Two Parties, One Failed Political Process

Interesting times we are living in. We have two parties and no vision for the future coming from either of them.

In any other age, any war that was fought was sold with the promise that it was fought to bring about peace, justice, and renewed prosperity. Not so, nowadays. War is now fought to punish bad guys. And since dropping bombs on people tends to bring out the worst in them, we are merely creating more bad guys. There is no end to the wars we fight, because we fight wars on behest of the weapons manufacturers, not for a better tomorrow. We fight wars for corporate interests, and corporate interests run contrary to the interests of the citizens of the countries we bomb. Therefore, we will never be able to bomb them into seeing our country’s point of view.

There is no path to peace, only rationalizations for the next war (which does not replace but is added to the pile of wars we are already fighting). There is no path towards prosperity, other than cutting taxes for the very wealthy, and signing trade agreements written by those same tax-avoiding corporations.

On the issues where the two main parties agree—the federal reserve, never opposing war, never doing anything about climate change, bailing out failed banks without demanding accountability or changing the rules, increased surveillance, etc.—they are both firmly on the side of powerful interests against the citizenry. Where the two parties disagree, each of them floats into some fantasy world detached from the realities the common person cares about. (Transgender use of bathrooms? Why did that suddenly become the dominant news topic for months on end?) Or else they label the other in the most absurd and extremist way by disallowing any middle ground. Most people sit somewhere in the middle on issues such as gun control and abortion, but Republicans and Democrats would make you believe that there is no middle.

Somehow, some way, Republicans managed to get themselves elected not only to the Presidency, but a majority of both houses of Congress, and most of the governorships, on issues that most people find repugnant. Voters had very genuine issues with the Affordable Care Act and were hoping for the Republican opposition to replace it with something better. And yet the Republicans could only come up with something worse, could only imagine stripping the better parts from an otherwise terrible idea.

Republicans are in charge and are incapable of doing anything. And they’re incapable of pushing through any of their ideas because they know there will be nobody to blame but themselves. For the last eight years their whole identity was to be a resistance to the Democrats and that foreign-born President of theirs. It’s really easy to tear down what someone else is trying to build up, it’s a lot harder to do the building up.

Now it is the Democrat’s turn to be the party out of office, the ones who oppose everything the other party does. Not in a rational, principled, or constructive manner, but in a knee-jerk sort of way. Find an issue you can exploit and drive the wedge in deep, regardless of whether such distractions harm the populace.

As the Republicans are unable to do anything because they have no one to blame for their failures, so to do the Democrats seek to avoid actually taking a position while hurling vitriol at all things Republican. To take a position of their own, to promise to actually work for the American people should they be elected, is a bridge too far. Unlike Trump who was willing to promise anything and everything to get elected, most Democrats have been around a while and know it’s safer to offer platitudes without actually saying something that might come back to bite them in the butt. They have yet to appreciate and mimic the genius of Trump, which is to speak so absurdly that supporters can only see what they wish to see in the candidate.

But what has the resistance accomplished so far, other than making itself look ridiculous? What is the Democratic strategy to defeat the ignorance and hatred they see in the Trump movement, other than showing themselves capable of an equal degree of ignorance and hatred? Their one hope seems to be to play nice with the deep state in hopes that it will eventually exert its power and rid them of Trump.

There is not an adult in the room, other than the deep state. And the deep state is quite willing to have the focus be on the warring children rather than themselves. Politics as it stands now is a Jerry Springer Show and we simply cannot permit ourselves to take seriously anyone who would walk on that stage. New outlets must be established, our trust in the media outlets and power structures that have led us to this point must be redirected into people and groups who prove worthy of trust. We must finally realize that any institution taking vast sums of money from powerful interests are innately unworthy of our trust.

We must divert our energies from the large institutions that have only their own interests at heart. And perhaps even more important, we must divert our mental focus from the narrative that such institutions have woven for us. Until we can free ourselves from the perspective and world-view that now box us in, we cannot help but be part of the machine that is busily tearing down humanity, our resources, our environment, and our future.