Hello once again dear readers. As you may have noticed, I've been avoiding talking about the current election in the USA. This has left me with little to blog about recently, as the news here is still pretty much all election all the time. My not writing about the campaign is mostly because of my complete disdain for the process and my antipathy towards the candidates. The primary process is a joke, the rules are skewed to favor establishment candidates, and it has become so expensive to run that only shills for their party's well heeled interests can afford to run. Well, them or bombastic billionaires who don't care about wasting a few hundred million here or there. So I've avoided the subject like the poison it is.
During this time I have noticed that the powers that be in this election cycle constantly wonder why it is someone like an avowed socialist, or a bombastic billionaire, can be viewed by so many as viable candidates. To me it's never been that difficult to figure out, it's because both parties have betrayed their voters. What do I mean by this? That the left leaning democratic voters have seen election after election where their candidates have pledged to tame corporate interests and help the middle and working classes, and then failed completely to do so. Then, instead of owning up to their complete failure and acknowledging that most of their biggest donors are the corporate interests that they had pledged to tame, they blame the other party despite having controlled the presidency for 7+ years and majorities in the legislature on and off during this time. And don't think I'm letting the republicans off the hook either. They get elected by pledging to uphold "traditional" values, taming big government, and allowing the free market to prosper and create jobs for the middle and working classes, and have also completely failed in accomplishing any of it. They, however, at least are honest about being shills for their corporate overlords, not that this is all that much better than lying about it like their opponents do. Both parties are like children standing over the broken lamp of America and pointing at the other saying "He did it!" It's disgraceful. Meanwhile, wages have shrunk or stagnated, the labor participation rate has bounced around historic lows, and millions have fallen into virtual poverty, even if they aren't in poverty statistically. It baffles me how these fools can't see this and don't recognize that their positions of power have never, in their lifetimes, been on shakier ground. If they can't see socialist candidates and populist blowhards as canaries in the coal mines, then they deserve to be tarred and feathered. And if they continue to be so oblivious, they risk the proverbial tar and feathering becoming actual violent social unrest. This country was founded on revolution, and they would be fools to think another one isn't possible. But then, we already established their foolishness.
To go along with this sentiment, I read a poignant piece in the Wall Street Journal by Peggy Noonan. The premise of the article is having a "2016 Moment", or to realize this election will be historic, and not necessarily in a good way. She reports one of her long time friends, in stumping for a candidate in New Hampshire observed that:
"I was struck as I walked along a neighborhood using the app that
described the voters in each house. So many multi-generational families
of odd collections of ages in houses with missing roof shingles or
shutters askew or paint peeling. Cars needing repair... It was easy to see a collective loss of hope in a once-thriving town... years of neglect and sadness. Something is brewing."
http://www.wsj.com/articles/that-moment-when-2016-hits-you-1461281849
This, I believe, hits it on the head; this is exactly what's going on in this country. Years of political neglect and kowtowing to special interests and the elite of both political persuasions has created a hollow shell of the America that was. An America which flees to the welcoming and reassuring arms of socialism, or into the bombastic fury of populism. Years of pursuing trade deals that export jobs and import profits for the elites, years of increasing taxation and decreasing return on those taxes, years of abject neglect, have destroyed the credibility of both parties. And if they don't make an about face soon, they may very well get crushed by the electorate they condescendingly pander to during elections, then ignore while in power.
If the politicians don't watch out, they may find the smell of freshly boiled tar visiting their neighborhoods. It may be time to invest in feather pillow manufacturers.
