#not entirely sure what she means by black religious freedom which has always been highly contested as well

[iirulancorrino]

Synagogues became the site of Jewishness, the sun around which my nana's Jewish world orbited, in part because religious affiliation, American Jews had learned, was comprehensible to the rest of America in a way that secular Jewish identity was not. In 1955, Will Herberg, a Jewish philosopher and former Marxist, published 'Protestant, Catholic, Jew,' a book that presented being Jewish as being about religious, not ethnic, difference. The United States, from the beginning, understood Black and white religious freedom: it was less comfortable with concepts like ethnicity and peoplehood and groups that transcend race. With synagogues, American Jews could be publicly, outwardly all-American and privately, religiously all-Jewish They could move out to the suburbs. They could move up the socioeconomic ladder like other white American families—they would just be white American families who happened to go to shul. It was, in a way, a return to the way Jewish identity was understood before there was an increase in immigration: Jews could be white Americans who prayed differently. This was reflected in how Jews were depicted on television. When Gertrude Berg's radio broadcast about a Jewish suburban family became a television show, the only signifier that the family was Jewish was a menorah on the mantelpiece. This wasn't threatening to white America. This was acceptable and comprehensible. It helped, too, that this was during the Cold War, with the United States angling to prove it was both full of faith and tolerant of all religions. In a way, this was a sort of mirror image of what the Soviet Union was doing: in the Soviet Union, religion was not tolerated, but propaganda films were made to show how racially accepting the Soviet Union was in comparison to the United States. The United States, meanwhile, wanted to show itself as a land of religious tolerance while continuing de facto and de jure racial segregation. This was part of the reason that Judaism was not only understood by Americans but was increasingly understood as being American, considered a major religion in this country despite the fact that fewer than five percent of Americans were Jews.

Emily Tamkin, Bad Jews: A History of American Jewish Politics and Identities

[dreamworksconvict]

She-Ra: Racism Problem Pt. 2

Thanks to everyone who said nice things about my earlier post!!!! I like am really invested in representation and media so I’m glad it’s being received well. 

I also want to add a caveat that I’m not trying to cancel She-Ra. I just want to hold media to a high standard and think that we can critique the things we like.

Next I want to talk about some pretty heavy topics: the White Savior trope and colonialism. Again, I’ll be pretty spoiler-heavy here. I also want to warn people that there will be mention of genocide and antisemitism. I’ll be writing about Hordak in the next part.

In the fourth part I want to add an addendum about Catra being coded as Latina, which I think is a valid interpretation. I also want to talk about the ableism present in the show with both Hordak and Entrapta, which is a separate issue so I’ll label it differently. 

Imagine a story like this: 

“I am a white-coded, able-bodied, implied cisgender protagonist who has a Special Trait that makes me Stronger and/or More Unique than other characters. I also have some connection to Some Evil Colonizers from Space. Oh no! Some Evil Colonizers from Space have showed up to threaten me and my Token Diverse friends who get about half as much screentime as I do! Wait a second, “evil?” There’s no such thing! They’re only Misunderstood Colonizers Who Didn’t Mean It, and/or there was More to the Story. Maybe they came from a Dysfunctional Family or were Abused/Bullied! I think the people/places they colonized may have been Secretly Bad or Just As Bad all along, too! Wowee! Let’s all have a Heart-to-Heart and/or sacrifice one of my Token Diverse friends to save the day!”

Which story am I referring to? Well...

Voltron... or She-Ra... or Steven Universe.. and probably others...yeah.

(And for those who claim that Keith isn’t the protagonist of Voltron, well... I mean he is... but that’s an entirely different essay. But notice how Lance and Hunk are actually smaller than the other characters on the screen and are partly transparent, and that Allura gets pushed to the back row and is mostly covered? Yikes...)

(On my previous post, someone also noted that Steven is half-Jewish. I was not aware that Rebecca had confirmed this officially. As I am not Jewish myself, I don’t want to speak over this, but I do want to point out that you can be white and Jewish, as it is a Diaspora identity. There are many Jewish ethnicities, such as Ashkenazim, Sephardim, and Mizrahim. I also wish that we had seen more of that in the show--like Steven celebrating Hanukkah, or learning Hebrew, or having a Rosh Hashanah celebration... From what I can tell, Rebecca only confirmed this on a Reddit AMA post. So I don’t know specifically how Steven identifies because that was never clarified in the show, but it seems like he is coded as white. Definitely feel free to disagree, this is just how I’ve interpreted the show, especially given its treatment of colonization.)   

On top of all three of these shows recycling a very similar plotline, they all share the White Savior trope. Teen Vogue has an article talking about how this is linked to colonialism and I highly encourage checking that out. I’m going to pull a large chunk of text from there because I think it’s really important and applies to animation, not just live action films. 

“Many white people in films based on the stories of POC are often subliminally depicted as godlike saviors, heroes who are rational and judicious to the core. They are usually deified men or women — glorified and righteous — like scripture out of a Holy Book. Look at Hillary Swank in Freedom Writers. The white savior somehow always ends up usurping the narrative. And in this centering of whiteness and white characters, the POC characters end up becoming props, which only perpetuates ideas of our otherness and unimportance, which then establishes a status quo of racism. Whiteness is again normalized, and POC are decentralized. This is particularly problematic because whiteness is not only favored in Hollywood but also in society at large; white privilege is ever-present and ubiquitous.”

Look at the center poster for She-Ra: Adora is pictured in white and gold and red as an accent. She’s bathed in a golden light. This color combination is no coincidence, because we already associate that combination with religious iconography, like the Vatican. 

(I also want to make a note that this is specifically associated with Christian/Catholic iconography. A lot of these shows could be classified as antisemitic in their handling of colonialism and genocide. I would argue--and will be arguing in my thesis--that Season 6-8 of Voltron’s plot heavily relied on antisemitic tropes, especially as it related to Lotor and the Alteans. But that’s for another day.) (Also see my discussion of Steven Universe’s Jewish identity above.)

So how exactly does She-Ra follow the White Savior trope, how is it similar to other stories’ utilization of the trope, and how does this all relate back to colonialism? I would say there are two main factors: setting up Adora as a white heroine with a darker-skinned foil (Catra), and setting up a narrative where Hordak “isn’t that bad of a guy, really.” For this part I’m gonna focus on Adora.

1: Adora as the White Savior

Adora is from the Horde. Keith is half-Galra. Steven’s mom is Pink Diamond. 

All three of these protagonists have some personal tie or connection to a group of colonizing villains. The Diamonds want(ed) to take over earth and suck the life force from it, as they’d done on other planets. They also used a super-weapon to with the intent to kill all the rebel gems. The Galra created an empire and also sucked the life out of planets. They also created a super-weapon that could kill an entire planet, and had already committed genocide against the Alteans. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Big Bad of She-Ra, Horde Prime, has similar goals. Hordak certainly does.

There is an ever-so-slight separation of Adora from the other two protagonists, who, at the start of the series, do not know they are related to the villain group in some way. (Steven doesn’t know he’s a Diamond.) Adora, on the other hand, starts the series as a villain. She’s part of a group that has actively been fighting and destroying the Princesses and the planet. The first episode notes that she is particularly good at her job, with Hordak nominating her for Force Captain. Adora also notes that “this is what [she’s] been working for her entire life.” When Catra and Adora leave the Fright Zone, it is not out of goodwill. They simply want to go for a joyride on a skiff. 

When Adora gains the power of She-Ra, she acts ignorant of the Horde’s actions. The first episode, Adora is completely defensive of Hordak. She even claims that “Hordak says we’re doing what’s best for Etheria.” It is not until the second episode that Adora begins to have any remorse for her actions--but also note that Adora’s main motivation during the first half of this episode is to continue onward with Bow and Glimmer because she wants to know more about herself, not repent for her actions. It is not until the end of the episode that she begins to become a bit more self-aware, but there is a key phrase that Glimmer utters that is very key to the White Savior narrative: “I feel like maybe you’re here to help us.” This line comes after Glimmer apologizes for not trusting Adora. Adora. The Horde soldier. The soldier from the group of colonizers who were responsible for the death of Glimmer’s father. 

Ok sure. 

Consider how realistic this is. (Not that fantasy has to be realistic, but when you’re working with a narrative based on systemic violence, you need to at least be considerate of how this works in reality.) Adora has been trained to fight and kill Princesses and their allies. She’s been trained to take over Etheria and strategically destroy and/or take resources to weaken them. Yet she acts as if this is all news to her. Suddenly meeting the people she’s been trained to destroy causes her to repent, and suddenly the people who have been victimized forgive her and trust her within two episodes. 

Here’s what I think is going on here: given the current hyper-conservative political climate and rampant xenophobia in the world right now, white creators feel the need to put a white person as the hero as if they’re claiming, “See, this character--and subsequently myself--aren’t like those other bad white people!” They want a degree of separation from the reality that they have white privilege and are part of the problem. 

There is no truly “woke” white person. White people have been raised in a society where they benefit off the oppression of the chosen “other,” in this case black and brown people. Even if you do your research like I’m doing, you still will mess up. White people cannot rid themselves of privilege no matter how hard they try, because in this current society, the legacy of colonialism, imperialism, and racism have made it so that white people will ultimately be more successful and have more opportunities for success than others. (Also, there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, so even attempts to be considerate about taking advantage of laborers cannot be completely successful.) 

All of this results in a lot of White Guilt. Thus, we end up with narratives where the white colonizer character suddenly has a change of heart and fights against the system without really challenging the core mechanics that put that system in place. But fighting against oppression and violence doesn’t make a white person special--it just makes them decent. 

It also ignores the fact that white people, to be blunt, haven’t done shit to advocate for inclusion and equity compared to literally everyone else. I want to pull another quote from the Teen Vogue article:

[White saviors] perpetuate an idea that is essentially a historical banner of colonialism: People of color need white people to save them. To this day, some people still latently believe what imperialists such as Rudyard Kipling said, that colonialism was important for everyone: the conqueror and, most importantly, the conquered. That without the colonizers, the colonized had no hope of survival. And by constantly churning out movies with plots in which white people "save" people of color, Hollywood reinforces colonialist dictum.

Why does Glimmer think that they NEED Adora to be saved? Why is this white woman the only one who can do it? Sure, Adora has the power of She-Ra, but remember that giving Adora, a white woman, that power was a CHOICE made by the writers. They could have given the sword to someone else, they could have made Adora a PoC... but they didn’t. So suddenly, because Adora, ex-Horde soldier, is there, the Princess alliance can be reformed, people start working together, the rebellion is saved! etc. etc. etc.... 

So then it’s extra ironic (and honestly is pretty predictable given this White Guilt narrative) when the White Savior trope goes right along with The Colonizers Weren’t Actually Evil, Just Misunderstood.

This post is way too long so I’ll continue in the next part. 

[lunuanaki]

hc; velka + the gods

This is an edited version of a post sent to sosayethlight as part of our “let’s shoot the shit about gods” discussion, and it is massive. Don’t embark on this if you’re not ready for an extensive description of Velka’s presence as a religious figure. All headcanon, as usual, because we’re supposed to be doing the fun here, not creating a wiki.

G-mun’s original question, in summary, was “What do Velka’s holidays look? What gifts are left at her shrines, or simply placed out for her; if such things are done? What do her worshippers expect from her? What do these worshippers look like, when they aren’t pardoners… And are they worshippers, or propitators?”

The thing that underpins my entire interpretation of the gods is my pre-existing knowledge of the norse pantheon and my inability not to match them up to one another. Solaire is an obvious Thor character, a well meaning, headstrong warrior with a love of fun, wine and bashing stuff; selfless to a fault but also somehow really kind of tunnel-vision in how he goes about things. Gwyn is my Odin, self sacrificing father-figure, though Gwyn sacrificed his whole being rather than his eye. They’re both equally ominous, you can never be quite sure of his reasoning or whether he’d put his love for his family over his own power. Gwynevere is my Idun, not a fighter, but no less important - she’s a mellow, sunny kind of gal who looks after things, in Idun’s case it would be her apples, and by extension, her family, in Gwynevere’s case, it would be her people - and also her family. Gwyndolin, oh man, I love to picture Gwyndolin as a twisted Baldr, bitter and blind to his own beauty, fragile in comparison to other gods, but still a god himself. Let’s throw in an honourable mention to Sif, who is named after one norse god, but who bears a striking resemblance to the Fenris-wolf.

So, where does Velka fit in here?

Velka is my Loki. I cannot even begin to explain my thoughts on Loki - but Velka is controversial, misunderstood, indifferent to people’s petty emotional struggles, a true neutral with no time for niceties. She is a spy, not a fighter; a joker, an overlooked observer who is rarely taken as seriously as she should be. She could rival Gwyn if she had the mind to, but as Loki owes much to Odin, so does Velka feel a sense of loyalty to Gwyn - so that wouldn’t happen, despite any trouble she might cause. She is balance, justice and truth at all costs. Like Loki, she has two aspects; one is the judge, and if she were only this aspect, she’d be a respected patron deity. This aspect is all about justice and fairness, an ideal patron for anyone interested in law or charity work. But her second aspect overshadows the first by miles, and that is her equivalent world-breaker aspect. This is what I meant by “at all costs”. Do not pray to her for help in overcoming an enemy if you hold a shred of blame yourself. Do not ask her to fix anything for you unless you’re prepared for her to burn down your current life and rebuild it. You should, as one of her followers, aspire to possess the self-assurance to objectively judge and fix your own life. Ask her to remove one harmful influence for you, and she will destroy it to remove them all at once. She is not a believer in painting over damaged walls. Her destruction is always in the name of fairness, though - she will never put you through more than she believes you are capable of taking. Stay with her and follow her guidance, and the result will be better than you could have imagined. You will go through hell - but keep going.

Because she is not a god you can just ask for things from, less clever newcomers to her service have often been burned by unexpected side effects of her influence. Their outrage and displeasure spreads like wildfire and by now, her worshippers are a handful of invisible, understanding individuals, who respect the good and the damage she can do. To the wider population, Velka is the patron of stupid edgy teenagers. If you imagine slightly ignorant old people irl who think satan worship is about being vocally alternative and goth and cool, this is pretty much how Velka and her followers are seen. Most see no reason to admire her when there are more accessible, “family friendly” gods to turn their attention to, so they dismiss anyone who does as either a fool or potentially dangerous. In reality, they’re a group of misfits - their lives have taken turns that led to her, and there are as many examples of events that might cause that as there are people. They tend to be highly individualistic, non-traditional and are often, but certainly not always, “undesirables”. So, to return to what you actually asked, Velka’s holidays are near-invisible. More social events are organised quietly - not in secret, anyone is welcome to join, though few dare approach to find out how, which doesn’t help their reputation for secrecy. Often, they will take the form of masked balls or similar, since your face and status aren’t as important as your actions and intent. Velka is an admirer of anything extravagant, so costumes, food and copious amounts of wine are often involved. As long as her followers’ personal freedoms don’t impinge on anyone else’s, they are free to do whatever they like, provided it doesn’t do undeserved harm - so these parties are in no way over-formal or sober. The timing would likely be somewhere around Halloween, for the likeness of the longer nights, clear autumn skies and full moons to her Carim home. It bears a few more similarities as well, in that she finds graveyards and places with links to death to be ideal settings due to their constant background reminder that all of those present will die - none are above one another in that regard, death is the ultimate equaliser. The gathering itself is a dedication to her, so no additional offering is required, so long as they acknowledge that their way of life and their presence there is granted by her and approved by no one else. Whether or not they are worshippers is entirely down to them - if they see themselves as such, then they are. If they prefer to think of themselves as followers, or something else, that’s fine, too. Her heavy emphasis on freedom and personal choice means they are comfortable with each others’ differences, and there’s very little infighting over who does it “right”. She would never say it because she truly believes all her followers equal, but she finds her solitary followers to be a little more equal than the others; these are the ones who might join in with the festivities, but they feel closest to her when alone. These are the ones who are likely to become full time pardoners, and only the best of them are brought to her and given control of a regional church of hers. Their private rituals don’t follow a set pattern, but always have an emphasis on cleansing (rock salt and sage are common choices). Their shrines to her are often unmarked, as it started off as a safety measure to hide from less tolerant objectors and became a tradition that fit in nicely with the reasoning behind the masks. The colours associated with her are deep reds (courage and vitality - the darker shades another reminder of mortality in their resemblance to blood) and purples (mystery, royalty, spirituality, connection with intuition), though mostly black (death, stealth, stability) and silver (an opposite to Gwyn and the sun-gods’ gold). These can be incorporated in any number of ways, but are commonly added using candles of one or all of those colours, altar cloths or gemstones. Typically, any rituals in her name are done after dark and are meditative in purpose. This is why these followers are so valuable to her - their introspection and focus on applying her ideals to themselves before trying to project them outwardly makes them perfect candidates for the inner circle that makes up her “official” covenant. Their private rituals might be simply as described, or they might intensify them by fasting beforehand or using any other method they find improves it for them personally. It’s typically a much, much more intimate experience than the organised gatherings. This intimacy is reinforced for anyone who makes it to pardoner rank, as their confessionals are off-limits to other pardoners and to anyone else they don’t choose to admit, meaning their space is theirs alone and dedicated to her. Because of her rejection of specified gender roles, she’s a popular choice among “rebellious” women, “frail” men and anyone who unashamedly enjoys sex, so some of them will include sex magic in their rituals, which provides absolutely no practical value, but Velka quite likes the idea. It’s nice that they’re enjoying themselves, isn’t it?

Things left at her shrine are small, usually - silver jewellery, crow feathers, magpie feathers if they know her well enough to know that her personal pet is one of these. The meaning is more important than the item, so a shiny pebble is perfectly fine if it happens to remind the giver of her for some reason. Those who come from more mainstream backgrounds often mistakenly assume that actual sacrifices are common, but they aren’t. The act of a human or animal sacrifice is an offence to her in itself, as the individual has effectively stolen a life and given it to her, though it’s not theirs to give. The last thing I can think of to mention is that most of her followers don’t realise she was human herself once, but those that do don’t see it as all that important. It’s because she was one of them that there’s a general sense of her being closer to them than the greater Anor Londo gods. Velka personally visits the confessionals of her higher ranked pardoners herself, though their lifetimes pass her by so quickly, she doesn’t always get to see each one. Still though, it’s common enough for them to encounter her in person, especially if they’re closer to the city walls. That adds to the view that she’s not a “real” god and isn’t worth being treated as one, despite the fact she is.

I just took this from a previous post and it just works:

So, overall, we’ve got a covenant that can be as compliant as a cooking fire, or could burn your entire world down, and watch it all over a crystal champagne flute from Anor Londo’s balconies.

[snaylzntaylz]

Wow wow wow! Just more clear proof Hillary Clinton is psychotic! I hate Trump, but Clinton would have been at the last equally as bad, if not 10x plus worse! She's a monster. A sociopathic, psychotic, narcissistic bitch, and she's no patriot. She's a traitor. She's continued the ongoing destruction of any sort of decent reputation we might have had left with the rest of the world. She's vindictive, crazy, and a war-mongering, ignoramus. She's a Soros-puppet who puts no value on human life. She's also racist, closet-lesbian who argued publicly for marriages to be solely between men and women because that's what she thought her target voters wanted to hear. She tells everyone what she thinks they want to hear, and goes behind their backs and backslides on her own statements or self-proclaimed bullshit convictions when meeting with others who disagree with what she's already gone on-record as having standing. She's two-faced, or multi-faced, and has already been leaked by her private $$$$$$$$ speeches that she has a public agenda and a private agenda, public opinions and private opinions, public stances and private stances, etc etc. You can get what you pay for with her, as long as it will continue to benefit her. Many people from her early career years go so far as to say that she hates children and never wanted any and only had Chelsea because it was their best chance of getting elected as a wholesome looking family. Their marriage is even more of a business agreement/arrangement than a marriage of love or religion. They raised Chelsea to be a ruthless legal-loophole-trained, politician-speaking, social-engineering, like-mother-like-daughter mirror image of the evil between the two of them. Have you ever listened to Chelsea talk about how she was raised and the games and quizzes they would pay with her as a child? Is totally demented and unnatural! Not only must we be careful to never direct any Clinton to any position of control ever again, but we musty also pay close attention to anyone and everyone they've ever had any substantial contact with and not to elect them or allow them to rise to power at any level either. Because Hilary, Bill, and Chelsea Clinton are all well-trained professionals of evil and they are all master manipulators and con men/con women. Anyone they've had the chance to influence or socially engineer you better bet they have or have tried to. They've socially engineered mass members of our society while they were in the White House. It so take generations of pushing them out of contact with entire societies, charities, and people in power before we can even begin to regain a smidgen of control and unravel the mess they've weaved of this country and others. By others, I mean like what Hilary has done to Libya and countries like it, what she convinced Bill to do while he was President, what they all did to Haiti and continue to do to poor countries with their scam of a charity foundation. Many White House insiders from the Clinton Era, including secret service agents sworn to protect and lay down their lives for them have come out in recent years publicly and in books describing how much control Hillary had during Bill Clinton's presidency, how she made most of the decisions for him, she "wore the pants" (or at least the pantsuit) in the marriage, she ran the show, she was abusive, controlling, and manipulative. Read the books these former secret service agents have written. They are astonishing to people who think Hillary is such a strong, wholesome, family woman. Strong surely, but not in any good ways! Christian woman? Ha! Highly doubtful! Hillary didn't stay with Bill when he cheated on her because she lived him so much or for religious reasons or anything of the sort. She stayed with him for the same reason she always has. He's always cheated on her. He's been her ticket into ruling over people. She doesn't love him,she's not in love with him, she could care less for him other than what being married to him can do for her. She prefers underage girls sexually, and she doesn't give a shit about any women's rights but her own. She doesn't care if women are raped or children are molested or raped either, according to multiple reports and a few victims themselves, she's raped and molested underage girls herself. One person has even claimed that she's a cannibal and has had people that she felt have crossed her murdered and has consumed and served up at least one of her victims to her friends and had some for herself. It's a sick world the elite live. Difficult for the majority of us to comprehend in any way. Especially when it seems so unrealistic and conspiracy-theory-like to hear these things. But just look at how many of their friends and colleagues are now being proven of being involved child sex slave rings and other sick, dark things. Do you think they really didn't know or partake? There is almost an entire police force worth of former Arkansas policemen who worked during Bill's office-holding of governor in Arkansas who all of them claim he had multiple girlfriends, did a lot of cocaine, and told them that Hillary was a lesbian. He's told them that he didn't want her to catch him and asked them to cover for him because she would get mad at him if he mucked up their chances to rule. She just wanted to rule through him, knowing how hard it was for a female to get elected. She ran the show behind the scenes to get him into offices of power so she could assume the throne behind closed doors. She's already been the United States President once, the public just never knew it. He wants recognition and she wants money, power, and recognition. That's what their marriage and family arrangement is. She never cared what drugs he did of who he slept with as long as he didn't get caught and ruin their political careers. She was constantly threatening and blackmailing women he has slept with in order to keep them quiet. She has even thanked some of them for keeping him satisfied in that area so she didn't have to, while simultaneously threatening them to keep their mouths shut about it. When they got into the White House, they pulled records on everyone they ever knew so they could blackmail anyone they needed to at anytime and anyone they didn't have dirt on our didn't have enough dirt on, they had them followed or framed to create either dirt on them or to have them arrested and ruin their lives. Any woman (or man) who refused to go along with Hillary's evil threats she made an example of and had them framed for crimes they didn't commit to ruin their lives, take away their freedoms, kill any/all credibility they might have had, establish motive of retaliation should they try to pursue anything against them, and made an example out of them- should anyone else think of disobeying her. Or, if timing was a problem and she had someone she trusted that was willing to do her dirty work, she'd just have them murdered, often after trying to make them appear insane or drive them to true insanity in an attempt to get them to commit suicide. Then she'd work hard to have their murders declared as suicides or frame another enemy in a homicide. She's ruthless, viscous, vindictive, terrifying, and scandalous! If all of this is true, and by as many witnesses as there are, it's hard not to believe all these people, most of which have everything to lose and absolutely nothing to gain by saying so, them Mrs Clinton might just be the most evil woman alive and perhaps the most evil woman of the century. The question is, will she go down in history as the evil beast that everyone who knows her says she really is? Or will she go down in history as the former First Lady who almost became the first woman President? I hope I'm wrong, I hope all these people are liars, I hope no woman, especially one that almost became or leader, is that awful of a human being. But if even some of these things are truthful, she's still sinful as all hell. In fact, even if none of this true, what we already know about her as public record is evil enough to have never considered her for president of our country! What she did in Benghazi, despicable! The emails, omg! The lying, deceit, lack of remorse/lack of empathy, lack of responsibility, etc. The ignorance, the rallying for bills promote the school-prison pipeline in black communities, the fraud, there's so many things. And what she and her DNC did to Bernie Sanders was inconceivable! So unforgivable that is likely the real reason she lost the election. Had she beaten Bernie fair and square and not stolen the primary, she might have had the majority of Bernie voters. But because the fraud was so obvious, the theft so in-your-face and I-don't-care, many Bernie voters voted for Trump, Stein, or didn't vote at all just to show Clinton and the DNC that our votes DO matter and if they won't count them in the primary then they won't get them in the general. She still got a lot of Bernie votes in the vegetal because so many people feared a Trump presidency, but it still wasn't enough. Her rallies had little-to-zero attending in most areas and when that happened the media faked them or used camera tricks to make them look packed. Bernie was drawing bigger crowds than Clinton and Trump combined everywhere he went! The DNC and Clintons various political groups tried to sabotage him repeatedly. The most successful they were before the total takeover of the DNC locking Venue delegates out and turning off the lights and sound where Bernie supporters were designated to sit, creating riots and protests outside, having the Media on her side, etc was when they got Black Lives Matter to take his microphone and take over his rally and put him in an extremely awkward position. Bernie was the ONLY politician who stood a chance to help the Black Lives Matter platform with sincerity, it turns out the crazy ladies who did that to Bernie didn't even have any authority within the movement to represent them like that and it ruined the Black Lives Matter movement in the process by wiring against it's own best interest, proving it too was a scam. A Clinton-Soros created/backed scam/sham created to cause more division among our society and part of a ploy to ruin Trump's chances. Trump is whole other conspiracy story in itself too. And I bet he and Melania are through, if she can hold on until he's no longer in office. She can't stand his lying, cheating, ignorant ass anymore and is so obvious it hurts! Maybe I've been misinformed on multiple fronts, and maybe most of what I've said are based on multiple liars, but that doesn't change the facts and the facts lead me to the same conclusions all the same. I just wish everyone saw it too. People just don't last attention or investigate anymore. They don't listen. They think they know what they think they know and they plug their ears and start running their mouths and never learn what might hurt them. I'm willing to learn. I'm open to bring proved wrong. At least proving me wrong requires others to see what I have seen and decide why they don't believe what I chose to consider as truth. I state multiple times thriving this post I could be wrong, misinformed, uninformed, etc. But some facts are facts and are public knowledge, undisputed, and as I've said before, those facts alone are enough to stand by my decision to despise the Clinton family, the DNC, Trump, and our political process. Period.