I sometimes try to remind people that Donald Trump is a symptom of a broken system. His end will not, in any way, end the problems we see on a daily basis. Trump is a master manipulator. He understands, probably better than 95% of the population, how to use the system for his own ends. It is how he has survived over an entire, decades long career of corruption.
But, that is business. What about government? People pin the fall of our government into its current abyss to Ronald Reagan. He sped up the process, but he was a symptom every bit as much as much as Trump.
The downfall of our political system, in reality, dates back to the time after WWII when the military industrial complex began taking over the halls of Congress and the Oval Office. We have been fighting, and funding, war in Latin America since the latter half of the 20th century.
The government has spent billions of dollars propping up often corrupt governments that were considered friendly to American business interests. It is why Iran hates us today. We helped overthrow a democratically-elected government to install a brutal dictator who was friendly to our interests in the middle-east. When his government was overthrown, it cost us dearly.
Of course, our foreign policy has always been myopic, concentrating on the immediate win over any long-term solution. The problem today is that most Americans don’t know about any of this. Why? There are several reasons.
One reason is that we stopped teaching civics in school, replacing it with social studies. Civics is designed to create politically active citizens. It teaches us about how our system of government operates. But, a politically active, educated electorate is a problem for a government corrupted by the military-industrial complex. Our law makers thrive on an electorate that is uneducated enough to believe the pablum and bullshit that is being fed to us.
Another reason is something that many people overlook when it comes to the political landscape today. Watergate helped burn out our political fervor. Watergate is what helped stop us from paying attention to politics, which allowed the government to end civics education and begin the true corruption of the United States government. In fact, many polls since the 80’s have shown that Americans actually expect a certain amount of corruption in their politicians.
How do we fix this…
We have to do the near impossible. We need to fight the massive mental inertia we are currently feeling towards politics. How many times have you, or your friends, said “politics are hard,” or “politics are boring.” Congratulations. Your elected representatives love your type of American.
You have no interest in politics. Thus, you have no interest in watching for, and diminishing, the corruption that has given birth to the greatest transfer of wealth in world history. In fact, the corruption, and our lack of interest, has become so great that politicians no longer feel it necessary to hide their disreputable dealings.
The only way to stop this is to become educated as to the dealings of our elected representatives. We must educate ourselves in the civics of our federal, state, and local, governments. Most of all, we must become politically active enough to bring pressure to bear on those same representatives when we find them acting out of sorts.
It is no longer enough to just vote. We must educate ourselves on the issues and the candidates. In other words, we must do some work and research.
If we just blindly vote, the corruption remains. We fall into the trap of believing that all of “them” must go, but I will still vote for “my guy.” Well, if everyone feels that way, none of the corruption is eliminated. This is how Mitch McConnell has maintained decades of manipulation and corruption.
It is my opinion that Biden must win the Presidency. No, I do not believe he will bring about any serious change. Biden has one job. That is to bring us back to the broken equilibrium our government is accustomed to. His job is to bring back a level of democracy.
Once that is done, the real work, and the real fight, must begin.