2016 Feb 21^st

It appears now that the national election will be between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Clinton’s win in Nevada has substantially reduced Sanders chance to get the nomination; the Clinton machine is just too powerful. Clinton’s ties to minority groups overshadow Sander’s appeal to younger voters. Sanders won’t drop out, and he will continue pushing Clinton leftward, but his chances of getting the nomination are now vanishing small, much to the Democratic establishment’s relief.  Also to the Democrat’s delight is the emergence of Donald Trump as a likely unstoppable Republican candidate. He won all of the South Carolina counties and that means that he won all of the available delegates. This does not make the Republican establishment happy because they know that if he wins the nomination he will, most likely, lose the general election. Then the Supreme Court will be tilted left; poor Republicans!

So why is there so much animosity by the right wing towards the Washington establishment? The answer is simple; they have obstructed everything and accomplished nothing, except to insure that no one else accomplished anything. They came to power with just that mandate. It was to shut down the government and that is what they desperately tried to do. The President soon began to produce legislation the Republicans found unpleasant, and two years into his first term, McConnell, the leader of the Senate, said that, “The single most important political priority is to make President Obama a one-term President.” From that moment on there was no Republican compromise and none of the nation’s business was carried forward.  Even now when Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, managed to get enough politicians to produce a compromise budget to keep the country running, the far right was enraged. Is it any wonder that the great mass of citizens finds they have no confidence in the Washington establishment. Most this particular great mass consists of Republicans.

While the President’s approval rating stays at about 50 percent, with the largest gap in approval between parties rating him in recent history, there is not much satisfaction shown toward Congress. In a poll conducted on Dec. 3^rd of last year, Congress’ approval rating was just 9 percent. Senator McConnell, the leader of the Senate has an approval rating of 22 percent and that is less than half the approval rating enjoyed by the President. It is hardly surprising that the majority of Republican citizens want no part of the Washington establishment. They either support the Tea Partyers who have actively opposed most government programs except those for national defense; or their views are more mainstream and then they are disgusted with the Tea Party people for obstructing most normal government initiatives. The result is the rise of the outsider, unaffiliated with Washington and untarnished by either side.