem to be coming back to haunt Hillary Clinton. The longer Bernie Sanders stays in this race, Hillary Clinton will have more pressure to talk about issues important to the millennial vote. If she refuses to acknowledge their ideas, 2016 is going to be a reminder of 2008.

The 2016 primary season has been unpredictable for both the Republican and Democratic party. Next week Florida and Ohio may bring more clarity on who will actually be on the ballot for President in November. Can the Republicans stop Trump? It looks unlikely. Is Ted Cruz the true choice of the Republican establishment? Probably not. Will John Kasich and Marco Rubio stop wasting peoples time? We can only hope.  Will Bernie Sanders be able to ride the potential of the millennial vote to the Democratic party nomination for President of the United States? Who the heck knows? The unpredictability makes this election one for the history books. 

RD

RD Kulik is the head editor for SeedSing. He is willing to admit when he is wrong, and he has been so wrong about this election. Lend your voice to the discussion and keep SeedSing on the right and true path, write for us.

The Day After: Super Tuesday Edition

Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, and Nebraska - You're next

It seems to be over, and yet the end seems so far away.

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both scored numerous Super Tuesday victories, and seemed to take a giant leap closer to their respective party's Presidential nomination. Both candidates won where they were expected to win, and lost where they were expected to lose. The momentum gained in February has carried over into March for both front runners. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are on a course to face each other in November. Both candidates are already preparing to transition from the primaries and get ready for the national election. The end is here.  

Unfortunately the supporters of the losing candidates do not want to give up hope yet. In the case of the Democrats, the math is starting to cool the Bern down. Former Secretary of State Clinton dominated in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and won a very close Massachusetts primary.  Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders won large victories in Colorado, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Vermont. Clinton prevailed in the larger states with more delegates, while Sanders was victorious in the less rich delegate states. Couple Clinton's win with her enormous advantage in super delegates, there is almost no possible way the Green Mountain State Senator can win. Many Democrats may think that the very existence of the super delegates is extremely undemocratic, but it is unfortunately part of the process. As long as Hillary Clinton can keep winning states, no matter the margin of victory, she will get the support of the majority of people in the established Democratic Party. Senator Sanders long shot candidacy is becoming more absurd every day. His small state victories will not be enough to overtake Clinton. People who are feeling the Bern will need to find a new obsession. Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic Nominee for President of the United States.

The establishment of the Republican Party really wishes it had super delegates. New York business man Donald Trump won in Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia. Trump took less than 50% of the vote in each state, but was still the candidate who finished number one. Texas Senator Ted Cruz won his home state along with Alaska and Oklahoma. Florida Senator, and establishment savior, Marco Rubio finally won his first election of the primary season with a victory in Minnesota. Even with all the victories Donald Trump has to his name, almost all of them have been close races with Mr. Trump taking well under 50% of the vote. On the day after Super Tuesday, Cruz and Rubio have enough combined delegates to beat Trump. With the addition of super delegates, the establishment of the Republican Party could really tip the scales for one of the two Senators, but alas the RNC wants to let the voters decide. A plurality seem to be deciding on Trump.

The only plan left for the RNC and elected Republicans was to rally around someone who could defeat Trump. Over the last week the core of the Republican Party, along with their national media lapdogs, started to rally around Marco Rubio. Things were so insane that Rubio was being referred to as centrist Republican. This is a man with almost no legislative accomplishments to his name and once deflected a question on the age of Earth by saying "I'm not a scientist, man". That lack of conviction and need to pander does not make for a great leader. This is the candidate the RNC is trying to elevate. The republican voters do not seem to be listening  The support and positive news coverage yielded the Florida Senator many third place finishes and one victory in the land of 10,000 lakes on Super Tuesday.

The next great hope is Cruz, and the establishment does not care for the obstructionist from the Lone Star state. While Senator Cruz did not do as poorly as Rubio on Super Tuesday, he was still almost 100 delegates behind Trump when the voting was completed. The new narrative from the RNC and media is that Ted Cruz is the only "real" republican that can defeat Trump. If Rubio, or Kasich, were to leave the race, it is believed that their support would all flood to Cruz. If that is truly the case, and it is doubtful this would happen, then the party would anoint Ted Cruz as the leader of Republicans nationwide. The Cruz candidacy would be just as, if not more, disastrous to the Republican party's national image. The Trump and Cruz supporters share a lot of the same ideas, even if Glenn Beck refuses to believe this. If Cruz is the backup plan, the Republican party is in a lot of trouble come November.

The best chance the Republicans have in defeating Trump, and saving some down ticket races, is to make sure that Donald Trump does not get the necessary number of delegates to secure the nomination. The only possible way to pull this trick off is to have Cruz and Rubio stay in the race. Trump wins a lot of primaries, but rarely gets over 40% of the vote. If Senator Cruz dropped out, many of his supporters would flock to Trump. If Rubio, or Kasich, dropped out, their supporters would probably sit out or split between the other two candidates. Keeping everyone in waters the field down, and makes it difficult for Trump to secure the nomination. Without the proper number of delegates, the heads of the Republican Party can call for a vote on new candidate at the convention in July. That is the only path available to ensure Donald Trump is not the Republican Party candidate for President of the United States.

The election of 2016 is already one for the history books. Hillary Clinton has finally broken through and figured out how to win over the needed people in the Democratic Party. Donald Trump is unbelievable still in front, but his lead is not as daunting as one would think. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have almost no chance to be the Republican nominee, but together they can stop Trump. It is going to be epic.

RD Kulik

RD is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the host of the X Millennial Man podcast. The political parties may not care about your voice, but we do. Write for SeedSing.

The Day After: Nevada Edition - Part 2

See you in 2020 Nevada

We need to talk about Donald Trump.

Yesterday the Republicans had their caucus in Nevada, and Trump demolished the rest of the GOP field. Again. The New York City businessman, and a formerly registered Democratic Party voter, won his third primary contest out of four. The only loss, a very close second place finish, came in an Iowa caucus marred by dirty campaign tactics employed by  the campaign of Texas Senator Ted Cruz. Florida Senator Marco Rubio continued his streak of being the runner -up, and the aforementioned Cruz is starting to fall further behind. Ohio Governor John Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson continued their quest for irrelevance in the 2016 presidential primary. Donald Trump won, it is time to start calling him the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party. We need to accept this and move on.

The establishment of the Republican party is not quite ready to anoint Mr. Trump just yet. The narrative being fed to the lapdogs in the media is that Nevada, and the caucus system itself, usually has low voter turnout numbers. In reality the state actually had a record breaking night with the number of registered Republicans who voted in the caucus. Another excuse the DC republicans are floating out is that Trump does not have broad appeal. The reality is that more evangelicals voted for Trump than Cruz, more identified "very conservative" voters went for Trump than any other candidate. In fact Donald Trump won all but two counties in the Silver State (Ted Cruz won the two counties). With the Nevada caucus ending the crucial first four states of the primary calendar, Donald Trump is in a position that history says he will be the nominee. No amount of spin from frustrated Republicans can change the facts of the past.  

Somehow it still feels like the Donald Trump campaign is still a joke and will not be the GOP Presidential candidate. Is the narrative coming from the national media actually true? Will Trump falter on Super Tuesday? Many, including us here at SeedSing, have been dismissing Donald Trump since it was alleged that he paid actors to show up for his pep rally announcing his candidacy for the Republican nomination. Since that announcement, Mr. Trump has made one outrageous remark after another to make it look like his campaign was going to be finished quickly. Early in the campaign, Trump's top campaign adviser quit (or was fired, who knows).  His entire platform is filled with racism and hate.  He is incredibly ill informed on religion and American sports heroes. To the dismay of many Republicans, Trump called the last elected GOP president a failure. Each of these missteps has only seemed to strengthen Donald Trumps hold on the plurality of Republican primary voters. Even if he continues his public missteps before Super Tuesday, Trump will probably still come out on top. This does not feel real.

What Donald Trump's success is really showing us is that the Republican Party is not about governance, it is about anger. The entire party is throwing a temper tantrum over President Obama's Constitutionally mandated duties. The rise of Trump has embraced the idea of anger, and the Republican voters have fallen in line. The idea of "Constitutional Conservatives" is false. The idea that the Republicans want to govern is laughable. Donald Trump knows that the voters are not interested in moving America forward. He is the only candidate that has been truthful about what most Republicans want, and he has been awarded with one victory after another. The Republican party is invested in an antiquated and exclusionary philosophy. Donald Trump is the hero of this type of thinking.  Good governance is not the concern, fear of change is. That is why he is winning.

It is long past time to accept the legitimacy of Donald Trump as a candidate for President of the United States. Senators Rubio and Cruz may try and claim to be the true Republican, but the voters have emphatically said their flag bearing is the New York City businessman. The primary season has kicked into full gear, and no one has been able to slow down Donald Trump, including Mr. Trump himself. Once the voting ends next week on Super Tuesday, Trump could be close to securing the GOP nomination. He is already leading in the polls for most of the eleven states that will vote on March 1st. It is time to take Donald Trump seriously. We may be stuck with him until November 8th, or longer.

RD Kulik

RD is the Head Editor for SeedSing. This primary season he really wants you to vote yes and like SeedSing on Facebook.

The Day After: Nevada and South Carolina Edition

We know that you just voted, but South Carolina and Nevada are just not rid of us yet

Now the muddy waters are starting to clear. The Democrats of Nevada gathered and had their caucus. The Republicans of South Carolina voted their individual minds. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton started to take full control of their respective party's primary. Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio are starting to fall further out of the race. John Kasich and Ben Carson should have followed Jeb Bush out of the door. The end of February looks like the end of the 2016 Presidential primary. March will bring about the beginning of the 2016 Presidential election. Clinton vs. Trump. Who would have picked that?

The Nevada caucus became part of the national political scene in 2008. Many Democratic party leaders thought that the non diverse mostly white populations of Iowa and New Hampshire were not very representative of 21st century America. Nevada dropped their primary system and implemented a caucus. The date of the contest was also moved in order to be closer to the historically significant Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary. In the two contested Nevada caucus (2008 and 2016) the winner has been Hillary Clinton, and the margin has been small.  Then Senator Clinton pulled out a razor thin victory against eventual nominee Barack Obama in 2008 and manged to defeat Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders by a few percentage points last night.

Like the Iowa caucus, Hillary Clinton's ground game seemed to bring her campaign the victory that was expected. What was once again unexpected was just how close Bernie Sanders came to taking the victory. The Clinton campaign has won two out of three primary contests, is poised to crush the Sanders campaign in the South Carolina primary, and still has very large cash reserves. With all of these advantages, Hillary Clinton is the forgone conclusion to win the Democratic party's Presidential nomination, but the Bernie Sanders campaign seems to be sticking around much longer than expected. The resilience of the Sanders campaign is fed by two key factors.

The first reason Hillary Clinton has not closed out the nomination is the fact that Bernie Sanders is the only other credible choice in the Democratic Party. His message and campaign platform gets a lot of attention, but the true reason he is still involved is that no one else legitimately challenged Hillary Clinton. The idea behind the primary process is for the voters to choose the best candidate. When there are only two choices, the lesser one will look stronger than they actually are. Many people voting for Bernie Sanders are actually voting against Hillary Clinton. There is a negligible amount of people voting for Clinton who are mainly against the Sanders campaign. The Hillary Clinton supporters are loyal and will carry her to the eventual nomination.

The second reason Bernie Sanders is still a credible candidate is because the national media so badly wants a horse race that they prop up Sanders campaign and make it look stronger than it actually is. The media has had an ugly, and misogynistic, vendetta against Hillary Clinton since the early 1990's. In order to be "fair and balanced", the political media gives voice to the ugliest voices in American society. The way Sanders near losses are covered make it look like Hillary Clinton is failing again. The press has it's personally created narrative out in the public discourse, and they have the stories that the media wishes to cover.

Speaking of the ugly voices of American society, the Republican South Carolina primary went exactly as predicted. Texas Senator Ted Cruz tried to out mud sling his opponents, but Donald Trump's hate speech won over the Palmetto state voters. Many in the political press corps thought when Trump criticized former President George W. Bush for September 11th that his chances would dwindle. The consensus was that the Republicans in South Carolina loved the former President, and Trump had finally gone to far. Candidate Jeb Bush even brought his brother out on the campaign trail to hopefully gain some support because W was so beloved. Donald Trump took just under 33% of the vote, Jeb Bush took under 8% and promptly dropped out of the 2016 Republican Presidential contest. 

The big discussion coming out after South Carolina is how the Republican party will nominate one of three men, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio. Trump seems to be to far ahead, and gaining momentum. Who would have guessed that? Senators Cruz and Rubio are the only people who have been able to mount any kind of campaign against Trump. The established Republican Party has thrown in with the inept, and bad campaigner that is Marco Rubio. The Cruz campaign is being kept alive by tea party zealots and dirty tricks. Either Rubio or Cruz will falter and fall out in the next few weeks. If Ted Cruz leaves first, Trump will coast to the nomination. The Cruz supporters hate the D.C. republicans, and Rubio is the current champion of that group. If Rubio continues to fall flat on the campaign trail, Trump and Cruz will started slinging acres worth of mud at each other's campaign. Donald Trump has spent his entire career destroying people. Ted Cruz will be no match for Trump's onslaught. Donald Trump will win the Republican Presidential nomination.

The end of February traditionally brings the near end of the Presidential primary process. 2016 does not look like it will be any different. Hillary Clinton may not seem like a candidate in control of her destiny, but she is. Donald Trump's campaign may still be unbelievable, but he is on the path to victory. The parties will be switching up states this week with the Democrats in South Carolina having their primary and the Republicans in Nevada will caucus. Will Clinton and Trump come out further ahead? Will Cruz or Rubio began their exit plan? Will anybody pay any attention to the single digit support John Kasich and Ben Carson will recieve? The biggest question is what are the Republicans going to do when Donald Trump is their nominee? It will be an election for the ages.

RD Kulik

RD is the Head editor for SeedSing. Every morning he wakes up, reads the news, and goes back to sleep hoping the Trump campaign is just a weird dream. It is not a dream. Show your liking of SeedSing over at our Facebook page.

The Day After: New Hampshire Edition

Here they come Nevada and South Carolina

Well, that is finally out of the way. The New Hampshire primary has cleared up the entire 2016 Presidential campaign. Donald Trump and Senator Bernie Sanders will get to face off in November for the White House. The internet and national media won, their chosen candidates have emerged victorious. This circus is finally over. Will you "feel the Bern" or is it more important to "Make America Great Again". November 8th will be here before you know it. Let the national campaign begins.

Once again, I wish this was true. New Hampshire tried to clear things up way more than the Iowa Caucus. The first in the nation primary has always been the freal true test of determining who can win their respective parties nomination. Iowa is all about a candidate's ground game. Fringe candidates, especially Republicans, can use local political bosses to help sway voters away from their personal choices. The Iowa Caucus is all about the work a candidate puts in on the ground. The New Hampshire Primary allows people to vote their own preferences. Party bosses can not look you in the face and make a person change their vote. The mob can not sway the individual. In 1988 then New Hampshire Governor John H. Sununu famously said "The people of Iowa pick corn, the people of New Hampshire pick Presidents". History has mostly proven Governor Sununu's words.

So that means Donald Trump will win the Republican nomination? Today is the first day that I actually started to accept the fact that Trump may incredibly be in this race until the very end. I have never believed in Trump's viability as a credible candidate for the U.S. Presidency. He does not represent the presented core philosophy of the GOP. He does however represent the ugly hate and class warfare cultivated by the Republican intelligentsia. Donald Trump is more like the zealots of the party who get relegated to being the Vice Presidential nominee (i.e. Sarah Palin, Paul Ryan and Dick Cheney).  The National Republican Committee has been very successful at getting rid of the most unelectable members of their field in years past. The Bachmanns, Santorums, Jindels, and Huckabees may have been treated as credible candidates by the incompetent media, but the less offensive John McCains and Mitt Romneys would always comfortable win out and become the party's nominee. The New Hampshire Primary is where the accepted candidate of the National Republican establishment would take control and coast to the eventual nomination. Donald Trump is not the accepted national establishment candidate. He should have stumbled in the face of the moderate Republican hopefuls.  Trump just destroyed the RNC's saviors. 

But what about John Kasich you ask? He is the RNC's hero who will slay the evil Donald Trump. That is the latest narrative of this unpredictable primary season. The national Republicans are so desperate for a "moderate" candidate that they keep promoting anyone not named Trump or Cruz. Last week, after a third place finish in Iowa, it was Florida Senator Marco Rubio. The short time in the spotlight did not do Rubio any favors. He was horrible. When the people of New Hampshire voted, Rubio was not their choice. Now with a surprising second place finish in the Granite State, the RNC will rally around Ohio Governor Kasich as their chosen one. I hate to close down this new love fest for the Ohio Governor, but John Kasich got less than 16% of the total vote. He did come in second, but it was a far distant second. If we want to anoint Kasich as a viable alternative to Trump, then you need to also consider Senator Ted Cruz and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Their margin of defeat is a whole lot closer to John Kasich than Kasich's margin of defeat is to Donald Trump. I would also argue that Trump supporters second choice for President would be Ted Cruz and vice-versa. Looking at the New Hampshire results that way gives the Trump / Cruz block just under 50% of the vote. Add in other non establishment candidates like former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and the established RNC friendly candidates polled below 50%. John Kasich, along with the rest of the "acceptable" republicans lost, and they lost bad.

So what about the nomination for the Democratic Party. It looks like Bernie Sanders, right? Not exactly. The Democratic Party's New Hampshire results were not surprising. Ever since Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders entered the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination, most people expected him to easily win the Granite State. It seems like the Hillary Clinton campaign did not even put up a fight in New Hampshire, and this allowed Sanders to have a decisive victory in the primary. The Clinton campaign has seemingly unlimited resources, the near full support of the Democratic Party establishment, and a lot of states yet to vote. They did not waste time, money, or talent where they did not need to. Senator Sanders has been using his cult of personality to get great press coverage, and make the Clinton campaign sweat. That will be coming to an end very soon. The Nevada Caucus and the South Carolina primary will truly show if the Bernie Sanders campaign has any credibility. Both of those states look to be easy wins for Hillary Clinton, but Iowa also looked to be an easy win. With the money and effort saved by not contesting New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton looks like she will still easily win the Democratic Party's Presidential nomination. It was fun having Bernie Sanders around, and he brought up some important issue, but the ride may have ended in the Granite State.

That is what everything looks like on the day after New Hampshire. Donald Trump is starting to pull away and unbelievably become a major parties nominee for President. I know the establishment of the Republican Party has to be scared. I also have a feeling  that the RNC is considering some radical steps to protect their overall electoral chances in 2016. I would not be surprised if some people of influence in the Republican Party supported a third party candidate. The Democratic Party did not change course at all due to the results in New Hampshire. Senator Bernie Sanders had a nice little win, and Hillary Clinton is ready to start dominating the primary process with Nevada and South Carolina on the horizon. I may not "feel the Bern", but just yesterday I was telling people Donald Trump has zero chance to be a nominee for President of the United States. Maybe in two weeks I will have a new outlook for the Independent Senator from The Green Mountain State. I doubt it, but you never know. See you in a few weeks.

RD Kulik

RD is the Head Editor for SeedSing. He encourages your voice and donations to keep SeedSing free from big money influence. Follow us on twitter and make sure to like us on Facebook.

The Day After: Iowa Edition

Your up next New Hampshire

Now begins the end of our long national headache. Iowa has spoken and it's majority old white male population has decided on Texas Senator Ted Cruz and defender of personal home computer servers Hillary Rodham Clinton. Pack up your bags, we do not need to worry about anything until the general election on November 8th. The nation will make history on that day when we elected the first female President in United States history. This by no means is a statement of political preference, Hillary Clinton will steamroll Ted Cruz. The national electoral numbers favor the Democratic party nominee, and Ted Cruz cannot grow any new voters. Many republicans will not vote for the Texas senator who has made a career out of being an obstructionist and demeaning people in his own party. Thank the gods this whole affair is over. Iowa has spoken, the nominees are set.

How much I wish it was true that the 2016 Presidential campaign was complete. Once the votes are certified in Iowa, the annoying itch of Election 2016 is going to turn into a painful infected sore. The media has doubled down on their incompetence in trying to turn the election of the President into an awful reality show. The news out of Iowa was presented in two ways - Donald Trump loses and Hillary Clinton barely won. New Hampshire will be reported in exactly the same way. The press knows they get ratings when they talk about Trump's ascension and Clinton's struggles. Ratings are way more important than actual journalism. We deserve real journalism in respect to who we elected to lead the nation.

So did the Iowa caucuses actually tell us anything of value concerning the Presidential campaign season? Iowa is a valuable predictor for the Democratic party nominee, not so much for the Republican. Over the last twenty years the eventual Democratic Party nominee has won every Iowa Caucus.  In contrast only Bob Dole in 1996 and George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 (unopposed) has won the caucus. Go back another twenty years and the only Democratic Party nominees to lose the caucus are Bill Clinton in 1992 and Michael Dukakis in 1988. The only Republican nominees to win the caucus are an unopposed Ronald Reagan in 1984 and incumbent Gerald Ford eked out a victory in 1976. In the last forty years the Democratic nominee has won eight out of ten Iowa caucus where the Republican nominee has won five out of ten (two of those Republican wins were by incumbent Presidents who were unopposed in Iowa). If the Iowa Caucus did say anything about the 2016 election it is that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic Party nominee and the Republican Party is still in disarray.

The tight margin of victory in Hillary Clinton's win is something the candidate should be worried about. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders made a better showing in Iowa than expected. His near win is due to the great ground organization his campaign built in the Hawkeye state. Hillary Clinton dismissed Barack Obama'a ground game in 2008, and she never recovered. It does look like the former Senator and Secretary of State may be making the same mistake again. Bill Clinton barely registered in Iowa during the 1992 caucus, but still won the nomination and eventually the White House that year. His biggest opposition, Missouri congressman Dick Gephardt,  did not take Bill Clinton seriously as a candidate. The conventional wisdom was that Gephardt was the true democrat, and Clinton was not in line with the party's philosophy. Bill Clinton capitalized on the youth vote who felt disconnected from the old Democratic Party. This strategy helped sustain the Clinton campaign, and the out of touch Gephardt was eventually defeated. Hillary Clinton seems to be having the same Bill Clinton problem that Dick Gephardt had. Bernie Sanders is going right after the established DC Democratic Party machine, and he is winning the youth vote. Barack Obama has proven you can beat Hillary Clinton with this strategy. The Iowa Caucus did show us that Hillary Clinton is once again relying on the money from the old Democratic machine, and is quickly being seen as out of touch with the youth vote. She needs to be afraid of losing the nomination again if she does not start embracing the Democratic Party that sits outside of the DC think tanks. Iowa should be a wake up call to her campaign.

Ted Cruz's narrow win does not mean a thing. He won Iowa, like Rick Santorum in 2012 and Mike Huckabee in 2008. The Republicans in Iowa sure do like their candidates that have zero shot on winning the nomination. Bob Dole crushed eventual nominee George H.W. Bush in 1998. Republican Presidential nominee John McCain finished a distant fourth place in 2008. Iowa is completely insignificant to the national Republican Party. The New Hampshire Primary is a much better predictor for who will be the party's nominee. Since 1952 the eventual Republican Party Presidential nominee has won the New Hampshire Primary thirteen out of sixteen times. On the day after Iowa, the Republican Party is right where it was on the day before.

The beginning of the end that is the 2016 Presidential campaign has begun. The caucus goers of Iowa have spoken, and told us nothing. The Clinton campaign needs to learn from 2008 and not make the same mistakes. It does not look like they have learned. The Republican Party needs to not read that much into Ted Cruz's victory, Iowa rarely matters to their base. The 2016 election has officially started. Our long national headache is coming to an end.

RD Kulik

RD is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He really wants some great writers to assist him with the 2016 election season - write for SeedSing. He also really wants to pay those writers - Support SeedSing.

I Fully Endorse Sarah Palin Endorsing Donald Trump

This is one public housing project Donald Trump will not make a deal on.

The honorable ex-half Governor of Alaska has made her choice for President of the United States. In order to make America great again, political power boss Sarah Palin has given her full support and endorsement to the inept New York City con-man known to all as Mr. Donald Trump. I fully endorse this political marriage. This was meant to be. The national Republican party has been building towards this moment. All of their actions, and rhetoric, the last ten years has been building towards Trump and Palin. Now the country has real hope.

The hope is that the Republican party will either disappear or get their act together and move away from all the hate. The platform of the modern Republican party is one of obstruction, whining, and ugliness. Sarah Palin was the one of the first politicians to capitalize on these tenets, and Donald Trump has incredibly moved to the front of the field of Republican Presidential hopefuls embracing these philosophies. These two "leaders' of the GOP have taken all the white male angst and commoditized in order to create more personal wealth. Palin and Trump have no intention to lead, they only exist to enhance their own personal brands. It is sad that one of the two political parties has decided to throw in with two people who are against the ideals and dream that is America.

Trump and Palin may get all the media coverage, but most of the Republican presidential field can be thrown in with these anti-patriots. Chris Christie is a blowhard with no plans and a horrible public record. Marco Rubio has no core beliefs, is generally ignorant, and lacks very little ability to tell the truth. Ben Carson is horrible at pandering and does not seem to be very intelligent. John Kasich is a typical rob from the poor give to the rich Reaganomic Republican. Ted Cruz is a loathsome fellow who seems to just hate the entire idea of the American dream, plus he is not really even eligible to be President. The rest of the field is not even worth talking about becasue they act the same as those in the lead of the polls, and they have no shot at winning the Republican Primary.

I know it seems that I am joyful in watching the demise of the GOP.  I am actually quite sad. Do not make a mistake, I am very happy that the current form of the Republican Party will be once again humiliated in the November election. At least they will be humiliated in the Presidential election, any other election and the Democratic party does not seem to give a damn. The Republican Party used to offer an actual philosophical difference on how the government should run. I did not always agree on this philosophy, but we could have an actual debate on the future of America. The current field, led by the brain trust of Donald Trump and Sarah Palin, just want to cause chaos and division. They have no plan to govern. They have no view for a better America. These Republicans, who claim they want to lead America, really just want to fatten their own pockets, and the pockets of a very small group of old wealthy white men.  I am joyful that this disease of political thought we call the Republican Party may finally die out with another national humiliation. I am hopeful we can get back to debating different views for a stronger, and better America.

Sarah Palin's endorsement of Donald Trump for President is the perfect catalyst to start the demise of the hate filled Republican ideology. Trump has a history of going against classic conservative ideology, and Sarah Palin only knows how to be an opportunist. They both deserve to be ejected from the GOP. I am hopeful that this dynamic duo will finish the job of tearing down the modern Republican victimhood complex. I am hopeful that all the racists, misogynists, plutocrats, and anti-patriots who the media likes to prop up will finally crawl back into their holes and become obsolete. Let them go back to defending the Confederate flag and posting vile Facebook posts so the rest of us can identify them as people who should not be a part in crafting America's future. It is time for the hate peddlers to exit stage left. Let Trump and Palin lead the exodus.

Trump / Palin 2016 has my full blessing. In November we can all watch the Republican ticket get obliterated by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party's Vice Presidential nominee. Sarah Palin can go back to being a quitter and a loser. Donald Trump can continue to spew his hate and live with his inadequacies. The GOP can take stock of their humiliation and rebuild.  My hope is that the party learns and gets back to offering different ideas. Maybe they can find a dynamic politician who can create voters and have an intelligent discussion about America's future. Have they considered Rand Paul?

RD Kulik

RD is the Head Editor for SeedSing. He has worked for the Republican and Democratic Parties, and has been on the losing end every time. He know wants to win with great citizen journalism and needs you to write for SeedSing. Do not feel like writing, we could always use some financial support.

Why do the Republicans love losers so much?

How most of America watches the Republican Presidential debates

Another pointless Republican debate, another stage full of idiots, another lost night for America. The Republican party doesn't care, they love losers. The modern party embraces the failures and quitters of the political world. The current crop of national republican leaders are the height of failure. When your policy is to avoid real leadership at all costs, the biggest losers will become your leaders.  Good thing that none of these never been Republicans will be President of the United States. They are losers. They lose.

It may seem harsh, and Trump like, to ascribe the loser label to the entire Republican party. Well take a look at their nominees. Donald Trump is an ill prepared hate monger who lost money because he tried to be a business man. Dr. Ben Carson may actually be a stupid person. Carly Fiorina is one of the most comically bad CEOs in history, plus she is a pathological liar. Marco Rubio is a lazy opportunist, oh and he is also a lying about his family history. Jeb Bush is an entitled spoiled brat. Ted Cruz is a crazy person who hates the very idea of America. The rest of the cast doesn't matter because they will be lucky to win a single delegate. There is not a uniter in the group. They learned to only be dividers, like a dog learns to shake. Do a simple task and then get your reward. So not only are the Republicans losers, they do not have intelligence beyond the common dog.

How did one of our major political parties come to embrace and celebrate losers? Is it racism? How about sexism? Is the current republican white male (that  is the large majority of the party) so insecure that they have to embrace known losers? The Republicans claim to be the tough ones, yet Vietnam was lost on Nixon's watch. They claim to be tough on terrorism, yet Reagan illegally sent weapons to known terror groups. They claim to have America's safety front of mind, yet George W. Bush admitted to not being that concerned about Al Qaeda or Bin Laden just a month before September 11th. The modern Republican party has been a colossal failure in nearly every aspect of foreign policy.  Even the idea that Reagan ended the cold war is comical in how much his administration over estimated the strength of the Soviet Union. The Americans had next to nothing to do with the fall of the Soviet empire. People like Reagan were very lucky to be around when history was taking its inevitable course. The war in Afghanistan had more to due with the downfall of the Soviet Union than any US military build-up. Once the Iron Curtain came down the Republican party had no idea how to handle post Soviet Russia. Years after the fall of the Soviet Union, Reagan disciple George W. Bush gave Russian premiere Putin a pass. Good old George saw into Putin's heart, and he thought all was good. Another Republican getting it horribly wrong.

Now the question becomes how can these incompetent losers still rule much of our political landscape? We have discussed many, many, many, times about how the Democrats have ceded the US Congress and state governments to the Republicans. We have also discussed how a lazy, greedy, and overall incompetent media likes to prop up the failures in the republican party. Any Republican candidate is given a head start because we have been force fed this idea that the GOP is tough on terror and good with money. The facts show a completely different story. The current Republican Party has no bold leadership, look at the folly of errors leading up to Paul Ryan reluctantly accepting the honored position of Speaker of the House of Representatives. The party has horrible when it comes to fiscal policy. George W Bush inherited a strong economy, fiddled with it, drove it into a massive recession, and then President Obama fixed his mess. The Republican parties work in foreign policy led directly to the creation of ISIS, and America's overall sense of isolation from the rest of the developed world. All of these actions are not the mark of an intelligent and winning direction for America. The debate on Tuesday night had a bunch of losers continuing to embrace philosophy that has failed.

It must be incredibly frustrating for many republicans that the competent members of their party have to be shoved aside for all the losers. Ohio Governor John Kasich is very popular in a state the GOP must win, yet the national press and his own party treat him like a pariah. Rand Paul may very well be the only one on that stage that can actual create votes, yet he his sabotaging his own campaign by trying to dumb down to the rest of the group. Mitt Romney is the best candidate the Republicans have had in a generation, but he had to cower to the zealots on Fox News and therefore ruined any chance to reach new voters. Failed Governors like Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, and Scott Walker recieve more respect than viable candidates like George Pataki and the aforementioned Kasich. The entire Republican party is not a bunch of losers, just the people who lead them.

While the media treats the Republican party with kid gloves, and the white male Christians claim to be victims, America can feel good about itself because no one on stage last Tuesday will ever win the presidency. The GOP primary debates are entertaining in their chaos, and infuriating in their lack of truth. Americans like success, the Republicans are lacking. Americans like practicality, the Republicans fail to deliver. Most importantly, Americans like winners. The Republican Presidential candidates are losers. They lose.

RD Kulik

RD is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He enjoys the idea of political debate and welcomes any one who disagrees to write for SeedSing. Make sure you get all of our great thoughts by follow us on twitter @seedsingrdk.

First Annual Get Your Ass Out and Vote Call to Action

The beginning of the end

Hello All

It is election day. I assume many of our good readers are well informed of the candidates and issues. You all probably woke up bright and early, presented your voting credentials, and are now wearing the "I Voted" stickers to the embarrassment of your non-voting friends, co-workers, and family. To all the good voters out there, good job, you make America proud. 

The preceding paragraph represents less than 30% of America's eligible voter population. Off year congressional elections have voter turnout rates less than 50%. In over 75 years we have seen Presidential election turnouts rate top out at 65% of eligible voters participating only one time (1976 - Jimmy Carter's victory). What the hell is the problem? Why do people not vote? The onslaught of the 24 hour media, and the subhuman conversation on talk radio, make elections into a quasi philosophical battlefield. Cowards like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck use their time on publicly created radio and television airwaves  to claim America will be ending if their chosen politicians do not win. The professional left (once again thanks Robert Gibbs) makes every election into a referendum of their latest cause. With all of this noise, very few people actually vote, especially in non-presidential elections.

What the hell is wrong with you people? I get that a non-presidential election is not very exciting, but it means so much more to your life than you know. The national (and most state) Democratic Party has totally given up on local elections so they can win the "Best in Show" ribbon that is the Presidential election. Way to go Democrats, Obama won two elections. How has that worked out? We have the psychopaths of the tea party in congress now, non-stop obstructionism, and the glowing profiles of dirt bag Paul Ryan because he is the least crazy person we could get to be the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The Democratic Party's lack of developing any local candidates, and supporting them, has led to nut jobs like Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and worst of all Ted Cruz. The mighty party of the people has completely failed at building a strong stable of candidates, and left the power to the most self serving political movement in American history.

The people who are on your school boards, city/town councils, and municipal courts have a ton more power over your lives than anyone who is elected to Washington DC. Your kids go to schools run by the philosophical whims of the school board. Your emergency services are managed by your city councils. Your home values are dictated by the people elected today. Yet nobody seems to care. We all get excited to vote for history (Obama) or vote to take our country back (anyone in the modern Republican field), but we care not to vote for the person who will give the next generation a chance to thrive. What is wrong with us? The election you do not participate in today will elect the crazy person to your school board. That person will next move on to win a city council race you refuse to vote in. Next thing you know, that crazy person is being featured on "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" as another crazy right winger who belongs in the 1800's. They got there because we refused to stop them from winning their first election.  We elected them by not participating.

Wake up and get your ass out to vote. I know that levies, school boards, and trustees do not excite our electoral urges. Grow up. Your home values, your kids education, and the overall future of our society depends on who wins this November 3rd, 2015. If you decide not to vote, I will blame the next Ted Cruz on you. 

Vote.

(Special thanks to FairVote.Org  for help with research. Plus I do know about John Oliver's recent episode about local elections. I only wish he did the episode a few weeks ago when people could still register to vote.)

RD Kulik

RD is the Head Editor of SeedSing. He does not know what to write over the next year because Hillary has already won the 2016 Presidential election. Is he wrong? Go tell him.