My politics

Basically, there’s one political party with two fractious wings. I sometimes call it the Business Party, sometimes the Corporate Party. Its antecedents took power early on – from the beginning, actually, in a revolution from above of landed aristo-wannabes and merchants, and its incarnations have been called (by Andrew Jackson) the Money Power, and (by the Abolitionists) the Slave Power. Today, it’s a corporate-dominated, neoliberal version of capitalism in which the wealthiest one percent of the population owns more than the bottom 50%, and its tenets are shared across a rather narrow “bipartisan” spectrum. (“Neoliberalism” is essentially laissez-faire capitalism on a global scale with the largest military in the world backing it up.) The $700B transfer of the commonwealth to corrupt Wall Street speculators and usurious bankers shows that synergy quite nicely. As did Bill Clinton’s kowtowing fealty to the bond market.

The “right wing” of this ruling party is called Republican; the “left wing” is called Democrat. In a corporate polity, that “left” is in no way actually leftist. Rather it’s mildly reformist; capitalism with a human face, as personified in its current leader, B. Obama. As I read it, in the last quarter of the 20th century, the Democrats became the faction that used to be called Rockefeller Republicans, self-styled enlightened businessmen, willing to give a sop to the working class, accept that women are human beings, too, and build an new school or two. The Republicans, meanwhile, sunk into a retrograde swamp of reaction. The mire includes a chilling mash-up of Bible-thumpers, Birchers, disciples of Father Coughlin and other antisemites, libertarians (right anarchists), neoconservatives, Know-Nothings, and the new old South’s confederate leftovers, a fecal brew in the service of this generation’s robber barons.

Unlike Clinton, who took baby steps backwards with his wretched “triangulation,” Obama will take some baby steps forward. But real change? The point is that the system does not allow real change. After all, the “founders” didn’t want the rabble involved. Everything we’ve gotten since has come at an enormous price of blood and treasure against the system. The rotten boroughs of the Senate and the Electoral College are only a couple of the archaic constitution’s bulwarks against change. The Supreme Court, meanwhile, is returning to its historical role as safeguard of the wealthy and the policemen who protect the wealthy. Real change can’t come from within.

Put another way, the Democrats are the Mensheviks and the Republicans are the Bolsheviks of this capitalist party. Of course, intramural conflict is sometimes some of the bloodiest. Since faith in the basic economic power structure is a given, the two wings battle each other on the symbolic and cultural level. Hence the vital importance of emotion, of stories and characters, things easy to manipulate, script, and produce. Our politics are stunningly emotional, at least for some component of that proportion of people who actually partake (in the best of times, it’s barely half of the voting population, which is indicative of what a charade our democracy really is). Like advertising, the irrational appeal is essentially false, a way of making you feel a part of the action but, of course, not really anything but another cog in the machine. Historically, the irrational in politics was also the primary tool of fascism.

Republicans use greed, fear, hate, resentment, racism, and ignorance as their weapons of choice. The Democrats, so frequently hapless (remember the flailings of Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, & Kerry?) use wishy-washy hope, idealism, and dreams of a better place. Is it any wonder they are so frequently out-gunned, even though a majority of Americans agree with their mild, reformist take on capitalism’s ravages. Indeed, it’s the tanking of the economy at the hands of its corrupt masters that may propel Obama to the White House in a month.