Book Review : Your Country Is Just Not That Into You

 Your Country Is Just Not That Into You

 By Jimmy Dore

Your Country Is Just Not That Into You is a hilarious manifesto that spares few among the political and media elite of America, brought to you by Jimmy Dore,veteran stand-up comic, host of The Jimmy Dore Show and regular guest host on The Young Turks. He takes on the powerful and privileged (In my mind the best comedy punches upward, hitting those who are comfortable) and succeeds spectacularly in knocking them down multiple pegs, exposing their double standards and true agendas, making them look like transparent schmucks in the process. Whether it be insane/criminal Republicans, corrupt Democrats or faux journalists on Corporate News Networks, nobody is safe from Jimmy Dore's righteous anger.

The main portion of the book is divided among different entities that Dore rips into, both Republican and Democratic parties, corporate news channels and Wall Street, as well as a few more that are briefly covered. Although these chapters are all individually themed there is frequent crossover between them all which alludes to the revolving-door nature of the political/media apparatus, the unholy union that sees out-of-office political figures being hired by news outlets to serve as talking heads, and currently in-office politicians receiving softball questions during interviews because of the concern that they may not be able to book these politicians as guests again, losing ratings as a result.

Jimmy Dore wears his progressivism on his sleeve in this book, so he pulls no punches when it comes to Democrats, who are supposedly the party that represents progressives. ridiculing "moderate" Democrats who are embedded in the party/donor establishment that are elected by liberals but instead regulate like they're centrists. Republicans get the full work-over by Dore on their outdated positions towards women, minorities, immigration, the criminal system and lastly their war-hawking.

Despite the feeling of hopelessness you can get while reading about how broken the system is in American politics, Jimmy wraps up his book by  noting that although the system may have been rigged and the political spectrum pushed far to the right, the American people are inherently progressive on several key issues (money in politics for example) and that history favours progress, and progressive values. It's a great note to end on and one I find is very true as evidenced by this years election cycle, with the dramatic rise of Bernie Sanders who had next to no name recognition when compared to Hillary Clinton, but his progressive message has resonated on such a large scale with the people. Even though this cycle has also seen an underbelly of regressive fear, xenophobia and ignorance come to the surface through Trump, it is Sanders who has captured the support of the American youth which is cause for optimism as the new generation of America will be overwhelmingly liberal.

A preview of the 2016 General Election

[Image Source]

The Primary season is nearing its end in the United States, with the Democratic Convention now two months out, and Donald Trump having essentially secured the Republican Party nomination as Cruz and Kasich have both suspended their campaigns. While Bernie Sanders is still in the race for the Democratic Party nomination it is looking increasingly unlikely, as he is currently 283 pledged delegates behind Clinton. Although there are still several primaries left, including the delegate-rich California, Bernie would have to win by large margins in these primaries to be able to secure the nomination, unless there is a contested Democratic Convention or July or Hillary Clinton is indicted as a result of the FBI's ongoing investigation.

Regardless of who the nominee is, one thing is certain; they will have to run against Trump in a general election, and the idea of a President Trump is somewhat unnerving. But if you were to look at polling around favorability of both Clinton and Sanders compared to Trump you would notice something undeniably interesting/terrifying, depending on who you think the Democratic nominee will be.

It is not surprising that Donald Trump has the highest unfavorables of all the candidates, the Huffington Post currently has him at 58.6% Unfavorable - 36.5% Favorable.


























Donald Trump Favorability rating from the Huffington Post [screen grab] 

In fact Trump is so unpopular that Public Policy Polling recently release an interesting list of things that are MORE popular than Trump, it includes:

• Nickelback
• Used Car Salesmen
• Traffic Jams
• Hipsters
• The DMV
• Root Canals
• Jury Duty
• Lice

You can have a look at the rest of their findings here.

Now the terrifying part. Hillary Clinton, who at this point looks to be the Democratic nominee, has terrible favorability ratings, although less than Trumps, they are bad enough to warrant concern, considering their possible general election matchup. The Huffington Post has her at 54.6% Unfavorable - 41.5% Favorable.

Hillary Clinton favorability rating, from Huffington Post [screen grab]

A recent article by Reuters highlights a curious phenomena which has been brought out by these two candidates, that is Negative Partisanship, when voters support one candidate only to block the other from entering office, and vice versa for voters supporting the opposition candidate. A Reuters/Ipsos poll of Clinton and Trump supporters showed a large amount of voters engaging in Negative Partisanship. The poll shows that among Clinton supporters polled, at least 46% were doing so in order to prevent Trump from winning (at least 40% supported her based on her positions) while among Trump supporters 47% were supporting him in order to prevent Clinton from winning (at least 43% supporting him based on his positions). Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, says in the article that "If we were trying to maximize the effect, we couldn't have found better nominees than Trump and Clinton".


Another poll conducted by Public Policy Polling shows that currently, Hillary Clinton only has a 4 point lead over Trump among voters nationwide. More cause for concern over Clinton v Trump in a general is Trumps appeal to independent voters. An exit poll of Sanders voters in the West Virginia primary (which Sanders won) showed that 44% would back Trump if the general election were to be Trump v Clinton, while only 23% would back Clinton and 31% backing neither candidate.

Speaking of Bernie Sanders, there a polls indicating that in a hypothetical general election with him against Trump, Sanders has a much wider lead than Clinton does. with one PPP poll showing that Sanders leads Trump by 11 points, and a NBC News/Survey Monkey poll showing Sanders leading by 13 points.

Although Hillary Clinton may well be the Democrats nominee, based from these recent polls, it shows that Bernie Sanders is the more electable candidate. If the Democratic Party wanted to choose the best candidate for the general election, as it currently stands,the Superdelegates should consider a switch to Sanders' side. There are still 10 primaries to go before the convention in July, and Sanders has vowed to campaign to the end. so it will be interesting to see how the rest of the Democratic Primary plays out.