By Ben Tanosborn
Why, I am constantly being asked by my overseas peers, do you Americans have such affection for a creepy old pretender, a political candidate who’s been around forever, and all he has done is have his way with you? Does the “me-or-else” political ultimatum award Lesser Evil license to govern and rape? Whether dressed as Tweedledee or as Tweedledum, Lesser Evil righteously appears to so think; adding one more rosary bid in our march towards the 2016 presidential election… just as it happened in 2012 and, as I tap into my memory, to all other quadrennials before then.
Enter the protagonists this year playing the part of Lesser Evil: Clinton and Trump; both well experienced in deceit, one consistently showing signs of being a truly consummate sociopath, while the other disguises a different strain of the same affliction reasonably well. Both candidates pied-pipering away to their immutable, loyal following which approximate in each case almost a quarter of the electorate; leaving us, the remaining half-plus, trying to determine who of these two becomes our least distrusted psychopath to lead America in all domestic and foreign affairs: our faithful but not so beloved Lesser Evil, of course.
Neither Democrats nor Republicans have party memberships which come close to having a reasonable cross-section of the population in the two critical areas that divide the nation: race and economics… not remotely! And that fact alone, like never before in America’s history, poses insurmountable problems in governing, and brings a constant impasse which does not lend itself to negotiation, much less compromise. It also adds serious impediments in selecting, or compromisingly-accepting, leadership that can be respected, if not accepted, by a society with a true common ground.
Hillary’s ascent to the Democratic nomination is a vivid example of how a likely-to-lose general election candidate – had the GOP nominated a sane conservative – prevailed over Honest Bernie. Not only was the DNC unequivocally proven to be in Hillary’s safe pocket, something for which there has been little to none media/public outrage, but the scoundrelous Clintons also had the old clique of black community and church leaders in their fist, totally and irrationally influencing the primary vote. And I say irrationally on the basis that Bernie Sanders would likely have proven to be a far superior advocate for blacks on all fronts. Sad bottom line for the Democratic Party: had black voters equally supported Hillary and Bernie, and the party elite not cast their preference for Hillary Clinton before the primaries, Senator Sanders would have walked away with the party’s nomination hands down, not Clinton. Sanders, who had been “allowed” entrance to the primaries by the Democratic hierarchy as a political side show, tainted with the political scarlet letter in the US – S for Socialist, just could not be permitted to represent the Democratic Party in what its hierarchy likely saw a suicide candidacy. So Sanders was mercifully put to pasture as a party’s beast of burden, not as a racehorse.
In similar vein, had the bigopat crowd (angry bigoted patriots) not found a pied-piper in born-again Republican Trump, a non-conservative self-serving billionaire, a conservative nominee would have emerged from the ranks of the Republican career politicians; in much the same fashion as Hillary’s crown had been placed on Bill’s political queen. Not that it would have made much difference in America’s non-democratic binary politics! Once again, much-raped America will always have a prospective escort, old-and-creepy Lesser Evil, to take her to the Quadrennial Cotillion.
I have often been told by my peers overseas, mostly in a discreet and constructive way that our lack of civic/political involvement in government might have inflicted on us our just deserts. But if we have been politically indigent in the past, perhaps due partly or wholly to our privileged economic condition vis-a-vis much of the world, circumstances thrust upon us, while unprepared and in full force against the whirlwind of globalization need to be reevaluated and changed. Politicians of both parties have been extremely careless and derelict in their approach to globalization.
To summarily complete the division in America, traditional politics (politicians) also fail to acknowledge the strident racial disharmony which still permeates the nation. Such racial disharmony is treated in the same blind-deaf-mute way we treat the existence of the metric system; hoping that they both hopefully disappear, effortlessly in our part.
The political duopoly in America simply does not work; nor does it offer hope, a future for a cohesive society. It may have reasonably worked in the past because of our very gifted, blessed economic advantages… but those advantages are either gone or exiting fast. If we are looking for a brighter, more optimistic future for all, and not just 20 percent knights and squires in our population, America needs to bring to the political table OTHER people and ideas, not just continue with the same Demo-Repugnancy, that will enlarge our political wisdom and give us a pathway to reach physical and economic well-being as well as provide a moral compass for all.
A corporate media that would force bringing Greens and Libertarians to the presidential debates in 2016 would forever find its penitential-redeeming place in America’s history.
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