Well, it’s time to address the problems of our American two-party system.
Anyone who believes that Democrats are superior to Republicans OR that Republicans are better than Democrats OR that God would side with either party is deluded. Despite the propaganda that saturates the airwaves, any serious examination of the American two-party system would compel the observer to conclude that Democrats and Republicans are but two sides of the same coin.
Let’s start with a REALLY BRIEF survey of the two-party system history in America:
1796 – Political candidates ran as members of organized political parties, the two most prominent being the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists (named “Democratic-Republicans” by the Federalists, who believed that only the well-educated and wealthy “classes” were competent enough to run the new constitutional government).
1815 – The Federalists bitterly opposed the rising power of the Democratic-Republicans and held secret meetings at the Hartford Convention to air their views on the War of 1812 against the British. The War of 1812 ended with a sense of victory among most Americans and sealed the destruction of the Federalist party. The secrecy of the Hartford Convention discredited the Federalists who were seen as too extreme and disloyal and even branded as “traitors.”
1824 – The Democratic-Republicans continued through the “Era of Good Feelings” as (virtually) the ONLY political party, but had already started splitting into factions that became the National Republicans (or Whigs, named after the British liberal party of the same name and led by the followers of John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay) and the Democrats, led by Andrew Jackson.
1865 – The Whig Party, having imploded over the slavery controversy, was later resurrected as the National Union Party through which Lincoln became President and, upon Lincoln’s death was renamed the Republican Party.
1964 – The Civil Rights Act drove Southern Democrats to the Republican party which, starting with Nixon in 1968 and continuing with Bill Clinton and the “reconstituted” Democrats in 1993, instituted a “war on crime” and a subsequent “war on drugs” which was in truth a war on blacks that has continued to this day.
How do I explain Obama? Obama was a concession intended to distract the American public from what are now clearly-documented atrocities of mass incarceration and economic genocide against blacks (and black men in particular) that were steadily becoming more obvious, thanks in part to modern mobile phone / camera technology. While being somewhat of an encouragement to blacks, Obama’s presidency did little to balance the income inequalities that exist between men and women as well as between minorities and the “ruling class” in America.
Today, in my humble opinion, the most troubling issue I have with both Democrats and Republicans is GREED, and the corruption, apathy and entropy that inevitably follows.
The average congressional salary is $174,000/year. The average congressional elections costs $10.3 million to win. Even if I could afford to pay for my own campaign, WHY would I spend $10M on a job that only pays $174K??? And if I could NOT afford to pay my campaign costs, WHY would anyone spend $10M to get me into office with no guaranteed return on their investment???
The answer is that no one would shell out that kind of money without a high probability of getting that money back (or more) by some means.
Most Americans cannot afford to fund the candidates of their choice into political office. Those that can (like the supporters of Bernie Sanders) can rest assured that “the establishment” is going to throw every obstacle possible in the way of such a candidate with the intent of mitigating that candidate’s influence to nil.
While Trump APPEARS to be an exception to this rule, he is not; it can be seen by the people he has gathered around himself that there is a ridiculous amount of cash and power that is gathered in Trump’s corner, as evidenced by the wealthiest presidential cabinet in U.S. history.
“Our only choice is to select the lesser of two evils,” you may say…
…and I disagree. It may cost blood and lives, but the citizens of America have ENORMOUS power to completely reform Congress–if we really wanted to.
We could demand single-term congressional seats from a much larger pool of qualified citizens…not unlike jury duty.
We could burn the IRS tax code and eliminate federal income tax entirely, replacing it with a national sales tax that affects our buying and not our income.
We could demand interest rates that are LOWER for those who make less instead of the other way around.
We could have publicly-funded higher education that would enable our children to graduate from college WITHOUT the incredible burden of crippling debt.
All of this and so much more are within our grasp…if we citizens are willing to put our foot down on the necks of those who take us for granted.