Naturally we act as if she isn't, but she is. The bumper sticker is: Hillary by Default. There's simply no other reasonable choice because the Republicans have become a bickering crew of extremists or worse yet, cheap imitations of Democrats, offering no cohesion or agreement except on the same ideas that have kept them from office for years. They don't even support their own front runner, why should we support them? I know I can't at this point and it has nothing to do with Donald Trump. I like both Trump and Sanders because they're not the same old people we've had in government for years, using our tax money to make themselves rich.
Last Spring we were told that Hillary was running virtually unopposed. Today we can say the same thing and the blame falls squarely at the feet of the dysfunctional Republican Party. The refusal of Republican hardliners to modify has not produced strength in the party, but weakness, neither representing the majority of Americans nor the majority of individuals who are moderate and are very unhappy with what's happened under eight years of Obama, but face no Republican choice.
Because the truth is, for most of us, that there is today a Republican Party in name only. Instead of presenting a variety of views, the Republicans illustrate only that they're willing to throw their fellow candidates under the bus for the sake of pursuing an extremist agenda dictated by a withering minority.
It is a loss for Americans to have only a single choice. It is a loss that Hillary Clinton will be the default vote for every American (and it's the majority) who doesn't want a confused religiosity, a confused militarism, xenophobia and gender bias to become the leadership in the US today.
Instead of embarrassment, the Republicans proudly air their dirty laundry, with Kasich promising to scold and ridicule Donald Trump's behavior mirroring the scolding of President Obama yesterday. The disjointed crew of Republicans are symptomatic of today's Republicans who have spent more time on trying to figure out ways to rid themselves of Donald Trump than spending time on trying to defeat Hillary.
As Bernie Sanders fades, we hear Kasich plotting how he's going to use the Republican Party system to get rid of Trump and how he's going to go after him. Instead of the party seeking the vote, they're buckling down and spouting their same failed agenda. Make no mistake, Kasich is the same old thing with a twist, he's trying to present himself as an almost-Democrat instead of uniting behind his party's front-runner. Why would anyone vote for a Democratic imitation when they can vote for the original? They won't.
In 2012 Obama had the lowest (or nearly the lowest) approval rating of his presidency, but Republican dysfunction in large part handed him the presidential election anyway. Here we go again. Kasich, has no business in this election in spite of winning his own state and the Republicans can mark the moment they lost the election when Kasich chose yesterday to discuss how he was going to get the nomination by using the Republican nomination process to beat his own party's front-runner instead of taking his lukewarm performance and minimal fans and encouraging them to support his party's most popular candidate. Bye-bye election.
It's pathologic, the Republicans are out of touch and fail to recognize the strength of unity within a party with a clear message that reflects the population they hope to represent, keeping up to date with the makeup of the American people and the circumstances under which they live.
Republicans show no signs of doing so. The Republican audience for some imagined good old days is shrinking as is the relevance of the party on the whole. One wonders how long it will take them to get with it and realize they're marginalized, they are no longer on equal footing as "the other" party, which has dangerously left Democrats an open field to pursue their most extreme agenda simply by default.
Make no mistake. Hillary is a default vote for many Democrats. But more significantly if the Republicans have their way, Hillary will be the default vote for the Republicans if Kasich manages to maneuver and work the system and become his party's nominee.
While Republicans bicker they've allowed their potential voters to be characterized as stupid (non-college educated), racist (white), anti-woman (male), backwards people. Where's the fight? Where's the policy? Where's the respect for those whose votes they need to be relevant?
The harsh truth for Republicans is that the Tea Party politics of rigidity and backwardness haven't worked to do anything but make ours virtually a one-party system. The Republicans' belligerent adhesion to those policies in the face of reality means that the Democrats will have yet another four years to entrench our country in the policies that created enough dissatisfaction to provide Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump their opportunity to begin with.
