Outside of the hermetically sealed Beltway and disconnected partisan political pundit blogosphere, there exists the real world. That’s where the 99% live. It’s a place afflicted with very real hardship, where a majority are increasingly desperate, in which few believe there’s justice, or in the quaint American history textbook fable that we uphold a government of, by and for the People.
In that real world, a majority have received insufficient relief by their government from crushing, stagnating austerity and Depression-like conditions. Our lives have been rendered more and more insecure by economic inequality, a corrupt justice system, a failing infrastructure, corporatized schools/lives, outsourced jobs & trade agreements and staggering predatory medical, student and consumer debt, of which no one has remained immune.
While the election campaigns raged on with breathless coverage here, we continued to try to find ways to grapple with personal adversity. I have friends in their 40’s and 50’s cramped into urban apartments, forced to share already tight quarters with roommates because of financial constraints. Others with 10, 15, 20, 30 years experience working for the same company, or at the same job or in same sector, laid off, told to accept a severance buy-out or take early retirement. Friends in suburbia with kids out of college with swollen student debt of six figures, in which even the patriarch’s job as a lawyer doesn’t exempt his wife from carrying a full-time job herself. Most of the under- or unemployed have college degrees. There are stories everywhere of people having to go to other countries to get proper medical care that won’t sink them into catastrophic debt, forced into litigation over foreclosure, retirement pensions criminally ransacked and depleted, some groveling for any job they can find, many living hand to mouth existences, just enough money to get by month-to-month. One friend, a college professor in his 50’s with 3 decades experience, summed it up after being let go of yet another teaching job. “I’ve done everything right. I played by the rules, did it by the book; went to college, got good grades, good remarks from my employees and students. But I can’t find a job anymore.”
These stories are not being addressed by our elected officials, nor have they been covered with any sustain by a complicit and craven media. The fear and loathing just festers.
So the fear-mongering tactics in the elections once again worked their charm, with public relations firms holding all the cards, as they both always will. There are little to no substantive debates, balanced by incisive journalism covering them and active citizen participation in them. Coached endlessly to speak in measured, vanilla tones both party’s candidates are barely distinguishable, leaving the outcome to be decided by advertising and the media. Punditry and corporate news media, also bought and sold, create the headlines and sway public sentiment with sensationalism, and paired with the requisite public relations propaganda are like a fine wine complimenting a meal. Perfect, if you like a glass of distraction with your smokescreen steak. This headline says it all,“Republicans Gain from More Moderate Image on Social Issues." Just donning the right hat or color or any other superficial marketing edge secures the winning votes, here in America. Sadly, when faced with depraved opposition unwilling to take the People's reigns, "image" was all that was needed.
Ultimately, it was apathy from no longer being able to settle for crumbs that did the Democratic Party in. The xenophobic, bigoted, racist, fear-mongering, authoritarian Republican party should have been blasted back to the Stone Age, but they weren’t.
Seems pretty obvious to me: people feel an overwhelming class war is not being addressed. Despite overwhelming evidence contrary to AG Holder’s otherwise claims of the TBTF banks, not one Wall St CEO has seen their day in jail. The great BS story given by Wall St Protectionists in government, that a jury couldn’t be procured with the intellect to understand esoteric financial schemes necessary to convict criminal bankers, has been disproven. Nobody is under false assumptions anymore. There’s a two-tiered justice system, which adjudicates one way for the haves and another way for the have-nots, and everybody knows it.. It preys on the vulnerable and powerless; it enriches the worst offenders. Obamacare works for a tiny few, who so desperately need access to healthcare (which is a good thing), but it’s another huge sellout to the insurance companies. Moreover, corporations and wealthy elites are largely exempt from paying legitimate taxes, and people are furious about it.
Poll after poll after poll says there are big majorities of people who agree with these platforms:
- Tax the wealthy at a higher rate.
- End the wars
- Free healthcare by expanding Medicaid
- Free higher education
- Suspend all student debt
- End campaign finance
- Caps on CEO salary
- Higher minimum wage
But our Democratic politicians continue to slavishly listen to their public relations and think tank gurus. Proving again that constituents are no more than numbers, on graphs and maps, finely broken down into demographic, cold jargon. Sure, they may hold a perfunctory town hall session now and again to rub elbows with we commoners, but those encounters are cleansed away by the money paid by lobbyists and campaign donors, which entitles them to lopsided multiple visits to discuss “business.”
The alarming trend campaign spending should have the populace galvanized to reject the whole present electoral system. Mind-boggling sums of money continue to outpace previous elections, leaving the average voter - told his or her highest civic duty is to show up and vote for one or the other financial elite (and then go back to burying yourself in gadgets, celebrity gossip and 24/7 entertainment for the other 364 days of the year) - with a profound sense of apathy and hopelessness, voting time and again for the lesser of two evils. $80 million was spent on Kentucky Senate seat! Gov !% of NY received 81% of his contributions from donors of at least $10k. Percentage of donors giving $1k or less: .0.7%.
The median net worth of Congress today is over $1 million. The unspoken code in DC now is to make the occasional populist-sounding speech, don’t pass any legislation that infringes on your donor’s profit-seeking, until you’ve bided your time when you re-enter the Beltway as a consultant or lobbyist and multiply your fortune many times over with all your connections.
American democracy is nothing more than monetary quid pro quo.
Then there’s the still-confounding matter of a two-party system. One not so well-know result of which is that the two major parties agree to run the debates, which means excluding all third parties, ensuring so little diversity in platform. Our Best Democracy In The World has other curious features. We have this circus-like thing called the electoral college to determine the presidency, the party in power gerrymanders districts for their own gain, and we limit voting to on only one day, which happens to lie the beginning of the work week during one of the coldest seasons (but, but, “We’ve got the finest democracy in the world” we like to say; yeah, just like our healthcare system, which also comes with the often-forgotten caveat, “that money can buy”).
When held up to scrutiny our present democratic system is a shambles, with the whole setup pretty depressing and failing miserably.
Will it ever sink in? The whole thing is a charade. We don’t have a democracy. We have an oligarchy. Better yet, a very good case could be made that is more clearly fascism, based on an increased police and surveillance state coupled with complete ownership of our elected officials by Wall St, Corporate America and global Big Business. How can anyone with a straight face believe we ascribe to democratic ideals anymore?
Not one Democrat had the balls to tell off their public relations people, look at a decrepit political system and call it out honestly, or to speak truthfully about the reality of life in America today.
The politician class fear their campaign donors, public relations firms and think tank/party bosses, instead of their constituents.
Democracy in America, if it can still be called that, is a loathsome, hideous joke.
We have to become better ancestors.