It Doesn't Matter Who's President

Political Rant in the 2016 Presidential Election Year:

The Presidential Election is an Irrelevant Circus

Writer Garret Keizer recently examined why Donald Trump appeals to people whose interests he actively opposes (L.A.Times, January 31, 2016, p. A27). He also raised the question of why so many Americans view the government as their enemy and not the rich and the transnational corporations. His answer was that this belief is affected by people’s self image. To view the government as the enemy is to be oppressed, but also a heroic resister, on the same side as everyone else -- to be “equal” to the rich and the corporations, who are also oppressed by the government. To view the rich and powerful as the enemy is to be a “loser,” a failed competitor in the “Free Market” and therefore inferior to the wealthy, a much less appealing self image. 

Beliefs may determine voting behavior, but the reality is that the ultra rich and the corporations exploit and oppress everyone else in the current system of capitalism (see Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few by Robert Reich or Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty). Money equals power, and the super rich and the corporations have managed to arrange the laws of this country to their own advantage and everyone else’s disadvantage. 

The only check on the power of the moneyed class is organized groups of ordinary people working together in unions or to elect a representative government that will actually protect their interests. It is in the self interest of the rich and the corporations to destroy unions and to make sure the government doesn’t work. They don’t actually have to elect or run the government to benefit; all they have to do is render it ineffective so they can pursue their own ends without any regulation or limits. They have been successful in making the government ineffective and inefficient enough that they have also succeeded in making it appear to be the enemy. 

One of their strategies is to starve the government. Since Reagan, the moneyed class has dramatically reduced its share of taxes paid to fund the government. It’s not that they want the money, but rather that it helps reduce the government’s power and therefore the power of ordinary people. They accuse the government of being bloated, wasteful, and inefficient, and stir people up to be upset about paying taxes (though Americans pay less taxes than citizens of most other developed nations). Underfunding the government makes it ineffective, and that ends up annoying people. Anyone who has tried to deal with the underfunded Social Security administration, for example, ends up frustrated, angry, and resentful, and therefore more likely to agree that the government is the enemy. 

The rich and powerful can argue that they are taking a principled stand, that the best government is the one that governs least, that the government should not “interfere” with people’s freedom, etc., but the end result is still the same -- reducing the effectiveness of one way ordinary people can protect their interests.

A second strategy has been to make sure that a Republican majority in the House of Representatives blocks any action by the government. Some wealthy conservatives have managed to gerrymander enough congressional districts that the House will have a Republican majority for several years. It could be argued that they have done it in especially conservative regions that ensure rather extremist conservatives get elected. The moneyed class does not need to elect a certain President or to spend money on Senate campaigns; it only needs to be sure that a Republican House majority blocks any government action. That plus underfunding the government means that all the money they have can lead to unfettered power.

This second strategy has the beneficial side effect of making the government seem like the enemy to ordinary people, since it doesn’t get anything done and seems to be wasting their tax dollars. The very rich and the transnational corporations don’t care who is President. All they need in order to continue to gain wealth and power is for the only check on their power, the government, to be dysfunctional and for it to be viewed by the people they oppress and exploit as the enemy. I have to hand it to them -- it’s a clever strategy and it’s worked.