Presidential Campaign 2016: America in Search of Itself
MAY 23, 2016
A BROKEN PATTERN
The Donkey? The Elephant? The Party of the Little People? The Grand Old Party?
All lost in the history they no longer teach in our public schools. What’s left of our two major political parties? Colors. Red and Blue fitting safely within the American flag.
The major political parties we have known all our lives are now just labels with no meaning. But the political system they have operated in hangs on as controlling money flows to hold it tightly in place. Several hundred rich families support the political contests for President. A minor party – not even a legal entity in most places – the Tea Party – controls the political lives of approximately 60 Congressmen. They vote as they are told or are removed.
The game looks the same but inside we find empty shells..
What does it mean to be a Democrat? Democrats are no longer the party of the little people …the party of the working man. 36 years ago those ‘little people’ and working class whites voted for Ronald Reagan against every single self-interest they had and suffered as the union movement stopped dead for the first time since the New Deal.
Today those disaffected ‘little people’ threaten to vote for a Donald Trump.
What does it mean to be a Democrat? In the 1950’s to mid- 1960’s they were the liberals who made America the most powerful nation in history. They helped make the 20th Century the American Century; helped equalize income and opportunity as never before. By the 1990’s Bill Clinton was able to triangulate every reasonable Republican program idea, absorbing them into his administration, over-coming the stunning fiscal deficits left by Reagan while it took steps to appease the Republican money-men who helped eliminate that deficit by passing legislation affecting welfare, crime and student debt to please their needs.
Today, what do Democrats believe in? work for? Let us know if you find out.
What does it mean to be a Republican? Ronald Reagan’s administrations worked to get rid of the liberal America built by FDR’s New Deal. It did that very well even as it followed an economic course which produced historically massive deficits. Starve government was the principle involved. Get money out of government and you get rid of government itself.
Liberals depended on government; conservatives depended on the strength of the individual: those who make it make it…and as for the rest…go live in Texas for six months and see what you get as the result of those policies.
Republicans swear by conservative principles; insist that the rich and corporations should not pay much in taxes so they can make jobs…but then send the jobs overseas to increase profits. And keep those profits overseas so they can avoid corporate taxes. Conservatives insist that spending cuts will lead to prosperity but then run up staggering deficits on the national and state levels. Recently they decided that no government is the best kind of government and so stopped working. It’s all about words and no action.
Is it any wonder that the people of America are so disgusted that they will support anything that says crush this system and get rid of it. “You can fool some of the people some of the time…” etc. etc. but there is a limit…even for a nation with its head in its smartphone.
WHAT CHANGED?
When holding political office became a lifetime job…the meaning of political parties slowly disappeared under the weight of personal ambition. You need to wear the label to take part in the system but you don’t need to give a damn about what the label means in your constant effort to get and keep the job for a lifetime.
Serving in the public interest? Replicating the work of the Founding Fathers – plantation owners, businessmen, lawyers giving of themselves to develop the template of American Democracy and self-rule?
Never. Holding office has become professionalized; for those who seek to gain and hold on for as long as possible, their only concern is self-concern.
Both the Democratic and Republican Parties hold on to special sectors within the population…similar in education, upward mobility, income potential and the desire to maintain the system no matter what.
The Republicans maintain the capitalist hierarchy…ownership, control, money.
The Democrats support the managerial class, selective education, government bureaucracies and high-tech…Zuckerberg, Gates et. al.
And the working class? On their own. Seeking support wherever they can find it…Donald Trump. Bernie Sanders. Anyone but an establishment which no longer cares.
THE CANDIDATES
There is nothing new in a ‘populist’ appeal based not on facts, experience and truth but on the feelings of an electorate looking for something better and ‘mad as hell’ with what exists.
What is new about a Donald Trump is that he can play that role so easily, so naturally as if he has been practicing it – like a part in a Broadway show or TV series – for years. And he has.
Mr. Trump is not simply a ‘businessman’. Mr. Trump is a real estate developer. That world is a tough, rough, ‘anything goes if you can get away with it’ world. Mr. Trump understands that business. He could not run a Mom and Pop grocery store or a manufacturing plant, an oil company or a computer software business. He plays in the real estate ‘game’. It is not called a game for nothing.
And he has a TV persona that applies perfectly to that style of work. Everything is a ‘win’. You get the ratings, you succeed. You lose you are ‘fired’.
What he knows is all about TV ratings. And his audience. And so he appears Center Stage at all the debates…starts it all by pointing to the 15 men and one woman lined up on either side of him, looks at the 24 million people watching a cable network and says “See these people, they are not working for you, they don’t care about you, they only care about themselves”. And one by one, as the weeks and months go by – never saying much more than trash talk (as we say in sports) he knocks them all away…and “wins”.
Donald says he can game the system…make it work better…make us all winners again. He doesn’t say how, he never explains. He just says follow me and watch me do it. You’ll love it.
Bernie Sanders talks to a similar audience – but only in terms of their anger and frustration. These are young professionals struggling to make a living; college kids fearful that there are no jobs to look forward to but very high student loans sucking their future away even before they have one; people living on the edge or living at home with parents.
Sanders says the government has been purchased by big money buying politicians, buying laws that favor them, monetary and tax policies that give them more of American wealth than ever.
Bernie calls for a revolution…wanting the entire system to change, the structure to be ripped away and replaced by one with equality and opportunity. But he doesn’t say how; says that he hasn’t thought everything through, stays on message and marches across the country, building an audience, gaining support and significant money, determined to fight for the change even if he can no longer win the prize of the nomination.
And finally, Hillary.
She evokes no message, no theme, no big ideas, no examples of the talent and experience that the NY Times says make her the most qualified candidate for the Presidency in modern times…a stunning and perhaps true statement.
Hillary will either be the first woman President or not. While that is no real reason for anyone to support her, the very fact that she will be the Democratic candidate is no easy accomplishment and respect must be paid.
While the strength is not in her campaign style or decision-making about it, here is what she has already proved: the system has worked for the benefit of more people than any other system in world history…and it can work again with important fixes all along the line. Her strength is that she can make the government work again; McConnell would never dare say about her what he said about Obama. Some of her closest friends in the US Senate were people like Gingrich and McCain no friends of her husband, his style or his policies. But nonetheless…her buddies.
Hillary will not be a transition to a new system. Hillary will not fulfill a liberal dream beyond this single, vital fact: the ONLY HOPE FOR REGAINING A MIDDLE CLASS AND DECENT OPPORTUNITY FOR AMERICA’S WORKING PEOPLE IS A GOVERNMENT THAT WORKS FOR THE PEOPLE AS OUR GOVERNMENT HAS FROM TIME TO TIME IN OUR HISTORY.
Only government has the power to beat back the ferocious, overwhelming power of major money that now controls our nation.
Only government. Like it or not.
Although it is hinted at yet not explicitly stated in this and some previous threads here is that the ultimate culprit is the American voter as a class, what H. L. Mencken called the booboisie.