It Is The Week Before The Election

 Let's face it, in this current Presidential election, we only have something to lose. And so the real difference between the two main candidates is the speed in which we will lose what we have. That points to the failures of both the Republican and Democratic Parties.

The indicators are that if Trump is reelected, we could lose what is left of our democracy. In fact, with Trump's claims that the only way he could lose to Biden was if the election was rigged, his refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, and his telling the white supremacists to 'stand by' and urging his people to be poll watchers, what is left of our democracy might not even survive this election.

Why does Trump's reelection threaten our democracy. Trump himself has already attacked The Constitution by calling the Emoluments Clause a 'phony clause.' His finances by itself makes him a security risk as does his financial ventures in China.

And his current approach to the pandemic puts many Americans at risk. His defense is that we have reopen the nation. But that isn't the real issue regarding the pandemic. The real issue is how we should go about reopening the nation. To go about it as if it doesn't exist only causes the sharply increases the risks Americans face.

But what is also a major point of concern is how he has made a certain portion of his base into a cult by quarantining them from outside views. Trump's personal attacks on most, if not all, of those who express disagreement with him along with automatically calling news sources that publish stories that do not praise him 'fake news' have resulted in isolating a portion of his base so that they, like Trump himself, have no external reference by which they can judge either  themselves or their hero. Convinced that all criticism of Trump is because of hatred, which is the result of Trump's ad hominem attacks on critics, they easily turn a deaf ear to needed criticisms and reality checks while basking in the glow of praise for Trump from selective but often factually unreliable conservative news sources. 

That a significant portion of Trump's base subscribes to QAnon rumors should tell us enough. That I personally know people who, are otherwise very reasonable, have passionately embraced QAnon's conspiracy theories, theories that Trump will not denounce, is downright frightening. For if very reasonable people swallow those conspiracies hook, line, and sinker, then what about those in his base who are not otherwise so reasonable.

But Trump is not our only threat. Consider that the other major party Presidential candidate was hand picked by a committee. And that committee itself entertains the influence of corporate lobbyists. But more objective than that is the study published in 2014 that pointed to the fact that America is more of an oligarchy than a democracy (click here and there). Note that the data for that study came from the years of 1981 to 2002. That means that both political parties are contributors to that result.

We should also note that except for one exec who confessed to wrongdoing, the Obama Administration did not criminally prosecute any Wall Street Executives for the fraud that led to the economic collapse of 2008. It supported the dismantling of Occupy Wall Street. It prosecuted more government whistle blowers than all previous presidential administrations combined, and it tried to fast track the TPP. In addition, the writing of Obamacare was significantly influenced by health insurance industry. On the practical side, one small business owner told me that the quality of health care programs declined with Obamacare. At least, Obamacare protected people with preexisting conditions when they went to obtain health insurance.

We should note that both the Trump and Obama Administrations embrace a neoliberal capitalism that is responsible for decades of increasing wealth disparity between both the economic classes and between the races and decreasing democracy in our nation. The key difference between how each of those Administrations supported neoliberal capitalism is seen in how the Trump Administration has been strongly promoting the domestic side of neoliberal capitalism while the Obama Administration, and presumably Biden as well, supported the global side of it.

Because of the influence of financial and corporate elites on government, we are losing our democracy. And that is the case under both Republican and Democratic presidential administrations. But when one adds to that Trump's penchant for his own degree of narcissism and authoritarianism, along with what he has said, the demise of what is left of our democracy will be quicker under Trump than under Biden. Thus, we have time to try to reverse things under Biden while we might have run out of time this coming January 20 if Trump is reelected. In either case, the state of our elections, as well as the nation, is very sad indeed.