American Derangement Syndrome .
WAY BACK in January 2017 the (1)>>Trump Derangement syndrome kicked in . Nation wide people who could not fathom Hillary Clinton losing started to protest " this is not my President" . There were women's marches, The Metoo movement , the Pink's .Thousands of anti-Trump protesters in New York chanted "Fuck Trump!" and "Donald Trump, Go away!" as they rallied around the Trump International Tower building near 60th St. and Columbus Circle. The group was followed by dozens of NYPD officers who lined the streets with metal barricades and blocked the protesters path as they tried to cross busy intersections. After violence broke out, police pepper-sprayed the crowd, whom police refused to let cross the street.During a simultaneous protest, protesters blocked a highway leading to Trump's Fountain Hills, Arizona rally, leading to many arrests. The hatred of Trump pretty much revealed something about our American culture that being vary frank, to be honest started to deteriorate with Obama , the first Black American to win the office of the President. There were protests against Obama from the far right . With Trump we had protesters from the unhinged far left that exploded in the streets last year all over the country. Disillusionment played a role in the last presidential election. Indifference, too. Trump and Hillary Clinton were historically unpopular candidates. Trump’s election was a shock in part because pre-election day polls and models were on shakier ground than in years past, thanks to the high number of undecided voters (you can read Nate Silver in depth on the phenomenon here), and a whole lot of people Democrats depended on to elect Barack Obama ended up staying home that November. (2)>>There’s nothing to say that the 2020 election was the same thing again. Disillusionment came with the Joe Biden . Well this country can't come to the center to deal with anything . It’s not hard to believe that a generation of people is becoming cynical of the entire process, of the freedoms that America purports to stand for; when their progressive agenda is scoffed at, ridiculed and the target of repeated attempts at legislation to make it, and them, obsolete, it’s hard not to grow weary and dejected. What we got were two political parties diverging further and further apart; what we got was the bifurcation of a nation, an “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” mentality. (3)>>The United States has been pitted against one another; we are no longer one nation, but a series of fractures. The Left and Right of politics has now turned nasty . Thank both Obama and Trump for shaping the radicalization of the two party system . Those people on both sides would be in some kind of "civil war"soon enough how they attack each other in public beating up on each other . I think the PEOPLE AT THE CENTER should go and create a second Revolution . (4)>>A new Party . The United States was born of revolution , it was a tax revolt that started it, with the implicit promise that another one would never be necessary. HOWEVER a lot has changed . LAST YEAR we saw the BLM riot's nation wide , On January 6th, 2021 the Capital Hill was stormed by people disputing the election. Our institutions would protect us from the need to take to the streets to overthrow a tyrannical government, because we could always vote out corrupt governors and legislators. That promise slowly expanded to include women and people of color, although the ideal of government “by the people” has never been really perfect. (5)>>The OLD ELITES with their ties to Wall Street have controlled the nation for a long time, their hold on the American People is now starting to crack because of the Corona Virus lock downs . Of course, every revolution is unique and comparisons between them do not always yield useful insights. But there are a few criteria we identify in hindsight that are usually present in revolutionary explosions.First, there’s tremendous economic inequality. Second, there’s a deep conviction that the ruling classes serve only themselves at the expense of everyone else, undermining the belief that these inequalities will ever be addressed by the political elite.Third, and somewhat in response to these, there is the rise of political alternatives that were barely acceptable in the margins of society before.Revolutions begin when some group realizes it is powerless or fears it is powerless. The American Revolution, for instance, began when the colonists realized they were powerless in the British Empire.
WHY we need a Second Revolution .
But today, wanting to "take back our country from our government" has become the new definition of a patriot. Our system of government was designed in the 18th century when political information traveled on paper by horseback messenger. George Washington only had to rule 4 million people who resided in 13 loosely knit, somewhat autonomous states. (6)>>It's time we design a system of government for the 21st century, and we probably should include a clause that every 100 years the system is re-designed starting from scratch. According to some surveys that were done, a majority of American citizens are dissatisfied with the two-party system, with many believing that the Democrats and the Republicans care more for gaining control of the government than actually trying to solve the problems America is facing at the moment. Back during the 2016 elections, both Clinton and Trump have low approval rates, with a lot of Americans only voting for one because they don't want to other to win. America is lagging behind other first-world countries in Education, Healthcare, and quality of life. And it is beginning to seem like the true rulers of America is not the people, but the Rich corporations that cares only for profit. People are beginning to get sick of the corruption that is plaguing our government, and it seems like we can't just solve this problem through democratic means. (7)>>As time goes on America begins to become less of a democracy of more of a oligarchy which is not what the founding fathers had in mind. And with the Covid-19 crisis going on the problems seem to have gotten only worse. Which brings me to the question i'm going to ask, could America undergo a second revolution soon, perhaps this decade? Are the American citizens going to finally decide to fight to overthrow the corrupt government and regain their freedom? So if there's anything better than the current system, then perhaps it would be a selection of representatives pulled out of the current population of residents. Basically those put up for election would be chosen randomly like jury duty, and people would be voting for that. That means even your number could be coming up, and perhaps you'd be up for a decision on being a representative. Thus you'd have a true representation of the average people instead of a self-selecting group of wealthy lawyers, businessmen, and career politicians. Sure you may not always get the best people for the job, but why you have stuff like term limits and multiple representatives to balance things out when it comes to broader decisions of governance . But after years of teaching on protests, uprisings and revolutions, it seems to me the U.S. is currently showing all the signs political scientists and historians would identify in retrospect as conducive to a revolutionary uprising. People in our country just are not invested in their political leaders. Voting in this country is a pain in the ass these days, it is no longer a hard fought victory that is to be cherished as your most important duty as a citizen. With this level of apathy there is nothing that could motivate anyone to do anything that could remotely be referred to as a revolution. i.e take a look at the housing and economic turmoil we are in right now - everyone knows who and what caused such monetary devastation to our country but the most powerful reaction to it is occupy wall-street which though moderately impressive in its scale especially for an american protest, really has and i think will continue to accomplish literally no changes in governmental policy or action of any kind. So we're not ready for a revolution. We don't need one yet. We have freedoms, we live in safety, and although we have serious problems with government authority, if we were oppressed there would not even be a dialogue to be had, the government would be right and it'd be over. Maybe I'm naive, and I'm definitely idealistic, but the system isn't broken yet. It isn't in great working order, but the system works, and until we are totally hut out of it, until the pain of living in the US becomes more unbearable than the thought of dying, nobody is going to revolt. It's a last ditch option to be chosen when nothing else is available. When no discourse will help, when no support can be had, its not something to leap to because the system is a bit damaged.
NOTES AND COMMENTS:
(1)>>Trump Derangement syndrome kicked in . The Trump Derangement Syndrome, however, is deeper and broader than any of the previous viruses.This supposed psychosis allegedly renders many Trump critics incapable of rational thoughts and prudent judgments. It is ostensibly so distorting that sufferers take downright dangerous positions. Trump trips every alarm the left has. Their TDS distorts reality for them. You know what I think is scary? That so many Americans choose to simply be led what to think, as opposed to exercising their own freewill of thought, reason and critical thinking. Is it just laziness, or are they just so darn gullible that the left wing media can pull the wool over their eyes without them realizing what's happening? The main stream media, along with the Democratic party in office are constantly spreading misleading information about the President and his policies. Most liberals who hear this constant barrage believe it and if it were true, it would be hard to support the President. This fake-news is being put forth based on political bias with the intent on changing public opinion and putting democrats back in power. I just keep telling anyone who will listen to dig deeper into the news, get information from multiple sources, and look at things with an objective eye. The most important thing is to remain calm and respectful, even when the others are not able to - maybe in the long term they will realize they have been lied to. (2)>>There’s nothing to say that the 2020 election was the same thing again. Disillusionment came with the Joe Biden . When Joe Biden was selected to be the Democratic nominee in November’s presidential election, a similar feeling of disillusionment clouded the minds of many young voters, some of whom find themselves backed into a corner with the party’s choice. Joe Biden's instinct for moderation, his nostalgia for a bygone era and a record they perceived as too corporate-friendly and out of touch with his changing party.But nearly 100 days into his term, some are happy to admit, they may be wrong.I think Democrats (and this is probably an overgeneralization) simply wanted someone who could beat Trump, and they didn't really care about what policies he advocated. As a whole, I think Dems thought that nominating a progressive like Bernie would have been too much of a risk. WHEN Europeans rejoiced at Joe Biden’s victory in the November US presidential election, they do not think he can help America make a comeback as the pre-eminent global leader. This is the key finding of a pan-European survey of more than 15,000 people in 11 countries commissioned by the European Council on Foreign Relations, and conducted in November and December by Datapraxis and YouGov. Liberal news outlets are reporting with smug satisfaction that President Joe Biden is earning rave reviews. A recent headline from NBC News is typical: "Polls show Biden reaping solid approval ratings with popular policies." (3)>>The United States has been pitted against one another. Any sensible evaluation of the political social fabric of our nation today must determine that things are dangerous and precarious and we that are at a boiling point.In her 244-year history, the U.S. has endured deep divisions between its political parties, and over industrialization, the Civil War, immigration in the late 1800s, women’s suffrage, whether to enter the first and second world wars, civil rights and anti-war protests in the 1960s, gay rights, abortion rights and numerous other battles. Throughout this century so far, America has been a “49 percent nation.” Both parties enjoy support that is tantalizingly close to a majority, but never congeals into stable control for long. The fact that victory always seems near at hand for the other side helps explain the vicious politics of our time. Politics today is clannish. It has always been negative, but for a full quarter-century, warnings that the other side was corrupt or dangerous or radical or a threat to American values have been constants. Because Washington can’t put together a consensus on much of anything, lots of the big decisions are moving to the states. The states, in turn, are moving increasingly in opposite directions. That has fueled growing differences between the states, to the point that the government we get depends on where we live.It's much worse when the federal government imposes its will on people who don't agree. Then those people have no option other than to capitulate or to leave the country entirely (a much bigger undertaking than moving to a different state) The problem is that we've OVER-CENTRALIZED government power, far beyond what Madison envisioned in a Constitution designed to LIMIT centralized power. It's not Madison's vision at all, anymore. The Constitution is barely relevant.Instead, if we had "little laboratories of democracy" at city, county, and state levels, people would have the LIBERTY of CHOICE and influence in their government that doesn't exist now. Things could be tried and we'd see the outcomes without committing everyone to it nationwide. And you could move if you didn't like it. If government has far less power over your life, you don't care as much what it does -- or even how corrupt it gets. Less polarizing. (4)>>A new Party . The problems of U.S. politics are deeper than the results of a single presidential election. They reflect a binary party system that has divided the country into two irreconcilable teams: one that sees itself as representing the multicultural values of cosmopolitan cities and the other that sees itself as representing the Christian values of the traditionalist countryside. Both believe they are the true America. The many individuals and groups that don’t slot neatly into one of these two teams have no other place to go. A divided two-party system makes effective governing difficult under any political system, but almost impossible given U.S. governing institutions, by sacrificing the flexibility of officials to party discipline. But while the Founding Fathers thought and worried a lot about divisive partisanship (as John Adams warned, “a Division of the Republick into two great Parties … is to be dreaded as the greatest political Evil”). Every Western democracy has a center-right political party -- except the United States. By international standards, American voters have a choice between a center-left Democratic Party and a Republican Party that's further to the rigging the system . So there’s no mention of political parties in the Constitution and no guidance on what happens when different parties control the White House and Congress, as they do now. We skated around this question for a couple of centuries because the two parties were broad and overlapping—partly because the Civil War cemented allegiance to the Democrats in the rural South for a long time after the party embraced urban, Catholic and labor-union voters. But now that Americans have “sorted” themselves into one or the other party of roughly equal size, we’re getting more situations like legislative gridlock, government shutdowns, a presidential elections decided by a court order and presidential nominations stalled in the U.S. Senate. Names under consideration for a new party include the Integrity Party and the Center Right Party. If it is decided instead to form a faction, one name under discussion is the Center Right Republicans.(5)>>The OLD ELITES with their ties to Wall Street . The financial-services industry donated $1.96 billion to House, Senate, and presidential candidates seeking election in the 2019-20 election cycle, and spent $932.9 million on lobbying across 2019 and 2020, per the report. Of nearly $800 million donated to politicians by securities firms, banks, real estate companies and their employees by June 30, slightly more than half went to Democrats.That hardly ever happens. While Wall Street went big for Barack Obama in 2008, it switched back to the GOP following the passage of the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul bill and has been reliably Republican ever since. The violence at the Capitol prompted dozens of corporations to announce they were re-evaluating how they make political donations. The halt fell into two broad categories: companies that put a hold on all giving and others that stopped contributing to the 147 GOP lawmakers who objected on the day of the riot to at least one state’s certification of Biden’s Electoral College victory. Many lawmakers weren’t pleased. Democrats complained they were being punished for the other party’s sins, while a number of Republicans argued that they were being singled out for what they said was taking a stand against voter fraud. At least 20 influential members of Congress have created unconventional fund-raising operations that offer a legal way to avoid the limits on donations and the reporting requirements of post-Watergate campaign finance laws, according to lawyers, lobbyists and congressional aides. Still, the money can be used for a variety of political activities, including contributions to state and local campaigns, and to pay for political travel, consultants and polling. And in a number of instances, politicians do not have to report the source of their contributions at all. WALL STREET , Of the $1.9 billion, 47% went to Republicans and 53% went to Democrats. In fact, this report notes that more than $250 million from those working in the FIRE sector went toward supporting Biden, the most out of all the contenders for president. Those contributions were a mix of donations to his campaign and outside groups supporting him. MONEY WALKS obviously ! (6)>>It's time we design a system of government for the 21st century. Maybe eventually, but not in the near future. See, revolutions don't just happen because something is wrong with the government or system. Whatever is wrong has to be so horrible or unbearable that people are willing to lay down their lives so that other people won't have to suffer as they have. And you know what? things aren't that bad in the United States.Sure, we have huge problems: wealth inequality, racism embedded within large parts of our culture, an unstable economy which rests on the shoulders of a few large corporations, a vanishing middle class, and a culture seeming to grow around distraction and novelty. But you know what? Those aren't revolution worthy. Not yet. Citizens are not being taken from their homes for speaking out against the government, there are reputable journalists and news sources that still keep an unbiased eye on the events of the country, and there are people who watch and take note. Opinions change and they are free to change, no martial law, no real censorship, no government-mandated "right way to do things." Rarely can a citizen be forced to do something, receive something, or BELIEVE something against their will by the U.S. government, not for no reason or by threat of violence. If there are, the backlash is often immediate, because the U.S. citizen loves the underdog and disadvantaged in conflicts.(7)>>As time goes on America begins to become less of a democracy of more of a oligarchy. America is ruled by the rich So concludes a recent study by Princeton University Prof Martin Gilens and Northwestern University Prof Benjamin I Page. Eric Zuess, writing in Counterpunch, isn't surprised by the survey's results. "American democracy is a sham, no matter how much it's pumped by the oligarchs who run the country (and who control the nation's "news" media)," he writes. "The US, in other words, is basically similar to Russia or most other dubious 'electoral' 'democratic' countries. We weren't formerly, but we clearly are now."
