Huge swaths in US feel excluded, sick of election circus

By Daniel Patrick Welch

Will it be closer than you think? Well yeah, that's the script.

Some observers were surprised by Barack Obama’s sudden pronouncement the other day that the election will be closer than people think. Of course, it's not exactly sudden. They knew all along Biden was a terrible candidate; I don't know where the polls come from, but they far overstated Clinton's support last cycle as well.

It's partly just how they play the game: don't get too confident or people won't bother to vote. But it's also that they know the enthusiasm gap is real: 90%+ of Trump's people will show up, guaranteed. Biden will struggle to break, say, 65%... Therein lies the dilemma

Plus they are trying to thread a very fine needle. They are openly rejecting support from progressives--arguably the most secure base of their own party. Biden overtly dumps on their core issues at every opportunity, giving them no reason to show up at the polls beyond their unforgivable shame game. Trump and the GOP, by contrast, cater to their party's base and get them fired up.

The Dems want to win without counting on the left, or lose gracefully to Trump. But they have to look like they really tried, to keep up the charade of 'democracy. It's a very difficult act to pull off.

Meanwhile, folks paying attention think it's all a scam, which is why so few people vote in the US. Ajamu Baraka, Vice Presidential candidate for the Green Party last cycle, said this:

'Democrats supporting Biden are basically saying they want Trump's policies but not Trump. Because of Trump's crude, openly white nationalist language, we are supposed to believe there is a fundamental difference between the two. Some of us don't buy it.'

For my part, I think it's about a 60/40 shot (that Trump will win). My reasons are summarized above, though there is certainly more to it.

The other thing is that the Dem establishment is completely tone deaf. They constantly (and deliberately, I think) misconstrue the reasons for Trump's support. Or more accurately, the lack of support for them.

Q: Well, look at you--a genuine intellectual addressing common Americans!

A: Addressing so-called 'common Americans’ is The Duty of genuine intellectuals. Instead, the pseudo intellectuals of the establishment spend a lot of time and energy demeaning and dismissing common Americans. People feel insulted and lied to, and it's not just on the right.

If there is a common thread that can be drawn between the disparate communities who are struggling (and it is not always possible since, for example, the uprising against police brutality and the white supremacist response are diametrically opposed)... but if I were pressed to crystalize it I would say that there is a widespread rejection of phoniness in the country, and throughout the west, I believe.

People are viscerally repulsed by fakery, and they are long practiced in sniffing it out. Of course, some of this is just politics: politicians are routinely derided as fake, with their tired attempts to look like real people by kissing babies and so on.

The good ones convincingly fake this realness. Reagan was a master at it, as was Bill Clinton and Obama after him.

But now we are in a new era--the neoliberal promise is shown to be empty, and the people are genuinely angry at having been misled. They know they are being lied to on many levels about many things that affect their daily lives. And they don't need 'experts' to explain it to them. But this is all the establishment offers.

The election circus is in service to the oligarchy

In fact, the ruling class has managed to conflate the right populism sparked by their lack of answers with a demonization of the very notion of populism itself, which is now akin to fascism. So The People effectively have no voice at all, and their concerns are supposed to be turned over to their betters, who are wiser and more informed.

The GOP is the party of white nationalism, and the Dems are completely fake. It's a straightjacket that itches at the skin of what we referred to earlier as common Americans. The most comfortable solution is just to take the damn thing off with a demonization of the very notion of populism itself, which is now akin to fascism.

So The People effectively have no voice at all, and t If there is a common thread that can be drawn between the disparate communities who are struggling (and it is not always possible since, for example, the uprising against police brutality and the white supremacist response are diametrically opposed)... but if I were pressed to crystallize it I would say that there is a widespread rejection of phoniness in the country, and throughout the west, I believe.

People are viscerally repulsed by fakery, and they are long practiced in sniffing it out. Of course, some of this is just politics: politicians are routinely derided as fake, with their tired attempts to look like real people by kissing babies and so on. The good ones convincingly fake this realness. Reagan was a master at it, as was Bill Clinton and Obama after him.

But now we are in a new era--the neoliberal promise is shown to be empty, and the people are genuinely angry at having been misled. They know they are being lied to on many levels about many things that affect their daily lives. And they don't need 'experts' to explain it to them. But this is all the establishment offers.

In fact, the ruling class has managed to conflate the right populism sparked by their lack of answers with a demonization of the very notion of populism itself, which is now akin to fascism. So The People effectively have no voice at all, and their concerns are supposed to be turned over to their betters, who are wiser and more informed.

It’s a nuance that seems completely lost on a lot of people who consider themselves to be politically engaged, but don’t particularly understand the concerns of people who make less than $100,000 a year. This is the class which laughs at Fox news while seeing CNN as delivering The Truth—that sort of thing. People desperately yearn to be heard, to know that someone is listening. Trump’s liberal detractors have deftly cast this as a universal negative. They deride anyone who respects Trump for saying what he thinks, which is largely an ink blot test of white supremacist garbage.

Establishment Dems don’t realize that his privilege his money and bluster afford him a freedom most people lack: they are dying to tell the boss, a cop, a judge, bill collector, inspector, government official… that they don’t know what they’re talking about and to leave them the f*** alone. Without offering a proper alternative that addresses this pent up anger (and they have firmly suppressed any effort in this direction) the natural slide is to the right, in the person of Trump.

I’m sure plenty of people will say that I’m putting too fine a point on it.  But I think it is an important insight. And the last thing I’ll say is that this is all further cast against a backdrop of people increasingly waking up to the fact that the whole election farce has little to do with them, offering nothing more than the chance to periodically shake their fists in symbolic, impotent rage.

So it’s not surprising that people are wary of getting involved. An antiquated and rigged system designed to disenfranchise the people, the circus is in service to the oligarchy, not the citizens. Bragging rights to justify their next conquest abroad as ‘fighting for democracy’ while laughing at the very notion here at home.

*Daniel Patrick Welch is a writer of political commentary and analysis. Also a singer and songwriter, he lives and writes in Salem, Massachusetts with his wife. Together they run The Greenhouse School. He has traveled widely, speaks five languages and studied Russian History and Literature at Harvard University. Welch has also appeared as a guest on several TV and radio channels to speak on topics of foreign affairs and political analysis--around his day job. He can be available for interview requests as time and scheduling permit. Despite the price of being outspoken against US foreign policy and military adventurism -- which can be steep in today's circumstances -- he believes firmly as did Rosa Luxemburg that "It will always be the most revolutionary act to tell the truth out loud."

Welch wrote this article for Press TV website.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk