By Finian Cunningham
Information Clearing House
February 11, 2020
The double-debacle of President Trump’s impeachment and the
Democratic Party’s presidential candidate race shows the limit
of an American article of faith: that its democracy is founded
on the principle of, “We The People”.
“We The People” is more an aspiration, even a myth,
rather than the existing reality.
The reality is that citizens’ votes are not the primary
driver of democratic rule.
The nature of ruling power is determined by the elites: the tiny
minority of ruling class that comprises super-rich political donors,
corporate executives, Wall Street banks and highly concentrated
news media.
America is not a democracy – at least not yet anyway – despite
nearly 244 years of history as a modern state.
It is a plutocracy run by an oligarchy.
Such an observation is not a radical criticism.
Former President Jimmy Carter came to the same conclusion.
So did a study conducted by researchers from the prestigious
US universities, Princeton and Northwestern.
Thus, the four-year exercise of citizens voting for president or
members of Congress is more accurately a, “Selection” not an
election.
The selection being made, largely, by the ruling elites and the
mass media controlled by a handful of corporations.
Before a candidate’s name gets on the ballot paper, there’s a huge
filtering process which whittles down the final list presented to
voters for their nominal, “X”.
Big-money donors (billions of dollars), as well as withering and
warping media coverage, usually determines who gets selected
for voters to, “Choose”.
The election of Donald Trump to the presidency in 2016 was
something of an upset for the usual process.
His then-Democratic rival Hillary Clinton was supposed to be
the winner back then, as preconceived by the US elite.
A populist insurgency against the establishment politics favouring
the outsider
Trump overturned the usual predetermined outcome.
Trump’s personal wealth also helped him ride out the selection
process which would have weeded out a financially disadvantaged
candidate.
Like him or loathe him, Trump got elected.
But ever since he took office more than three years ago, the ruling
elite has never accepted the, “Democratic Result”.
The never-ending but now defunct scandal of alleged, “Russia
Collusion” was meant to oust Trump from the White House.
That didn’t work, so the recent impeachment circus was then
invoked as the next means to eject Trump.
This constitutes in effect a, "Soft Coup" against the electoral rights
of the citizens who voted for Trump in 2016.
They dared to vote the, “Wrong Way” according to the ruling
oligarchy, which favoured Clinton.
Trump has been acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate
of impeachment charges concerning his communications with
the Ukrainian president.
Nevertheless, most of his presidency has been dominated by
relentless political and media efforts to abort his presidency
and the democratic process which managed to somehow get
him into office against the usual odds determined by the elite.
We see this same elitist selection process at work in the current
contest among Democratic candidates for their party’s 2020
presidential nomination.
The anti-war candidate Tulsi Gabbard is being denied equal media
coverage by the corporate media which prefers someone more,
“Centrist” like former Vice President Joe Biden.
Despite a strong showing in some polls, Gabbard’s supporters
accuse CNN of gagging the Hawaii congresswoman by not
permitting her participation in televised town-hall debates.
Tulsi is calling out a stitch-up by the Democratic Party leadership.
She accuses Tom Perez, the chair of the Democratic National
Convention, of, “Kowtowing to Billionaires” by not allowing
more radical contenders to have a fair crack at the presidential
nomination.
Bernie Sanders an avowed, “Socialist Candidate" is surging ahead
in the polls among ordinary Democratic Party voters due to his
policies of ending billionaire tax privileges and introducing free
education and healthcare for all citizens.
Yet, by and large, the US media are hostile to Bernie and his
policies.
CNN has even run dirty tricks to portray the 78-year-old
Vermont Senator as, “sexist” or “too old”.
This is while it gives endless favourable coverage to Joe Biden
whose mental faculties have been lacklustre or worse.
This week, Biden demeaned a female student who asked him
tough questions about why he failed to gain votes in the recent
Iowa caucuses.
Snarky Biden called her a, “Lying Dog-Faced Pony Soldier”.
CNN played down his verbal abuse by saying that’s a,
“pretty normal thing to say – for Joe Biden”.
Can you imagine the hue and cry if, say, Sanders had said that?
On Bernie Sanders, CNN editorialised this week: “History suggests
Sanders is unelectable… socialism has never established a foothold
in American politics.”
It added that the, “Washington’s Elite” fear, “his budget-busting
plans for revolution will scare moderates away in November
[presidential election]. And if Sanders is nominated, Donald Trump
will delight in branding him a Fidel Castro-loving radical
antithetical to the US mainstream.”
So there you have it.
CNN and the Washington elite are deciding who voters can vote
for based on their prejudices and predilections. Not on what
voters actually want (according to various polls out there.)
Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard would make a formidable pairing
as Democratic candidates for President and Vice President.
But that assumes, “We The People” rule.
The reality, however, is that elite rule in US politics and is trying
to prevent this eminently democratic choice being made.
The irony is that the anti-democratic machinations of the
Democratic Party and the political-media establishment will
backfire big time – again – resulting in four more years of
Donald Trump.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52970.htm
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