By Brandon Smith

If you are a longtime activist in the Liberty Movement then you are well aware that elections do not matter in terms of the future direction our nation takes. Presidents are puppets of international financiers, and so are most legislators. Whenever a president does attempt to go against the system, he either ends up shot by a “lone gunman,” or his office is disgraced by a conveniently-leaked scandal.

Today, elections represent the illusion of choice; that is all. The leadership of both major parties seem different in terms of their rhetoric, but this is all cosmetic. Underneath the talk, Democrat and Republican leaders are nearly identical in their support for bigger government, more centralization, less constitutional protections, more globalism, more power to international banks and central banks, and less transparency and accountability.

For many decades now, the choice has been between the puppet on the left hand or the puppet on the right hand. This year is proving to be a little different, at least on the face of things, to the point where elections are becoming rather surreal.

For younger generations with limited experience participating in the world of U.S. elections, developments today might seem odd but not outlandish. For older generations of Americans a consensus seems to be forming and the concerns commonly expressed in the mainstream and on the Web appear to match – 2016 is turning out to be the strangest presidential election they have ever seen.

In my recent article “Will A Trump Presidency Really Change Anything For The Better?” I examine Trump’s ambiguity as an individual and his lack of political history, and why this makes him a hard candidate to pin down. The fact is, Trump is enticing to the public for the most part because the public has no idea what he really stands for. We have no evidence that his rhetoric is false because he has no legislative history to contradict his claims.

With candidates like Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and Ted Cruz, the public is well aware of where they really stand on the issues – Clinton is hardcore globalist establishment, Ted Cruz is the same though he pretends to be opposite, and Bernie, well, Bernie is damn socialist and his only redeeming value is that he is at least honest about it.

The public knows what they will get with the other candidates; they do not know what they will get with Trump. Thus, Trump enjoys an incredible level of popularity because many Americans would rather gamble on the unknown than stick with the status quo.

The very presence of a candidate like Trump alone makes election 2016 extra weird, but this is only the beginning.

Some might argue that any change in the atmosphere of our election process at this point can only be a good thing. I would argue that the fact that the establishment is allowing their longtime control mechanism to evolve into an overwhelming reality television-style circus (rather than the stiff and boringly predictable farce we are used to) suggests that Americans are being deliberately distracted from dangerous geopolitical and economic developments.

Look at it this way; we have Trump who is an attack-dog candidate who ends up in the news every other day for something he said and who attacks a Democratic opponent with which he has in the past maintained a longtime friendship. We have a fully exposed international criminal in the form of Clinton, who has been under investigation and should be prosecuted. We have a full-blown socialist named Bernie whose supporters make up a majority of the crazed social justice and cultural Marxist crowd. And we have Cruz, a “pro-constitution” anti-bank candidate with ties to those same banks and ties to an anti-sovereignty think tank (The Council on Foreign Relations).

Some Republicans accuse Trump of being an agent for the Clinton camp. Some Democrats accuse Sanders of being an agent for the Republicans. Hillary barks like a dog at her own campaign events. Sanders supporters start fights at Trump rallies and then get their asses beat because cultural Marxists are abject weaklings. Cruz gets accused of repeated adultery while some idiot thinks that posting naked pictures of Trump’s wife will actually hurt his campaign rather than help it.

This whole situation feels like a soap opera gone terribly awry. How could one NOT be distracted?

In the meantime, we have a global economy returning to extreme volatility after years of central bank manipulation which has failed to accomplish anything except make the rich and powerful more rich and powerful. We have potential geopolitical hot spots in Syria, Ukraine and the South China Sea which continue to present possible triggers for global conflict. We have internationally organized terrorist supervillains in the form of ISIS, the same Islamic extremists that Western covert intelligence agencies trained and funded to destabilize the Middle East now attacking multiple countries in the West. And, we have Eastern and Western banks working closely with the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements while pretending to be at odds with each other.

Any of the above factors could set catastrophes in motion that could change the world for a hundred years or more, and yet we are fed a steady diet of campaign mega-drama.

As stated earlier, elections in the U.S. do not decide the future of our nation, but they do in many ways reflect the level of insanity that our collective society has reached, and, they also can reflect the direction in which the establishment hopes to send us.

I believe it is very possible, considering the already erratic nature of the elections so far, that we might end up with unexpected developments and outcomes designed to further mesmerize the masses. Here are just a few of those potential events.

A Three- Or Four-Way Race

Trump has suggested in the past that he might run as an independent candidate in the event that the Republican Party uses a brokered convention to remove him from the race. I am not convinced that the entire Trump vs. Republican Establishment situation is not a contrived Kabuki theater. That said, the general argument would be that a Trump independent run would “guarantee” a Democratic win.

Again, I believe the winner of the election is already predetermined, but assuming for a moment this is not the case, the Democrats have the same problem as the Republicans. Bernie Sanders has said months ago that he was not interested in running under a third party if Clinton gets the nomination, but his supporters continue to call for him to do so, and, many of those polled have stated that they would refuse to vote for Clinton if Sanders loses the nomination.

This presents a potentially frenetic final election filled with utter chaos; a three- or four-way “competition” in which there is no clear leader; a funny prospect for those of us who are tired of the election con game, but pretty disturbing to everyone else.

Delegates Choose A Candidate That Does Not Represent Public Wishes

Contentions are increasing over the existence of “super delegates” in the Democratic Party which have the power to override party majority sentiment towards a particular candidate. Many of these super delegates are actually top-ranking members and officials of the Democratic Party, and can vote for any candidate they wish rather than following a “pledge” to vote at the convention for the candidate that the democratic constituency wants.

While the Republican establishment tends to use convention “rule changes” as a fail-safe to prevent a grassroots candidate from achieving an upset in the nomination (as they did with Ron Paul), the Democrats use the super delegates as a fail-safe for the same purpose. It is very possible that Bernie Sanders could receive the widest popular support among Democrat voters but still lose the nomination to Clinton through the super delegates.

Convention-Inspired Conflict And Riots

Given the already seething angst between supporters of Trump, Cruz, Sanders and Clinton, any railroading of a candidate at the conventions, whether real or fabricated for effect, could very well result in internal violence spilling into open riots. Some candidates, including Trump, have suggested this will be the ultimate outcome. I tend to agree. The divisions between Americans are so pronounced now that I would be shocked if people did not react emotionally to a brokered or stolen convention. This would also be a fantastic method to continue the distraction of the public away from greater problems.

A Surprise Combined Ticket

This scenario had not struck me as realistic until last week; I’m not sure why (perhaps it is too strange), but it is certainly plausible. The idea that Trump and Cruz or Clinton and Sanders might actually combine forces at a brokered convention might sound ridiculous today, but keep in mind that most elections are nothing more than theater, and this includes fake rivalries. Beyond this, the argument could be made on either side that the only way to “win” is to unite the divided Democrats or divided Republicans through a truce. I can hear the sound bites now – “People, in the end we are all (Democrats/Republicans), and we must stop the divisiveness for the good of the party. It is time to focus on the real enemy; the (Democrats/Republicans)…”

Such a scenario could stave off rioting and inner-party chaos, but the final election results would still be a guaranteed explosion of tensions.

Widespread Election Fraud On Both Sides

Yes, there is already widespread election fraud in the U.S. every two to four years. However, what I am referring to is election fraud which takes a mainstream stage and which makes even the most oblivious Americans question the validity of the process. I am talking about the mainstream media deliberately pushing the meme of election fraud to help the establishment conjure the environment of instability they obviously want. I am talking about the complete unraveling of the American presidential race.

A Postponed Election

In the event of stolen conventions, election fraud or rioting, the election itself could very well be postponed. Congress does have the authority to pass a law postponing federal elections due to emergencies or “extenuating circumstances,” and, they also have the ability to transfer that authority to the executive branch.

Keep in mind, this could also take place in the event of a national crisis outside of the election process. An economic collapse, large-scale terrorist attacks, or general social breakdown could result in a postponed election. Though this is an incredibly unlikely scenario, with the way 2016 has been going I would not rule anything out. Also take note that such a scenario would result in a prolonged Obama White House and of course the inevitable outcome mentioned below…

Civil War

I have said it before and I’ll say it again, if Hillary Clinton is chosen by the establishment to take Obama’s place, the result would probably be outright civil war in the United States. The level of hatred among conservatives for that woman is so stratospheric I cannot see any other outcome. It might not happen immediately, but a solid bet would be conflagration within her first term.

With a Trump win, I could also see at the very least nationwide riots similar in tone to those that occurred in Ferguson, Missouri, with the social justice cultists running wild with their goofy slogans and molotov cocktails. These people are a paper tiger, however, and are only a threat if they manage to convince a majority of the ethnic American population to follow their lead.

The greater danger is if Trump is actually an agent for the establishment rather than anti-establishment. If Trump responds to rioting using unconstitutional measures or exploits the crisis to overstep the bounds of federal power, at that point we will know exactly who he works for. Again, with Trump, everything is a gamble and we won’t know until we know.

Some of the above theoretical scenarios might sound outlandish, but then again, if you traveled back in time a decade ago and tried to explain what the conditions of elections would be in 2016, I doubt anyone would believe you.

I continue to hold to the premise that the elections have entered the world of the weird because America itself is on the edge of something that will shake its very core. What that event will be is hard to say because there are so many possibilities, but tensions of this caliber usually escalate to crisis before they deescalate, and tensions today are surely escalating.

It is clear that we are in for a roller-coaster ride in the next year, so prepare accordingly, but also keep in mind that elections in themselves do not represent threats or solutions to threats. You and I, the awake and aware, are the solution to the threats facing this country. The elections only serve as a gauge for how close to the bottom of the abyss we actually are.

You can read more from Brandon Smith at his site Alt-Market.com, where this article first appeared. If you would like to support the publishing of articles like the one you have just read, visit our donations page here. We greatly appreciate your patronage.

You can contact Brandon Smith at: [email protected]