Most people think we have only two major political parties:
Democrat and Republican.
Yet in reality, there are three: Democrat, Republican, and Establishment.
That last one is by far the most powerful. And the most seductive. Almost all members of Congress, regardless of
whether they have a D or R after their name, eventually join the Establishment
Party. They may have campaigned for office as a Democrat or Republican and continue
to fund raise as one or the other, but once in Congress they’re eager to join
the Establishment Party.
In fact, almost all members of the Establishment Party are
also nominally Republicans or Democrats. The only members of Congress not
firmly in the party are Independents or Democratic Socialists. But it’s only a matter of time before those
outsiders get with the program; they always do.
It’s easy to understand why. It’s much more enjoyable and
lucrative to get on the winning team. The cocktail parties are better. The perks are awesome. There are always back-room deals to be made
with fellow members. Favors to exchange.
Legislative support to be sold.
Plus, everybody in the party covers for each other.
That alone makes it the best private club of all. When you’re in you are largely protected from
publicity on nettlesome things that might alarm ordinary citizens. Things like
ethics investigations, sexual harassment charges, insider trading, nepotism,
taxpayer funded junkets around the world with friends and family, swapping
votes for pork projects in your home district, and of course taking money from
lobbyists to sway your vote and sponsor legislation they want.
All the things ordinary voters simply wouldn’t understand
you absolutely deserve because you’re now so important. All the things that
will be overlooked and hidden from public scrutiny, because you’re a member of
the Establishment. Everybody does it; so
what’s the big deal?
But don’t Republicans and Democrats in Congress fight all
the time? Don’t they have profound differences on key issues?
Not really. It’s all
for show. It’s to make ordinary voters think they’re on one side or the other. Each
side has its villains and incendiary red meat causes for the other party to
hate and rail against for media consumption.
But after the cameras are off they’re all back to being old
friends. Scratching each other’s backs.
Feeding at the same trough. No hard
feelings, ever.
Neither “side” ever expects a resolution on their red-meat
issues. Most could be easily resolved
once and for all. They could pass laws
if they really wanted to, which is what they’re supposed to do. Or we could have a nationwide referendum on
legalized abortion, immigration, legalizing marijuana, the national debt, cracking
down on crime, term limits, voting rights, whatever. We could then let real democracy – via popular
vote – have the final say on these.
But that won’t happen.
Candidly, that’s because Establishment Party members don’t
want those issues to ever be resolved. Neither do their deep-pocketed
donors. We can’t solve immigration, for
example, because the Establishment has a vested interest in flooding our
country with illegal aliens.
Corporations, the fast-food giants, farmers and the
agribusiness conglomerates, construction companies. and the hotel and
restaurant industries – and even the big tech companies – want cheap labor.
Mayors of big Democrat cities need immigrants to replace citizens fleeing to
safer and lower taxed locales and to keep their headcounts up for Federal
dollars. The Catholic Church wants immigrants to offset their loss of
parishioners. The rich want an uninterrupted cheap labor pool to cook and clean
for them, to maintain their yards, and to watch their kids.
The apparent stalemate over enacting comprehensive
immigration reform has nothing to do with human rights or a path to citizenship
and more to do with economics. Nobody in
the Establishment gives a rat’s ass about closing our borders anytime soon,
including Republicans frothing at the mouth every day about how our country is
being overrun. Especially
Republicans.
Imagine if suddenly all the red meat issues on both sides
were resolved legislatively. It would be
a disaster for our current politicians. What would be left to run on or to
smear the other side? How could the
ordinary citizen see any remaining differences of importance between Democrats
and Republicans? How devastating this
would be to fundraising.
Think about all the times supposed adversaries worked
together to raise the debt ceiling, to continue to fund profligate government
spending, to pump billions into wasteful pork projects, to get us into
meaningless foreign wars, and to plunge us into deeper and deeper debt. Take away the parliamentary tricks to pretend
they are taking “principled stands” and “fighting for the people” and “preserving
democracy” and you’re left with one stark conclusion.
Republicans and Democrats in Congress are essentially the
same. Duplicitous whores.
Despite both parties’ claims to be the party of fiscal
responsibility, our collective national debt grows just as fast under
Republicans as Democrats. Both parties
blame each other for our soaring debt but the truth is they share
responsibility equally.
They both also keep making government bigger, more
intrusive, and more expensive. That’s mostly
to buy off key constituencies, partly to appear to be doing something about a
problem, and, well, because spending other people’s money is fun.
So there’s actually no substantive difference between them.
But they do share an overarching goal: to keep the office
they have. And to do that by taking money from people they don’t know to give
to people they do.
Everything else is theatre.
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