HRC vs The Orange Ogre

We now face another prime time over-hyped boring spectacle with a capital S (see Society of the Spectacle). This time it features the ever blue pants suited Hillary Rodam Clinton starring as Queen Bee in yet another official party convention - yawn. As loathsome as the orange haired orangutan Donald Trump is, Queen Hillary gives him a run for his money. Many mornings of recent her smiling countenance has beamed down at me above the masthead of the NY Times online edition in another paid political ad.  This does not help her or me. Someone should tell her that people who read the NY Times have long sense made up their mind and most will vote for her in November - but many with nostrils  firmly pinched shut. 

There is almost totally unanimity among the chattering classes and MSM regarding Mr Trump's patent unfitness for the presidency. Also there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the surreal aspects of Trump's candidacy among the conservative apologist Repub-friendly pundits like David Brooks, Ross Douthat, George Will and their ilk. Even among them Trump's name is now Donald Mudd .

Yet the weakness of the Democratic Party's offering is being overlooked. With the Repubs you can blame their awful candidate on their over reliance on mining redneckian, reactionary and the south-will-rise-again voters. As many have noted with Trump the Repubs are finally reaping a stunted ugly plant from one of their malevolent tainted seeds that has ripened and burst forth. The Repubs have been masters at tapping into deep seated discord in the American lower middle class, a sector they has long since been marinated, in the myth of a forever growth in their material well being - gas gobbling SUVs, ever bigger pickup trucks, palatial size tract homes, steak dinners twice a week,  motorboats, motor homes, Vegas vacations, etc. etc. Ever more materialistic goodies, these are their God given rights as Americans. Now all that has slowed, and for some it's totally stopped - and it's all Obama's fault.

The basic problem is that our two corporate sponsored parties have led to kind break down in democracy. There is no party to really represents the working class. Both parties represent the corporations and upper classes. Both parties have allowed global corporations to call the shots for far too long . A number of interlocking seemingly intractable problems have emerged, and many Americans are extremely dissatisfied. Sometimes as with the white working class these grievances area diffuse and generalized. Right wing media helps to define them. 70% is often cited as the percentage of those who say the country is 'headed in the wrong direction' whatever that means. This 70% are not all potential Trump voters, many are liberal Sanders Democrats. And no amount of citing numbers that tell us how good things are getting by HRC, Obama and Demo bigwigs is going help. However this will be the prime objective of the unfolding Demo Party Convention/Propaganda-fest.

What really drives this malaise? Could it be the decades long spiking in wealth inequality and its problems for the global economy in general (see Thomas Pikitty)? Global aggregate demand which is the mainspring of capitalism is sagging and much of the problem is that too much wealth (potential capital) is sitting idle. This is the unintended side effect of a long global one-sided class war by the 1% against the 99% (with many in top 10% aiding and abetting the 1%). And in many cases it was US led (see US tax policy and malfeasance of the deregulated financial industry). To make matters worse for labor in the wealthy industrialized West, impersonal forces of capitalism dictated that capital (read investment in factories) flow to low wage countries, this in turn leading to their rapid industrialization. Corporate designed trade pacts of course fostered the process. These countries have no labor unions (or environmental protections) to speak of so exploitation (and pollution) can be maximized. And everybody likes the cheap commodities that flow forth including un and under employed US workers. For US workers it will never be 1955 again. The US came out of WWII as a intact industrial hegemonic giant, unmatched, and the US working class was able to join ranks of the lower bourgeoisie thanks in no small part to a strong labor movement - now gone. Those days are over and no empty promises by orange haired demagogues or blue suited queen bees can turn back them clock.

Discord on the left includes the awareness one of the two parties (probably tactically) refuses to cooperate even on a common sense level like maintaining the infrastructure as it rots out from under us. This even when such a practical investment would put many back to work in decent paying jobs. But even more existentially serious is that this same Neolithic party refuse to even acknowledge the existence of the inexorable world historical catastrophe of climate change. Of course both parties pay blind obedience to major industries that are incestuously integrated into the government that they are elected to run- such as the defense industry, the medical insurance/pharmaceutical industry and many others as privatization of the public sector proceeds. Underpinning all of this is an unspoken acceptance by both parties (with HRC as a perfect example) of neoliberal economic ideology.

As Trump rises in the polls from a bounce from his absurd Leni Rafinstal Nuremberg Rally style Republican Convention extravaganza, the Demos prepare for theirs. Will the Demos rue the day they let the corrupt DNC shepherd in “status quo annie”, Hillary Clinton, and pulled out all stops to block a truly viable candidate who represented a real departure from the status quo, Bernie Sanders?

We shall see.