The Elections: Déjà Vu All Over Again

nsnbc
Nov 8, 2014

Shamus Cooke (WC) : Eventually the tired game will exhaust itself. Beneath the billions of dollars, U.S. elections are lifeless events. The predictable flopping from Democrat to Republican and back again, with voters given no real choice but to punish the party in power — by electing the party that was punished previously. This endless, irrational dynamic is the foundation of the U.S. electoral system.

The motor force pushing this logic is money, billions worth per cycle. The richest 1% threw nearly $4 billion to influence voters and to prepay for political favors from the winning candidates.

Elections have become corporate PR campaigns, with corporations doling money out equally to both parties. This bi-partisan vote buying guarantees that, aside from a couple of fervently debated social issues, a consistent, core economic agenda is firmly in place that favors the 1%.

This is why voters always punish the party in power. The ruling party earns the hatred of working-class voters by proving their love for the corporations and billionaires. The economy — and specifically jobs — has always been a priority for voters, but the economy is used by politicians to enrich the already-rich, who under Obama have received 98 percent of wealth created since he began as president. Such brazen inequality doesn’t happen by accident, but by policy, and no politicians are complaining about it.

During the “heated” debates of the midterm election, there was virtually no discussion of the economy. The two parties have nothing to debate about on this issue; they’re in total agreement. The same is true about foreign policy and the $700 billion dollars annually spent on the military.

Neither party complains that U.S. taxpayers have spent, according to a reputable study, $4-6 trillion dollars on the ongoing wars of Afghanistan and Iraq. Bi-partisan consensus prevented the topic from reaching the campaign trail, while guaranteeing that the insane and completely futile war policy continues.

Most Americans understand that U.S. politics equals legalized corruption.  And consequently voter turnout sank to a new historic low of 38 percent. But even this number is highly misleading. One need only imagine if national congressional elections were voted on separately, instead of sharing the ballot with state elections and local ballot initiatives that voters actually care about. If this happened voter turnout would plummet to the teens, or lower, and could not be mislabeled “democracy.” The popularity of the U.S. Congress hovers around 10 percent, which means that 90 percent of the population consistently views this body as an alien entity, serving the interests of the parasitic super-rich.

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