12.12.2016 :: United States
In recent times, and probably since the establishment
of universal voting, presidents- elect have systematically violated or broken
their promises to their supporters.
This essay begins with the campaign promises of the
outgoing President Barack Obama and the President-Elect Donald Trump. We will
then examine the reasons why rhetorical populist, peaceful and democratic
promises always accompany campaigns and are immediately followed by the victor
appointing cabinet members who are committed to elite-driven, militarist and
authoritarian policies - so far from the expectations of the voters.
Obama: Style and Substance
Barack Obama, like all demagogues, promised American
voters that he would end the US military occupation of Iraq, close the
Guantanamo Bay concentration camp, end torture and secrecy, defend civil
liberties, protect mortgage holders swindled by Wall Street bankers, introduce
a real health care reform and develop a path to citizenship for undocumented
migrant workers and their families.
Above all, Obama promoted the notion that he was ‘the
historic African-American President’ tasked with fulfilling the promises of the
civil rights revolution. Obama spoke to civil and human rights activists,
promising an end to racial violence and inequality. He promised to end state
intrusion and violation of individual freedoms.
The ‘Historic Black President’: Unprecedented Number
of Broken Promises
All Presidents, to a greater or lesser degree, have
broken electoral pledges. But, far and away, President Barack Obama broke more
and bigger promises over his two terms than any of his predecessors. His
administration was one of making and then immediately revising and reversing
promises to his supporters. Every one of his promises for social reform, health
care and foreign policy based on diplomacy and respect merely served as a
prelude to imposing new and more regressive policies and launching more wars.
The record is clear: Over the eight years of his
presidency, Obama degraded the expectations of every popular constituency that
he courted and won during the campaigns. Black Americans voted for Obama 10 to
1 during both campaigns! Despite the overwhelming support form African Americans,
income inequalities between white and black workers increased, deadly police
violence against Afro-Americans increased, and white vigilante assaults,
including the torching of Afro-American churches, multiplied. Non-violent
African-American drug offenders (dealers and users) were incarcerated at a rate
far exceeding their white counterparts, while the giant pharmaceutical
corporate elites and the doctors prescribing highly addictive narcotics and
fueling the opioid addiction epidemic counted their mushrooming profits with
total impunity.
Obama pursued seven wars and scores of violent covert
operations, exceeding his predecessor, President George Bush, Jr. His wars led
to the greatest combined numbers of dispossessed, wounded and murdered
Africans, Arabs, South Asians and Eastern Europeans in world history.
Obama transferred $2 trillion dollars from the US
Treasury to bail two dozen Wall Street banks, which then continued to foreclose
on the homes of 3 million working class households - contrary to his campaign
rhetoric.
Leading multi-national corporations successfully hid
over $2 trillion dollars of profits in overseas tax havens. The President
occasionally mouthed some ‘lollipop rhetorical criticism’ against the big
corporate tax evaders while continuing to tax the over-worked working people -
whose living standards steadily declined.
Militarists infected the entire Obama administration
to an extent not seen since the warmongers Harry Truman and Winston Churchill
cynically launched the Cold War.
Obama pursued a policy of encircling Russia with US
and NATO military bases stationed from the new US’ Baltic satellites to the
Balkans, from the Mediterranean to the Caucuses.
The Obama regime financed the violent putsches and
bloody attempts at ‘regime change’ in Ukraine, Syria, Somalia, Libya, Honduras
and Yemen - with devastating result to millions of displaced and destitute
people. No other warlord, past or present, can match the Obama regime in sowing
misery and mayhem.
Obama: Speaks in Tongues
Obama, ever the chameleon, spoke in different accents
and cadences to different audiences: To the young, he jived with rappers,
hoopsters, baseball stars and stage and screen celebrities. To black church
ladies, this Honolulu-born and bred graduate of the elite Punahou academy and
Harvard Law School, would adopt a southern Baptist drawl - completely foreign
to the speech of his mother and grandmother. When he turned to his
sophisticated white Chicago groomers and supporters in the finance sector, he
reverted to speaking with a deep well-modulated gravitas.
His language was full of euphemisms: the famous ‘pivot
to Asia’ meant an aggressive and dangerous maritime and aerial encirclement of
China, with the aim of crippling Asia’s greatest economy.
While he spoke of ‘environmental protections and
workers’ rights’, he pushed for a Trans-Pacific Trade Agreement giving
multi-national corporations the power to gut labor rights and environmental
regulations.
The Obama regime had loudly promised to protect
Native-American access to their traditional water and land, as well as
cultural, community and religious sites. In practice, he protected the big oil
and gas pipelines projects infringing on native lands with brutal militarized
police and private mercenary guards, beating and jailing social justice
activists and threatening journalists.
Obama has strengthened the enforcement of existing
police state surveillance operations despite their violations of constitutional
freedoms and he imposed an extension of police state rule, especially against
‘whistle-blowers’. With one of the most secretive administrations in history,
Obama has prosecuted, destroyed and imprisoned more heroic public servants -
for the ‘crime’ of exposing state crimes to the citizenry. He actively flaunted
Federal laws guaranteeing the protection of ‘whistle-blowers’ and has sent a
chill throughout the public sector - demoralizing the best of our public
servants.
Donald Trump: Electoral Promises and Post-Election
Betrayals
Intent on surpassing the broken promises of President
Obama, President-Elect Trump quickly reversed his rhetorical campaign promise
to ‘drain the swamp’ of Washington and embraced his ’sworn enemies’ with the
fervor of a veteran courtesan. Traditional Republican politicians, business
people and Wall Streeters, initially opposed to ‘The Donald’, have all jumped
on the bandwagon and into Trump’s open arms.
Trump broke his main campaign promises to the
electorate. Announcing he would not ‘jail’ Hillary Clinton for her activities
concerning the Clinton Foundation while in office, Trump instead praised her
courage and integrity. Upon his election, Trump even pandered to the former
President Bill ‘Oval Office sex scandal’ Clinton. While Trump may have a change
of heart regarding the sleaze and crimes of the Clintons, his mass supporters
have not.
Trump openly praised Hillary Clinton in exchange for
her initial decision not to challenge his election victory and ‘transition’.
However her use of surrogate Green Party candidate Jill Stein to challenge the
election count and the CIA/Democratic Party’s accusations of Russian-Trump-FBI
collusion in influencing the campaign may force him to review his decision as
the makings of a palace coup-d’etat seem to emerge from ‘the swamp’.
His ongoing private business dealings, which he
promised to renounce, have continued - to the consternation of his loyal
activist base.
Trump has sent mixed signals with his choices for
senior cabinet officials: He broke his promises on economic, diplomatic and
foreign policy by appointing or considering several mainstream Republicans for
major positions, including a vocal critic for UN Representative. Mainstream
Republicans were contemptuous of Trumps mass electoral support base.
Nevertheless, Trump has appointed business CEO’s who were more market-oriented
and less militaristic than the typical Republican and Democratic establishment
politicians.
He also kept his his campaign promise to protect US
commerce and industry, by favoring a trade-oriented policy with Russia. He
wants to negotiate more advantageous trade agreements with the Chinese president.
He has announced his appointment of Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of
State, a very concrete move toward ending the sanctions against Russia, which
have shut American businesses and energy giants out of that huge market.
Trump has appealed directly to the ‘Israel-Firster’
crowd, vowing to ‘tear up’ the nuclear agreement with Iran, which was so
unpopular with militant American and Israeli Jews. Despite calling it the
‘worst agreement in US history’, he appears to have given ‘the nod’ to the big
oil and gas interests who are happily signing multi-billion dollar deals with
Teheran and to the aerospace giant Boeing to sell a new fleet of passenger jets
to Iran.
Electoral demagoguery is not just an Obama affliction.
Broken promises are ’stock and trade’ for all Democratic and Republican
Presidents. Deceit and phony populist language are standard fare because these
are what capitalist democracy demands of its political representatives.
The Structural Basis of Capitalist Democracy
Under capitalist democracies, Presidents put on the
appearance of ‘talking to real folks’ while skillfully working for the biggest
capitalists and bankers.
When ‘capitalist democracy’ is under threat and
discredited, the search for populist demagogues kicks in. While activists for peace
and social justice were organizing huge masses of demonstrators against the
banks during the ‘Occupy Wall Street Movement’, the Wall Streeters trotted out
America’s “First Black President” to divert the anger of bankrupted mortgage
holders, con the white students, fool Latino voters, charm the Black
church-ladies and lead them all into the corrupt embrace of the Democratic
Party.
When the economy forced millions of people into
low-paying dead-end jobs and declining living standards, when globalization
impoverished local small and middle business people and shop keepers, a loud
mouth billionaire casino king appears on the scene to bark phony populist
rhetoric denouncing Madame Secretary Hillary Clinton for her most carnal ties
with Wall Street. And he gets elected President of the United States!.
In other words, when capitalism is in crisis the
demagogues ‘come out of the woodwork’.
Flamboyant capitalist demagogues replace the normal
deceitful standard bearers of corrupt electoral politics. Obama and Trump’s
demagoguery won-out over Hillary Clintons and Mitt Romneys’ boring
speech-makers. No matter how outlandish their lies, Hillary and Mitt could not
grab the voters’ imagination.
Capitalist democracies have become more fragile as
economic crises become entrenched and recoveries are brief and weak. The
frequent rise of presidential demagogues, from Obama to Trump, reflects the
capitalist elites’ refusal to share any productivity gains with the workers or
to pay taxes on overseas/imperial profits and thus lessen the tax burden on
wage-earners, or to invest in a productive economy employing well-paid workers
rather than engaging in speculation.
‘Capitalist democracy’ can no long deceive the voters.
Half of eligible voters abstain from a process that does not reflect their
interests. And half of the actual voters reject traditional politicians. To
retain any veneer of electoral legitimacy and enable the capitalists to
continue their rule, demagogues have to replace the ‘damaged goods’ politicians
who have prostituted themselves too openly and too often.
Over eighty percent of voters know that their votes
have no impact on political decisions regarding war and peace, domestic
inequalities and income distribution - real issues.
Capitalism can no longer reproduce itself through a
faux electoral machine. Were it not for the predictable emergence of novelties,
like ‘America’s First Black’ Obama or the ‘Shock-Jock’ celebrity Trump to
occupy the White House on waves of mass protest votes, tens of millions of
absentee and discontented voters might fill the streets, boot out the phony
union bosses who ’speak for’ only 7% of wage earners, and reject the two
political parties united ‘at the hip’ in their service to the elite one
percent.
Conclusion
Let us imagine that the capitalist demagogues finally
lose their mass appeal in the face of repeated broken promises. Let us assume
there will be a temporary return to bland, reliable, everyday political
hucksters, as this so-called cycle of ‘outsiders’ gets played out. The mass discontent
will not go away. As the economic crisis and inequalities grow,
extra-parliamentary public outbursts will are inevitable. With them, fear and
uncertainty among bankers, speculators and billionaire electronic gadget makers
will set in. The much ballyhooed ’silicon architecture’ will crumble like
sandcastles. The capitalist class may have to turn from ballots to bullets. At
that point, can they entrust their wealth and status in the hands of thousands
of soldiers and police ordered to gun down and round up millions of their
fellow American workers? Or are they dreaming of
robots…?
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