By Henry McRandall
WRISEUP.COM
If the first two years of the President- Barack-Obama-led Democratic administration in Washington proves anything, it is that it hardly matters who wins next Tuesday’s midterm elections.
Obama and his Democrats won a landslide victory in November, 2008, – control of the White House, a massive majority in the House of Representatives and a filibuster-proof majority in the United States Senate.
The American electorate gave the Dems an overwhelming mandate to deliver that “Change We Need” and “Change You Can Believe In.”
Obama’s White House opponent, Republican Arizona Senator John McCain even helped clarify the meaning of this “Change” by screaming all across the nation in the last three weeks that it meant “spreading the wealth around” or redistributing American wealth from America’s “Haves” to its “Have-Nots.”
The American people knew what they were voting for. Obama and the Democrats knew what the American people were voting for.
But the Democrats did not deliver – because they could not deliver.
The simple reality is that that vaunted American “democracy” has long since been hijacked by the banks and the corporations and the billionaires and mega-millionaires who control both.
American politicians can still make lofty promises at election time. But reality bites. Before they are even elected to office, an American politician must know and accept the reality of who is really calling the shots now in America’s “democracy.”
And it is certainly not the majority of the population. Is the tiny, pampered banco-corporate superelite who rule America, “democratic elections” notwithstanding.
No American politician – except the super-rich – can wage a viable election campaign for any significant public office in the U.S. without the financial backing of the banco-corporate socioeconomic elite.
And the only way the super-elite will provide that kind of funding is if the politician in question signs on to the NeoConservative/NeoLiberal corporate agenda.
Over the past generation, almost every viable Republican or Democratic candidate for a significant public office has had to sell his or her sorry, scurvied soul to have any real chance at grabbing that political brass ring.
The Democrats promised “Change” in 2008 and failed to deliver. Now the Republicans and, especially, the TEA Partiers are promising “Change.”
And while much of the change the Democrats promised in 2008 would have been beneficial to most Americans and to much of the world, the change the Republicans – and especially the TEA Partiers – are now promising would do great damage to most Americans and to much of the world.
Evidently, the Democrats can’t deliver; and the Republicans wouldn’t deliver progressive “Change” even if they could.
Why even bother voting?