The Depressing Reality of America’s Political Scene

W.J. Astore

America’s Democratic Party, as it stands today, is essentially a pro-business and pro-war party. On the political spectrum, it’s a center-right party, roughly equivalent to the Republican Party of the 1970s but probably more conservative. Joe Biden, for example, is against Medicare for All, and he’s abandoned all talk of a single-payer option. He’s refused to fight for a $15 federal minimum wage. He’s most likely extending the war in Afghanistan well past the troop pullout date of May 1st as negotiated by the Trump administration. He’s keeping military spending high and is pursuing a hardline foreign policy vis-à-vis Russia and China.

America’s Republican Party has become the party of Trump. It’s unapologetically far-right, evangelical, anti-immigrant, and openly contemptuous of Democratic calls for “diversity.” Like the Democratic Party, it’s militaristic, pro-business, and pro-war, but is even more in favor of blank checks for Wall Street and the major banks and corporations. Its strategy for future victories focuses on suppression of minority voters through various laws and restrictions (voter ID laws, closing polling places, restricting mail-in and early voting, and so on). The Republican Party’s version of “cancel culture” is canceling as much of the vote by minorities as it can.

You’ll notice what’s missing: any major political party that’s center-left or left; any party that has any allegiance to workers, i.e. most of America. There are new parties being created, like the People’s Party, that promise to fill a gaping hole on the left, but it may take decades before a new party can seriously challenge America’s two main parties.

What’s truly depressing is that the mainstream media, along with the Republicans, sell and support a narrative that the Democrats are radical leftists. That such a laughably false narrative is embraced by America’s talking heads on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and the other major networks highlights their complicity in ensuring the triumph of business and war imperatives in America.

What this means for elections in 2022 and 2024 was brought home to me by Richard Dougherty’s book, “Goodbye, Mr. Christian: A Personal Account of McGovern’s Rise and Fall” published in 1973.  Dougherty nailed it back then when he talked about the baneful influence of the Republican Party as led by Richard Nixon and its reaction to attempts at real reform by George McGovern.  Here’s an excerpt:

“McGovern saw something new emerging in American politics and saw that it was ugly and frightening not only because of its burglars and saboteurs, its insensitivity to the delicate mechanisms of freedom, but for its profound deceptions of a troubled people which, if successful, would reduce and debase them as a people.  Nixon offered no improvement in the life of the people but only empty and ersatz satisfactions to their angers and bewilderments.  It cost the rich Nixonian oligarchs nothing, yet it gratified the lumpenbourgeoisie to tell the poor to go out and get jobs, the black children to stay off the buses, the young draft evaders to stay out of the country, to make noises about permissive judges rather than hire more policeman.

Let ‘em eat revenge.

That was the gimmick.  Was not this sleaziness, this moral midgetry, this menace to the American character, proper stuff for a presidential candidate [like McGovern] to raise as an issue?” (246-7)

If only …

I thought this passage captured what we’re likely to see in the next four years: more sleaziness, more deceptions, more divisiveness, even as the plight of ordinary Americans worsens.

But it’s worse now than in 1973 because the oligarchs now own both parties, the Democratic as well as the Republican.

The challenge for us all is to look past the sleaze, the deceptions, the divisiveness and to focus on bettering the plight of ordinary Americans.  To free ourselves from the oligarchs and the narrative control they exercise via the major media networks.  To recapture the reformist spirit of the 1960s and early 1970s as embodied by a leader like George McGovern.

Much hinges on whether America can do this.

47 thoughts on “The Depressing Reality of America’s Political Scene”

  1. Professore, I think the deck is stacked against your proposals and is reinforced not only by the media (as you have pointed out) but also by the American school system (which I’ve drawn from talking with assorted nieces & nephews). Here’s how it lines out …
    1. WWII-era America, “the greatest generation” against which all others – past and present – pale in comparison.
    2. The Sixties through the mid-Seventies were the worst years for the Nation … ever.
    3. Thank God for the Reagan Years
    4. Barrack Obama was an anomaly, as is Joe Biden.
    5. (Something else could go here, but I’ve just looked out the window and it’s snowing for the third time today.)
    6. There is nothing more important than prosecuting and winning the war on terror, which threatens our American way of life, possibly our very existence.
    I’m not sure “ordinary Americans” view themselves as such, but I don’t think they recognize or care about the various designations (centrist, center-left, conservative Democrat (!)). Politicians are either Republicans or Democrats, Right vs Left (left still associated with radicals & Commies/socialists). After all, there’s no center section in Congress, right? You’re on one side of the aisle or the other.
    I could be wrong, of course …

    Liked by 2 people

  2. Very well said Mr. Astore, and I hope you are right. I have seen the American people repeatedly choosing the sleazy option in my adult life which began in 1971.
    First the rejection of George McGovern and the embrace of Richard Nixon.
    Next the election of Ronald Reagan who may have been the worst president of the twentieth century. He laid the ground work for union busting, corporate favors and influence, and much more.
    I will skip all the rest except the election of Donald Trump which so far is the low point.

    I do not have much hope for any new party because the American people do not want real change. Fear and anger rule the day and a people in that state of mind will always be easily manipulated. Exactly how Americans can regain their will and courage is the big unknown. It may be that the disease of decadence has progressed too far and the patient has no chance to recover.

    America seems to be following the course of the Roman empire which had numerous ‘times of troubles’ and was about to fall several times when a competent general would assume command and save it. It may be that Mr. Biden is our Hadrian who is tidying up the mess from the last incompetent, but offers nothing new.

    It may be that all the thoughtful can do is to live their lives as ethically as possible and lean on each other for support. As the Dali Lama says ‘Develop the heart, and Never give up’.

    Liked by 2 people

  3. Thomas Frank’s latest book “The People, No” really goes into your points, Mr. Astore. It did not surprise (but still sadden) me that the American political system had been crushing truly progressive movements since the later 19th century (and in the case of the Populist party, the Democratic Party held the hatchet that killed it). There is ground for a real people’s movement in America, but on every step of the way the politicians and lobbyists are there to stymie it.

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  4. As touching “the heart” this is from the Acts of the Apostles,
    For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:
    But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.
    Acts 2:28-29

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  5. Regarding your last full paragraph, Professor, my feeling us that you’re unquestionably right about what needs to happen in this country and elsewhere. But how, exactly, do we free ourselves from the oligarchs and the eternal, pervasive disinformation campaign? How do our citizens get past the divisions? It’s the path that’s the issue: we don’t seem to be able to find it.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. It should start, I think, with campaign finance reform. But how to effect this when Congress likes the corrupt system as it exists today?

      I don’t know. Some people are calling for a national strike. Something like a yellow vest movement here in the USA. But labor unions have withered, unlike in France …

      There are no easy answers. The system is rigged. How to unrig a rigged system is a major challenge. It will take more than our two blogs to do it! 🙂

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Right you are: no easy answers. I’ve liked the idea of a national strike since it was proposed, but there’s the obstacle of convincing already-strapped people to sacrifice more working days. Even that idea is putting the cart before the horse, though. First, there would be the necessity of persuading masses of people that a strike would accomplish something, then the matter of laser-focusing on a goal. Perhaps all a prohibitively complex undertaking here, where strikes have almost become a thing of the past. The French are much more prone to put on the vests. Americans are lazy and apathetic by comparison. Well, actually, they’re lazy and apathetic altogether, overall.

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  7. In general complaints of this sort ignore that The People are just as flawed as the politicians they elect. Politicians are just followers and actually represent the American People pretty well maybe.

    Perhaps look at it the other way around. It isn’t the politicians who are at fault but rather the fault lies first with The People.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I disagree, Rapier. If elected officials actually represented the people, we’d have Medicare for all. We’d also have taken more stringent measures, long before now, to fight climate change. Corporations and wealthy individuals would pay higher taxes. The minimum wage would be much higher. These are just four things that polls show up to 70% of the population favors. They have not come to pass because our officials actually represent their donors—large corporations and mega-rich individuals—instead of their Joe and Jane Average constituents.

      Liked by 2 people

    2. Yes — I think blaming the people just shifts the blame. Representatives are supposed to represent us, but they don’t. A system thoroughly corrupted by money ensures that Congress represents the rich and powerful. Judges are carefully selected — look at the present conservative majority on the Supreme Court and the Citizens United decision, where money = speech and corporations are people too. And of course Biden was selected by the oligarchs, whereas Trump was simply one of them.

      Which is not to say the people are entirely blameless …

      Liked by 1 person

  8. may you not lose heart as have so many of us pyrrhonists, wja; please persist in offering us one of the few anacrusic bars of upbeat music available to us via the alternative media.

    the TV-addled crwth could more clearly hear your anacrustic beat better if they defenestrated their idiot boxes, straight-the-way out of their bedroom, kitchen, living room, and bathroom windows… yes, many even gaze at their electronic-drug boxes perched on their toilet seats and have been thus gorgonized by TV since the 1950’s.

    TV is a more addictive drug than heroine., and it distorts the brain’s relationship w/ reality. i would be in your debt if you could bring your brilliant writing skills to your audience promoting the elimination of this invidious electronic drug. your authorship is more effective than a cooling glass of white wine on a coruscating sunset night.

    if you have not already, please read author marie winn’s magnum opus, THE PLUG-IN DRUG. it was published in the mid-1970’s.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Jeanie, you have it right. The screen is the mother of apathy. While it could be a stimulant to action, little in that vein will be allowed on and truth to tell, the viewing public doesn’t want to be upset in the living room at night. Escapism rules through vicarious enjoyment of sex, violence and wealth, endless humor and horror, and the biggest money maker of all, professional sports providing cathartic emotional release that changes absolutely nothing. What is escaped is outside the front door where deep issues go unaddressed as mentioned in Prof. Astore’s essay.

      As I may have mentioned here, I ride a bicycle, often at night to go to the grocery for this or that. What I see on my rides are living rooms dominated by flashing colors from huge screens, the unseen occupants not visible, relaxed on a chair or couch.

      I am outside moving down the street but am captivated…all the color, the endless changing scenes, even if faces cannot be made out and no sound is heard, the visual stimulation is attractive without knowing what is being shown. Animals are drawn to the visual for survival, but we’ve perfected a tool that makes pictures of things, not the things seen in reality, both magnetic and soothingly paralytic. High definition transmission allows one to fly away via an electronic device that no flying carpet could match. And all it demands of the viewer is to watch.

      Revolution comes when people are face to face all the time with reality and cannot avoid it. Misery and deprivation drive demands for change. It comes when people say in large numbers, “what have we got to lose by taking action?” and the answer is nothing. It won’t happen now because of our universal electronic pacifier. Tune in, turn on, drop out is done nightly by millions in a way that Timothy Leary never imagined when he promoted LSD.

      He also could not have imagined the rampant drug use in America that screams to us that we are plagued with problems, that there is misery that people will risk addiction to escape. Up the nose, in the arm, swallowed in a pill…blessed relief! How many Americans might look at drug addiction and lament that so many seek escape at such a price, only to sit down before the bright changing colors for yet another evening.

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      2. and yet, here we are again, clif9710, in front of the mother-of-apathy, the ignominious screen-of-addictive electronics, aka, the ‘monitor’ of every verbal input we pass along via our computers to others. why do we waste our time thus, instead of dancing along in sambas of release in the hypaethrals w/ our consociate loved ones, animal companions, or even nakedly alone?

        perhaps it is b/c we all need reinforcements from those who commiserate w/ us, given that we are eusocialistic animals, who have not managed to evolve beyond the eusocialistic and quotidian demands of a termite colony’s nest. en effet, i suggest, to my peril, that we are devolving as a species instead. i find the cephalopod molluscs and other invertebrates in my research realm a far more intriguing and aware species than our own.

        i recall returning home in the early 1960’s for thanksgiving break from the presbyterian women’s college i was attending as an undergrad [equipollent spirits forbid!] to find my parents, glued like gorgonized zombies, to a TV screen. they were so mesmerized by some gormless, neoteric program, they had failed to collect me from the bus station. so i hiked home. when i arrived, i found them parlous-transfixed by this new-age electronic device. they had completely dismissed from their cortical machinery that their daughter was coming home for thanksgiving and needed to be met at the local bus station. i decided on the spot, full-stop, that if i ever had children of my own [eventually i had 7] i would never allow such an addictive, deleterious device to enter and maculate my household.

        i adhered to that tacit promulgation throughout our family life…. tho’ i must admit, it was easier to do so, given they were raised in 3rd and 4th-world ambits, than if they had been compromised and contaminated by the electronic depredations of canada, our country of citizenship. TV addictions are so deleterious to a child’s intellectual development that it should be listed as a banned drug.

        thank you for your comments, and insightful observations during your night-time bicycle rides, clilf9710! you are yet another outlier of our subspecies, ‘Homo sapiens sapiens’.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Agree wholeheartedly about children and TV, Jeanie.

          As regards this handful of us who communicate via the ubiquitous screen, even while we denigrate it, I’d say in our defense that we’re conscious of how we use it. Also, those of us of like mind mostly feel like outliers, as you mentioned, so mutual exchanges are a form of support system.

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          1. right you are , denise; w/out these electronic mechanisms and cyberspace support structures, how would we outliers have found each other… never mind be enlightened, sustained, and indurated by each other? the substratum beneath iconoclasts is alrady dangerously thin and persists in being relentlessly attenuated.

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      3. I’m not as down on TV. I grew up watching sci-fi shows like “Star Trek” and “Space: 1999” that were imaginative and, in their way, educational. I’m posting an article about this today.

        Still, I agree that TV can serve as an electronic pacifier — or worse. And let’s not forget who made his name and reputation on TV as an expert “boss”: Donald Trump.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. A theory about this issue of TV: perhaps some of those who grew up without it see it as a pernicious invader, the same as some of us who grew up without cell phones see them the same way. And yet, those born in the last 30 years see phones as an integral part of life. The difference being, perhaps, that phones are an even more invasive species, and an even worse influence, portable everywhere as they are. No doubt that we’re all succumbing to electronic dominance, one way or another, except for those few who’ve chosen to live off the grid.

          As for TV and me, I’ll admit there are some shows I watch, but definitely NOT sitcoms, reality shows, or the travesties that now pass for what we used to call variety shows. I was captured by the recent Mr. Robot, adored Mad Men, and of course, wouldn’t do without PBS.

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  9. The narrative you are pushing about the Republican Party is as laughingly false as that laughingly false narrative that Democrats are radical leftists.
    But your point on looking “past the sleaze, the deceptions, the divisiveness” is right on. We need to reject treachery. In all forms. Much hinges on whether America can do this, said someone wise.

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    1. What is inaccurate about my description of the Republican Party? Not of certain Republicans, but of the party itself and its policies and actions?

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      1. You did not inaccurately describe the senior right-wing faction of America’s Corporate-Military Duopoly, Bill. Nor the junior right-wing faction, either. As Thomas Frank described them:

        “For all their cunning, Republicans are a known quantity. Their motives are simple: they will do anything, say anything, profess faith in anything to get tax cuts, deregulation and a little help keeping workers in line. Nothing else is sacred to them. Rules, norms, traditions, deficits, the Bible, the constitution, whatever. They don’t care, and in this they have proven utterly predictable.”
        . . .
        “The Democrats, however, remain a mystery. We watch them hesitate at crucial moments, betray the movements that support them, and even try to suppress the leaders and ideas that generate any kind of populist electricity. Not only do they seem uninterested in doing their duty toward the middle class, but sometimes we suspect they don’t even want to win.”

        The Late Sheldon Wolin in “Democracy, Incorporated” (2006) agrees:

        “The Republican Party is not, as advertised, conservative but radically oligarchical. Programmatically it exists to advance corporate economical and political interests, and to protect and promote inequalities of opportunity and wealth.”
        …
        “While the Republican Party is ever vigilant about the care and feeding of its zealots, the Democratic Party is equally concerned to discourage its democrats.
        The timidity of a Democratic Party mesmerized by centrist precepts points to the crucial fact that, for the poor, minorities, the working class, anticorporatists, pro-environmentalists, and anti-imperialists, there is no opposition party working actively on their behalf. And this despite the fact that these elements are recognized as the loyal base of the party. By ignoring dissent and by assuming that the dissenters have no alternative, the party serves as an important, if ironical, stabilizing function and in effect marginalizes any possible threat to the corporate allies of the Republicans.”

        Gore Vidal, of course, long ago recognized the true nature this political performative theater: “America has only one political party, The Property Party, and it has two right wings.”

        Any talk of a political “Left” in the United States — especially having anything to do with the Republican Party’s right-wing junior varsity (i.e., the Democrats) — merits only one response: derisive ridicule.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. It’s hard to fly with two right wings, isn’t it, Mike?

        Makes me think of America as a ship of state that’s constantly on hard right rudder. The result is we go in circles, no progress, just constantly turning rightwards.

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        2. To continue the nautical metaphor, when Democrats assume the watch from the Republicans they continue circling the ship hard to starboard but they start talking funny: employing vapid-sounding euphemisms like “center” to convince themselves and their “base” — suburban “professionals” with post graduate degrees in sociology and “law” — that they aren’t just right-wing understudies begging for some of that donor-class loose change. So what remains of the former American “republic” continues circling (or spiraling) towards a kind of neo-feudal fascism:

          Always Moving to the Right (or, “Center”)

          Red-baiting without the reds,
          Dick Nixon without the dick,
          McCarthy went off her meds
          And tail-gunner Jane got sick.

          The Russians did something, but,
          No evidence proves a thing.
          The war witch got beat. So what?
          She wanted, and got, her fling:

          A last chance at breaking glass,
          The ceiling and not the floor,
          But fell on her ample ass
          And got booted out the door.

          She lost to a game-show host,
          A rookie on his first jaunt,
          A real-estate con at most,
          With money and wives to flaunt.

          More dollars she raised, then blew
          On pollsters who told her stuff,
          Except what they never knew:
          That people had said, “Enough!”

          They just wanted peace and jobs
          No NAFTA or TPP
          It hurt when she called them slobs
          Deploring their dignity.

          She campaigned as if by rote,
          Neglecting a few key states.
          The neophyte, he took note
          And trashed her in their debates

          The voters held up one hand.
          The finger to her they gave,
          Then sent (with a TV brand!)
          Her dreams to an early grave.

          She never did think to look
          How far from the Left she’d run.
          So seeing, the Right-guy took
          One step to the Left — and won.

          She then wrote a book (she said),
          Explaining (though in the dark),
          “What Happened” the title read
          But left out the question mark.

          Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright © 2018

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Yes — it’s hard to starboard — without the order ever getting changed or countermanded.

            To speak of “Star Trek” again, I recall a classic line from Scotty: “And at warp 10 we’re going nowhere mighty fast.”

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      3. Putting a Facebook fact-checker hat on (it does not fit well, and hurts a bit): Two thirds of your “Republicans bad” paragraph is misinformation, Mr. Astore (the opening and closing statements). Only the middle sentence could be considered partially true (hence accurate?) in relation to the party itself.

        “America’s Republican Party has become the party of Trump. It’s unapologetically far-right, evangelical, anti-immigrant, and openly contemptuous of Democratic calls for “diversity.”
        TJO: Not even close.. It’s about Values.

        Like the Democratic Party, it’s militaristic, pro-business, and pro-war, but is even more in favor of blank checks for Wall Street and the major banks and corporations.
        TJO: In general, yes.

        “Its strategy for future victories focuses on suppression of minority voters through various laws and restrictions (voter ID laws, closing polling places, restricting mail-in and early voting, and so on). The Republican Party’s version of “cancel culture” is canceling as much of the vote by minorities as it can.”
        TJO: The facts are out there…this one is at best a spin, but more like a smear. This is a Progressive version of cancel culture by using race in order to stifle reform.

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        1. would be in your debt if you could deliver those “facts that are out there”, tjosteen. please enlighten us donnards as to “cancel culture’s using race in order to stifle reform”… how so? your elucubrations are welcome here on this heavily consociate anti-neocon/-neodem attendees, most of whom embrace the hope of supporting a viable 3rd-party that is inclusive of all contributors to the human race’s well-being.

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          1. Two questions, a welcome, and a flowery aspiration..thank you for your reply, J-Mac.
            I do appreciate the “welcome”…it is the first I have had here from your heavily consociate and inclusive attendees. I contribute daily to the human race’s well-being, but oddly I don’t feel included or welcomed here. Some really great thoughts are shared here (Michael Murry, Butsudanbill, others…) but in general this space is very low on the “tolerate and consider other thoughts” spectrum. Hopefully that mystical 3rd party will deliver more in that regard. Perhaps that is why it has never been viable.

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            1. indeed, tjosteen. we all need comprehensive and deep-drilling inputs in this forum… from every persuasion and perspective, in a 360-degree spectrum of enlightenment.

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          2. All are welcome here. But all are also challenged to defend their views with facts, including the site’s creator. I’d love to hear a persuasive argument about the Republican Party’s virtues and its noble goals for America’s future.

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          3. Facts supplied below, Mr. Astore. Respectfully, I do appreciate your sincere welcome. Have always known that about this site’s creator. That is why I come here.

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        2. First, no party is a monolith, but when I speak of Republicans and Democrats here, I’m speaking of the leaders, the string-pullers, the RNC and DNC.

          Second, please define the “values” of the Republican Party.

          Third, please explain how Republican-led efforts to restrict voting constitute legitimate “reform.” Reform of what? Voter-fraud is virtually non-existent.

          In my post, I criticize both parties; you appear to accept my critique of Democrats but reject most of my evidence-based critique of Republicans. Why do you think this is?

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          1. I answered your first question, Mr. Astore, and you hit me back with three more questions. I’ll answer one more, and then hope from some inspiration (I know you have it in you : ). I rejected your critique because it was so biased and inaccurate in so many ways. Here’s just one: For Democrats, you stated that they are: pro-business, pro-war party, center-right. For Republicans, you stated they are the party of Trump, far-right, evangelical, anti-immigrant, anti-diversity, militaristic, pro-business, pro-war, and vote-suppressing, and (implied) racist. That’s three for the Dems and ten for the Republicans. That’s just one example…simple math, obvious bias. Nothing else to say about the Dems? Nothing on tolerance? Restriction of civil liberties? The question back at you is why do Progressives continue to be apologists for the Dems?

            Lastly, your critique of Progressives was glaringly missing. I could provide that, if you like. But I think you could do it better, by leveraging those Star Trek analogies that you do so well: suggest you use “The Way to Eden” (that’s in part a call-back to Jeanie M’s comment above). I echo Mr. Spock’s closing words, and I am not Herbert.

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            1. being a 1941 birth-bairn w/ no tv in our home, i have no idea whom spock represents, who herbert is, nor what the fascination is w/ star trek. i’m hopelessly antediluvian in regard to your generation’s tv purlieux, cultural zeitgeists, or electronic entrainments. do know, however, that there is no need to edify me as it is way past our respective ‘bedtimes’, and it would be an exercise in futility

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          2. I suggest you read my article again. My critique of Democrats goes further than you suggest. For example, I call out Joe Biden for his hypocrisy, his promise-breaking, his refusal to help workers by raising their pay. Also, I criticize him for extending the Afghan war and for being an obedient tool of the MIC.

            In other articles, I’ve attacked the DNC and Biden for what could be termed “optical diversity.” But not true diversity in the sense of views and policies. Also, the Democrats, like the Republicans, are generally pro-business and pro-war.

            Now, could you please explain to me what are the core values of the Republican Party as it exists today, and how those core values are reflected in the party’s allegiance to Trump and its support of laws that amount to restricting democracy by denying or degrading the ability of people to cast votes in elections?

            Liked by 1 person

          3. I did read the article again, and my amended reaction is that a) is that Joe Biden is not the Democratic Party; and b) kid gloves for the Democrats (check your wording…not exactly hard-hitting), and Fighting Words for the Republicans. Not going to engage in a values discussion while you (and Progressives) turn a blind eye (in these days of decreasing civil liberties and increasing authoritarianism) to the severe transgressions of the Democrats. Progressives’ fingers are in the wind, along with their values. Your continuing focus on Republicans in this discussion only serves to further demonstrate my core point. With respect, as always.

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          4. This saddens me. First of all, Joe Biden is in some sense the Democratic Party just as Trump in some sense remains the Republican Party. Leaders do matter.

            Second, I criticize the “transgressions” of the Democrats all the time. You know this from reading my site. I’m not even a Democrat. I’m an independent.

            Third, why are you refusing to discuss values? You allege it’s because I’m uncritical of Democrats, or not critical enough, compared to my critique of Republicans. Again, if you read my site, you know this is false.

            How can you defend Republican values without ever discussing them? I’m at a loss here. If you think I’m unsympathetic, work to persuade me of my errors. Don’t just dismiss me as too biased and beyond your wisdom.

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  10. Pingback: America’s Depressing Political Scene - LA Progressive

  12. From all I read not put out by the Fed, the Banks and the government, I relate to this event coming to be articulated by Harry Dent.

    Naturally, I see it as just the latest development along the Path The Kansas City Times published September 13, 1976, “He came to town for the Republican National Convention and will stay until the election in November TO DO GOD’S BIDDING: To tell the World, from Kansas City, this country has been found wanting and its days are numbered […] He gestured toward a gleaming church dome. “The gold dome is the symbol of BABYLON,” he said.” […] He wanted to bring to the Public’s attention an “idea being put out subtly and deceptively” by the government that we have to get prepared for a War with Russia.”

    ‘It’s going to hurt more than anybody thinks it ever could’: Dire economic prediction issued

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  13. “The Overton window is so far right that it is a ‘Progressive’ position to defend AOC giving working class donations to corporate Democrats.” — Twitter comment by “Eddie” on The Jimmy Dore Show (April 8, 2021). See: AOC Betrays Supporters By Funding Anti-Progressive Democrats.

    As Attila the Hun reputedly explained things (quoted by the billionaire villain in the movie Superman III): “It is not enough that I succeed. Everyone else must fail.”

    As paraphrased by the so-called and self-styled “progressive” caucus in the Democratic Party: “It is not enough for me to fail. I must help those who defeat me to succeed.”

    As phrased somewhat differently by yours-truly, the insignificant Ishmael (one who survived the wreck) fifteen years ago:

    Boobie Top-Down Class Warfare
    (from Fernando Po, U.S.A., America’s post-literate retreat to Plato’s Cave)

    It happened back in Vietnam
    Some two score years ago
    When those within the upper class
    Declined to serve, and so
    They coined Selective Service to
    Select who wouldn’t go

    They called themselves the brightest and
    They called themselves the best
    And then they sent their countrymen
    Into a hornet’s nest
    But not themselves, of course, because
    They’d passed the privilege test

    These parents of a George and Dick
    Thought Communism bad
    But worried that some other lands
    Would find it not as sad
    As slaving for the rich ones whose
    Rank greed had made them mad

    So sympathizing with the rich
    No matter what they did
    The parents of a George and Dick
    Sent someone else’s kid
    To fight the dreaded communists
    No matter where they hid

    But not their George and Dick, of course,
    They couldn’t spare the time
    And Vietnam seemed far away
    Immersed in war and grime
    An atmosphere too turbulent
    For orchids in their prime

    These studly hot-house orchid types
    Worked hard to dodge the light
    Their parents helped them jump the line
    To keep them out of sight
    Arranging for deferments that
    Would keep them from the fight

    And so the years of war went by
    And communism won
    Which had exactly no effect
    On those who had the fun
    Of skipping out and turning tail
    To take off on the run

    Soon Vietnam recovered from
    The blasting it had got
    And communists turned businessmen
    To hatch a common plot
    With those who liked cheap labor
    And cared less why some had fought

    Still some remained embittered by
    The waste made of their lives
    And swore they’d never live again
    Like worker bees in hives
    Content to feed the rich who dined
    With sharpened forks and knives

    But Boobie schools taught only fraud
    And fiction to the young
    With fantasy and fables coined
    To see the truth unstrung
    Till history became a fog
    That never bit or stung

    On schedule, Boobie Dick and George
    Found Politician Town
    And learned that pandering for votes
    Could win some safe renown
    Affirmatively actioned up
    They never could fall down

    The millions seemed to flow their way
    And stuck to them like paste
    They spent what others raised for them
    With no thought for the waste
    Since someone else’s money had
    The sweetest sort of taste

    They made a deal between themselves
    To do a pantomime
    With Dick to do the thinking while
    George mouthed a lisping rhyme
    And so with the Supine Court’s help
    They grabbed for our last dime

    The Boobie George then tripped and crashed
    Into this truth sublime:
    That Boobies hated freedom and
    Considered it a crime
    Dick told him then what he should do:
    Just work them overtime!

    With not a moment left to think
    The Boobies wouldn’t know
    Where all their beads and shells had gone
    Or why they couldn’t show
    A single thing as evidence
    That they had labored so

    Once George and Dick gained access to
    The treasury’s largess
    It hardly seems surprising that
    It soon contained much less
    A fact which few observers seemed
    To think of with distress

    But “stupid is as stupid does,”
    The stupid do and say
    Confronted by a wealthy thief
    They genuflect, then pay;
    With eyes and minds shut fast like that
    They make such tempting prey

    Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright 2006

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    1. Unfortunately the Daily News cannot be accessed in Europe …
      I learned not to be wiser than the locals, so I offer no silver bullet for internal US conundrum, but as far as the wider world is concerned my priorities are removing UN veto rights – which might unlock some international issues – and proper taxation of the super-rich – whether individuals or corporations. Finding ways to achieve that I expect would be found once the will to do it would be there.

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