I haven't been writing about the US midterms much, because I don't care about that nonsense anymore. The whole thing's a fake pro wrestling performance staged every couple of years to give a heavily armed populace the illusory sense that they have some degree of control over the things their government does.
By this I do not mean that the votes aren't real or that the outcomes are predetermined, I simply mean that both mainstream parties are controlled by plutocrats who benefit from the status quo and are only interested in their own power and profit. No matter who wins on Tuesday, the wars are guaranteed to continue, the oligarchs are guaranteed to keep siphoning more and more money out of the pockets of ordinary Americans, opaque and unaccountable intelligence agencies are guaranteed to continue expanding intrusive surveillance practices and narrative control psyops in collaboration with powerful Silicon Valley corporations, and we're guaranteed to keep hurtling toward climate catastrophe on the back of an economic system which requires infinite growth on a finite planet. The only thing that might change a tiny bit is America maybe temporarily having a government which pretends to care about oppressed minorities sometimes.
But there's a sharp tension in the air about this performance. Whenever I mention how it's all an act staged to profit nobody but Vince McMahon, I get a bunch of people yelling and cursing at me, with even those those who kind of know it's fake saying "Okay, but you still gotta cheer for The Undertaker though, come on!"
That tension is there because on paper the outcome of the 2018 midterms is still uncertain. The slight lead Democrats held in polls has narrowed further today, with some analysts going so far as to predict Republicans retaining control of both houses.
Which is, on its surface, bizarre. It is bizarre not only because a new president almost always takes congressional losses at this point in their administration (the only exceptions being the historically significant years of 1934 and 2002), but also because the Republican Party is under the leadership of the most despised presidential candidate of all time.
If US politics were real, this would not be happening. If the Democratic Party were a real political party, a party which advances popular agendas in order to get its members elected to the government the way kids are taught in school, it would be on the cusp of a massive landslide of victories in both the House and the Senate, instead praying Hail Marys that they at least gain a slight advantage in the House. The last two years would have been spent promoting the virally popular agendas of the Bernie Sanders movement like single payer healthcare and getting money out of politics, after a thorough and radically honest autopsy of everything that went so catastrophically wrong in 2016.
Instead, what did Democrats do? They spent the last two years babbling about Russiagate conspiracy theories, and then in a tacit admission that they've never believed a word of that nonsense suddenly went completely silent on the issue before midterms and switched to the "We're not Trump" platform. Oh yeah, and they're telling Green Party candidates to drop out.
Democrats have done almost nothing in the last two years to fight the Republicans in any way that will ensure victory. Using his personal Twitter account, conservative media lackeys and an army of sycophants, Trump has completely dominated the narrative that his presidency has been a godsend for the economy. Fighting this narrative should have been Democrats' first and foremost priority from day one, which would have been extremely easy to do since the narrative is entirely false. Job growth has continued on the trajectory it's been on since 2012 and ordinary Americans don't have any more money in their pockets than before; the wealth has stayed at the top no matter how much the economy has grown. An entirely factual counter-narrative about money being siphoned upward to the dollar-hoarding billionaire class with the help of Republican tax cuts would have been an extremely easy sell, but hardly anybody has attempted to do this.
Or war. It's simply taken for granted that Democrats aren't going to campaign against war, but how easy would it be for them to win elections if they did? There is no shortage of footage and statistics which could be used to attack this administration's unforgivable rate of civilian casualties from airstrikes, its expansion of military presence in Syria, Afghanistan and Africa, its horrifying escalations against a nuclear superpower in Russia, its continued facilitation of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world in Yemen, and its depraved implementation of starvation sanctions against Iran. Democrats could have been shoving these horrors into the public eye since January 2017 and it would have not only galvanized liberals and leftists against Trump but also crippled his appeal with the anti-interventionist paleocons, libertarians and nationalists on the right. But, of course, they did not, because that would have alienated their war profiteer sponsors.
Instead of advancing popular positions to win the votes of the majority as kids are taught happens in school, all Democrats are doing currently is attacking the Republicans over Trump's obnoxious tweets and generally successful anti-immigrant fearmongering. Since both parties support all oligarchic agendas in essentially the same ways, the only wiggle room Democrats have left is on issues the billionaire class doesn't care about, like racism and other forms of bigotry. Plutocrats don't care if gay people get married or if the president says racist things, they only care about power and profit, so civil rights and opposition to racism are the only means by which Democrats can significantly distinguish themselves from Republicans in a way that helps them get elected. The fact that both parties support the same oligarchic agendas which hurt disadvantaged groups first and worst goes unmentioned by either side.
It was telling when the Democrats lost to the single most beatable presidential candidate of all time in 2016. It was even more telling that they chose to spend two years spouting gibberish about Russia instead of building an actual platform with actual positions that actual people care about. The fact that there is any doubt whatsoever about the donkey party making gains in 2018 proves conclusively that they have been making zero effort to help advance the interests of Americans.
They do not care. It should be as clear as day to everyone by now. And why don't they care? Because a pro wrestler gets paid the same whether his character wins the match or loses it.
US politics work nothing remotely like how kids are taught in school. The difference is night and day. If the American education system really wanted kids to learn about the way their electoral system actually functions, teachers would bribe student government candidates with Monopoly money to betray the interests of their classmates, and whichever candidate accepted the most bribes would get advertised on the school PA system as the clear and obvious choice to vote for.
By all means go ahead and vote on Tuesday, my American readers, in whatever way you feel might make some difference. But please also remember that you are ultimately participating in a game rigged for your oppressors, and that you deserve a much better system than this.
That's where the real fight is.
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At this point we all know that its a game, its a matter of who plays it and whether or not its funner yes funner to have a joker than a pandering leftist. Although its the same either way entrenched interests however one comes with a lot more popcorn munching. The other what was considered politics as usual till a few years ago, sending off armies of low income american citizens to fight foreign wars for the elites to get cheap deals and resources and try to take over latin america more by destroying governments there with puppet states, (reason the caravan is moving up here is literally due to clinton and co taking out the real leader of their countries and putting in their own ones) ' either way corruption as usual as the democracy is a facade and charade.
I feel like both sides try to manipulate the numbers so they’ll win but by JUST over half. The real winner ends up being the person better at manipulating.
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That is the plan Gerrymandering is the most common thing they do in the United States build weird shaped blocks to win elections lol.
We're long past the point of no return. I cast my vote for bitcoin as prez, eos as vp, eth for senate and steem for the house.
Well written as always!
Though I do have to correct one point. Technically Donald Trump can't be "the single most beatable presidential candidate of all time" since he beat Hillary. He's probably the second most beatable though.
This is the first time I have any real disagreements with what you have written. While everything you have written is true, it leaves out the crucial fact that the few significant differences between the Democrats and greedy sick bunch of creeps called the Republicans does matter. For example, as much as the Democrats are in the pockets of plutocrats, I believe if they win the House they will refrain from cutting Social Security and yes stop or at least reduce their quiet support for the Republican promotion of racism, sexism, xenophobia etc. which is for the purpose of dividing and conquering Americans. People need to be encouraged to vote for the lesser of two evils if the Progressive left is ever to continue having a chance to push out more of those rotten establishment Democrats. One should use one's hate for them all to vote to stop the worst of them.
This article runs counter to what you often write: Do what you can to counter evil. The evil politicians want Americans to stay home, do nothing, and are trying to suppress the vote. We need encouragement to vote not stay home. No one need vote for faux-Progressives e.g. like Andrew Cuomo in NY, but there are others on the ballot worth the time, such as Alexander Tisch for NY Supreme Court (a lower court in NY) and for Green Party and some Working Family Party candidates.
You know Obama tried to cut Social Security, don't you? Read up on his Catfood Commission. And you know he actually DID cut food stamps too, right? How was he better than Republicans? He only cut food stamps half as much as the Republicans demanded. And he wouldn't cut Social Security as much as Republicans demanded so that ended up not happening at all.
I don't take Caitlin's article as encouragement not to vote, but rather a reminder not to expect much of a difference regardless of which corporate duopoly party we select. Makes it easier to stomach filling in the lesser evil bubbles on our ballots.
As far as lesser evil voting making progressive victories more likely, I completely disagree. Otherwise we would have seen a progressive wave and takeover of the DNC during Obama's presidency. Why didn't that happen? Because Obama and the Democratic establishment used that extra power we gave them to protect themselves and to keep us out. Progressives went nowhere electorally during the Obama years because we were constantly reminded by far too many party loyalists that we must fall in line and support the establishment candidates or else Republicans will take over. And then they used that same power to screw Bernie out of winning the 2016 primary because they knew damn well if he did the DNC would be cleaned out and their gravy train brought to an end.
I would maintain we have a better chance of reforming the Democratic Party and electing progressives now because an out of power Democratic Party has less power over us and is more vulnerable to change. Although, as is evident, they still have far too much power and ability to keep us out. The result is a party that continues to ignore the most pressing needs and wants of the people, needs and wants that if campaigned and governed on would likely lead to a massive blue wave.
We're beyond the point of no return here. There's an IOU in the SS trust fund because Bush 43 took all that money for the Iraq war. What's happening now is that we're being taxed again for the same benefits and they immediately go out to seniors now collecting, not for our future retirement. So, after the bailouts of 2008 (why bitcoin was born), they had to start massive QE (Quantitative Easing) which is basically legalized counterfeiting. The debt is about 21.7 T USD and growing. At some point around the year 2020, politicians who have kicked the can down the road will have some very hard decisions to make, and it doesn't matter who is in charge. Somebody is going to get the axe. Then the cascade toward hyperinflation results (or a default on the debt). Venezuela is just one example of what happens in this case.
You are here on Steemit, hopefully because you understood the importance of crypto, not because of some random signup on social media. Your voting power is strongest in your wallet, not the ballot. Besides after the Citizens United decision of 2010, money is speech / vote...