Spinning Liberal Tales

It comes as no surprise that The Nation magazine endorses Hillary Clinton for President (10-24-16). As the leading left-liberal publication, The Nation huffs and puffs high-minded principles before surrendering to the Democratic Party establishment. Nonetheless, it’s always interesting to see how they arrive at their submission.

Of course, it’s all about Trump. He’s not on our side. As a statement of the obvious, that conviction is unmatched. But is Clinton on our side?

The Nation’s editors assemble a tortured list of Clinton positives and Trump negatives that stretch the truth, shrug off uncomfortable facts, and hail irrelevancies. She exhibits “grace under pressure,” they tell us. She has been a “forceful advocate of health-care reform” since 1992. And for wild-eyed fantasy: She “is running on the most progressive platform in the modern history of the Democratic Party.” 

Trump’s charge that the elections are “rigged,” on the other hand, is “an assault on the very basis of democratic governance itself.” So the elections are not rigged in favor of the rich, white, and powerful?

With amazing audacity, the editors simply dismiss Clinton’s obscene bond with corporations and foreign tyrants, a bond that is sealed with tens of millions of dollars of barely-concealed quid pro quos. They assert that “progressives will have to continue to push her” away from these rich and powerful benefactors.

As for her super-hawk foreign policy, The Nation concedes that Clinton is wrong on everything from Palestine to Russia and Syria. Though she is seemingly “intent on deepening a New Cold War,” we are invited to “break her hawkish habits,” as though her role in killing tens of thousands is akin to curbing a smoking habit or losing weight.

Presidential candidate Jill Stein is the fly in The Nation’s ointment. She is all the progressive things that Ms. Clinton is not. She stands against the corporate, war-mongering tide and not with it. Here, The Nation engages in a remarkably clumsy dance around the Stein option, laying alleged failings of the Green Party at her feet: “...her cause has not been helped by the Green Party’s reluctance, or inability, to seek, share, and build power, with all the messy compromise this often entails. Instead of the patient-- and Sisyphean-- task of building an authentic grassroots alternative, the Greens offer a top-down vehicle for protest.”

But isn’t building an “authentic grassroots alternative” exactly what the Stein candidacy is all about? Isn’t Stein reaching out to The Nation readers, Sisyphus, or anyone else interested in changing the bankrupt political scene in order to build precisely the power that the editors claim to want to see? The apparent truth is that The Nation would like Jill Stein to go away and take her principled positions with her, clearing the way for a heavy dose of lesser-of-two-evil scare tactics.

The most-tenured Nation columnist, Katha Pollitt, bats clean-up on the magazine’s Hillary team. She relishes the opportunity, entitling her column The Case for Hillary. In offering her brief, she gives a list of 12 reasons, beginning with reproductive rights: “I’m putting this first because they’re crucial to everything you care about…” [my italics]. Everything we care about? As important as reproductive rights are, does Pollitt really believe that reproductive rights trump all concerns? Did she consider African American mothers whose sons have been murdered by police? Did she even weigh the daily slaughter of hundreds if not thousands throughout the world at the hands of US weapons or the weapons of its surrogates? Does poverty, lack of health care, and inferior education count in her reproductive-rights calculus?

Pollitt, like far too many upper-middle class white liberals, is blind to class and race. Those from other classes or races are not part of “us,” and the concerns of the “other,” though real, are not significant barriers to the “simple human happiness” that she argues flows from reproductive rights. Like the Evangelicals standing on the other side of the abortion barricades, she is incapable of imagining anything more important to others than that battle. She, like the right-wing fanatics, trivializes all other wrongs.

Against the Big Lie

Pollitt’s defense of Ms. Clinton reaches disturbing dimensions when she raises oft-repeated lies about Communist sectarianism leading to the empowerment of Hitler. She references a supposed moment when “...German communists scorned the weak-tea socialists in the 1932 election with the slogan ‘After Hitler, us.’” Like other similar red-baiting slanders that circulate on the left in every election cycle, this one bears little or no relation to the truth. Defenders of lesser-of-two-evilism assert that the German Communists stood in the way of working class anti-fascist unity, that they welcomed Hitler’s rise, that they spurned joint action. These charges are meant to apply supposed lessons from history to the politics of our time, suggesting that independent militancy and principles stand in the way of unity against the specter of extremism. If disaffected voters would throw their votes at the feet of the slightly-lesser-evil, like the German Communists should have done, we could avoid the specter of a greater evil.

While there are many for-hire historians who will affirm these claims, they are based on fiction.

The “1932 election” that Pollitt cites was, in fact, five critical elections: a first-round presidential election in March, the second and final round, the important Prussian Landtag election in April, a Reichstag election in July, and another-- the last relatively legitimate Reichstag election-- in November.

One surely unimpeachable perspective on these elections was that of journalist Carl von Ossietzky. Ossietzky was a prominent and respected left-wing commentator associated with the left wing of social democracy and often critical of the Communists (KPD). From a family of fallen aristocrats, Ossietzky’s anti-fascist credentials and integrity were impeccable-- he received the Nobel Prize in 1935 and died in a Gestapo prison hospital in 1938.

In his newspaper columns in Die Weltbühne, Ossietzky tells a story far removed from the fantastic anti-Communist narrative. In the lead-up to the first round of the Presidential elections, the Social Democratic Party, despite being Germany’s largest party at the time, chose not to run a candidate against both the reactionary incumbent President, von Hindenburg, and Adolf Hitler. It argued that the party’s stance was not pro-Hindenburg, but anti-fascist, a splitting of hairs that did not impress Ossietzky: “It is not that fascism is winning, but that the others are adapting it… A passing insult tossed by the demagogues of the Berlin Sports Palast jerks ten Socialist deputies from their seats, and forces them to prove themselves as fatherland-lovers… the initiative lies with the right.” Ossietzky writes: “Readers continually ask me for whom one should vote on March 13th. Is there really nothing better, they ask, than pursuing this fateful and discouraging policy of the ‘lesser evil’?”

He goes on:

As a non-party man of the left I would have been happy to vote for an acceptable Social Democrat… Since there is no Social Democratic candidate then I will have to vote for the Communist… It must be emphasized that a vote for Thälmann means neither a vote of confidence for the Communist Party, nor major expectations. To make left-wing politics it is necessary to concentrate strength where a man of the left stands in the battle. Thälmann is the only one; all the others are various shades of reaction. That makes the choice easier.

The Social Democrats say: “Hindenburg means struggle against fascism.” From which source do the gentlemen draw this knowledge?

It is nonsense to describe Thälmann’s candidature as simply a gain of numbers. Thälmann will probably receive a surprisingly high number of votes… The better that Thälmann does, the clearer it will be what a success could have been won with a united socialist candidate…

Within a week of his election, Hindenburg-- designated the “anti-fascist” candidate by the Social Democrats-- called for the banning of all left-wing party-affiliated mass organizations. Before nine months passed, the Reich President had appointed Adolf Hitler Chancellor and handed rule to the Nazis. Ossietzky knew at that time what a colossal mistake it was for the Social Democrats to refuse to run a candidate, to support Hindenburg, and to refuse to support Thälmann: “Invisible hands are at work in the web and woof of official policy, trying to bring Hitler, thrown out through the front door, in again up the back stairs.”

In January of 1933, immediately after von Schleicher was deposed as Chancellor and prior to Hindenburg appointing Hitler, the German Communists suggested a united general strike; the Social Democrats rejected the offer to collaborate.

Ossietzky urged unity between Communists and Social Democrats as early as April of 1932. After the Nazis made major gains in the important Prussian Landtag election, Ossietzky saw only two effective responses: either the Social Democrats invite the KPD into the existing Prussian government (something that they had refused to do) or the two parties form a united front. The KPD had already raised the second option one day after the election. The Central Committee called for “mass meetings of the workers in every factory and every mine… in all trade unions…[to] compile a list of joint demands, elect action committees and strike committees composed of Communist, Social Democratic, Christian, and non-party workers…”  

Despite the negative portrait painted of KPD tactics by liberal commentators, the German people showed their growing confidence in the KPD in the two Reichstag elections. Of the three major parties, only the KPD made gains in both elections, adding nearly 30% to its deputies while the SPD lost nearly 16%. Clearly, the KPD’s militant anti-fascism was growing in popularity with the working class.

It is probably too much to hope that liberals will retire the red-baiting canard of Communism ushering in fascism, any more than there is hope that partisan Democrats will cease blaming Ralph Nader for their pathetic surrender to the right in the 2000 election.

Clearly, the lesser-of-two-evils approach will not go away anytime soon, though it has failed to halt the many decades of the rightward drift of the political center. Could it be that those who own the two parties are sponsoring this persistent shift to the right in order to gauge just how long liberals, labor, and the left will tolerate it without making a break with the Democratic Party establishment?

One would do well to put aside Cold War textbooks and liberal smugness and take a long look at the dynamics of oppositional politics in the Weimar era leading up to Hitler’s ascension to power. There are lessons from that period beyond desperately collaborating with bourgeois and reactionary parties. The severe economic crisis of that time was only answered by a demagogic and extreme nationalist movement and by the militantly anti-capitalist, revolutionary movement. 

The Social Democratic Party chose a different path: it sought to manage capitalism along with its bourgeois parliamentary counterparts. They failed. Disaster ensued.

Zoltan Zigedy

zoltanzigedy@gmail.com

Wall Street Hates Trump, too

What does it mean when The Wall Street Journal, the popular mouthpiece for the right wing of the US ruling class, joins The New York Times (its left-wing counterpart) in vicious attacks on the Republican Presidential nominee?

WSJ staff writer Andy Pasztor’s Trump story was featured on the Friday, September 2 edition front page and continued by occupying the entire page facing the paper’s opinion section. Provocatively headlined Donald Trump and the Mob, the article sought to tie Trump, the developer, to Mafia linked contractors, with a sidebar recounting Trump’s employment of the sleazy, corrupt lawyer, Roy Cohn.

It is hardly unusual for developers associated with both parties to engage questionable contractors, a category of employment notorious for insider connections, corrupt deals, and, yes, unsavory characters. Thus, the WSJ piece stands out because it highlights behavior that usually gets a pass by the paper, especially for Republicans. The thin charges, largely based solely on association, stand out for their failure to make Trump seem any different from innumerable businessmen/politicians who slither through election cycles with barely a whisper from the mainstream media.

As for the employment of the late Roy Cohn-- a truly despicable creature-- it never bothered the conscience of the WSJ when he worked for Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, or a host of equally heralded right-wing politicians. So, why the outrage now with Trump?

Is there any doubt that when The Wall Street Journal coalesces with The New York Times and The Washington Post to demonize a candidate, the resulting united front speaks to more than a mere coincidence of opinion? Does even the most jaded observer think that unanimity among representatives of all factions of US elites-- the most powerful forces in US affairs-- does not signal a wholesale rejection of Trump? A repudiation of any charge that he currently represents ruling class interests?

Supporters of Hillary Clinton’s campaign refuse to address this fact. They refuse to acknowledge that she, rather than Trump, enjoys the broad and deep support of nearly the entire class composed of the most rich and powerful. They refuse to confront the meaning of a campaign that paradoxically aligns the mouthpieces and moneybags of US elites solidly behind the Democratic Party candidate. Marxists would call it a “contradiction” and search for its meanings. “Left-wing” apologists for the Clinton candidacy simply ignore it.

The peculiar choices offered voters are lost in the clamor of personal attack, the clash of shallow issues, and the orgy of fund-raising. Barring any new, dramatic, and sleazy revelations, debate stumbles, or blunders, Hillary Clinton will likely win the election in November. After the celebration of Trump’s defeat, liberals and organized labor will wake up to the reality that they have not moved their agenda one step. At best, they will avoid losing what they believe Trump threatens. That may satisfy many. But for those hoping to change the US for the better, this awakening should be sobering. Apart from permanent war, growing inequality, deteriorating living standards, intensifying racism, what will this election bring the next generation? What can reformers build upon?

Even more alarming, this election stands as the low point of an unrelenting process, a process of both a diminishing of the differences between the two parties and a continual rightward drift of the political center. Since late in the Carter administration, the Democratic Party leadership has sought to occupy the political space only minimally to the left of the Republicans. Recognizing this, corporate Republicans have steered their agenda rightward, seeing an opportunity to dismantle any and all remnants of the New Deal and the War on Poverty. If this election cycle does deviate in any way from this trend, it is in the promise to continue the process primarily through the agenda of Clinton rather than the vague and shifting positions of Trump. That is, of course, the basis for ruling class support for Clinton.

We have witnessed this process take us through a cast of worsening, ever more outrageous characters: a petty Cold-War demagogue, a self-righteous moralist, a theatrical con artist, a dishonest backslapper, a crusading alcoholic, and the two integrity and candor challenged candidates belched up in this election cycle.

Those who will celebrate the Clinton victory (like those who were ecstatic over Obama’s victory) will bear responsibility for the continued course of this process, the process of the corruption and trivialization of two-party politics.

The electoral fear-mongering grows thin, as the lesser-of-two-evils stance enables more and more evil. Scapegoating those who are trying to find a way out of the two-party trap remains the sport of those too cynical or lazy to look at options, too complacent to recognize the futility of trying to drag a corporate-owned Democratic Party toward popular change. Decades of self-righteous prattle warning of ultra-right dangers has not slowed the rightward drift of US politics one iota, whether Democrats win or not.

Surely if Marxists have anything to contribute to understanding bourgeois politics, it is to pull the curtain back and expose how it functions. What we see is not a pretty sight.

Zoltan Zigedy

zoltanzigedy@gmail.com

Wake Me When It’s Over

Mainstream commentators-- both liberal and conservative-- would like us to believe that Presidential contests are like beauty pageants. Primaries allow the two-party “beauties” to appear before the judges (the voters) to show their wares. Televised debates are meant to expose the contestants’ political personalities. And, in the fine tradition of high-school-civics-book democracy, the people are allowed to decide the winners.

As polished and innocent as this shallow imagery appears, it hides a far more insidious process.

A far better comparison would be with the delightful humbuggery of the Wizard of Oz. Like Dorothy, we are deceived into confusing fantasy with reality. And our corporate media refuses to pull back the curtain to expose the deceit.

Republicans

Take the Republican primary, for example. With 16 (or more) candidates announced as primary contestants, it looks like the textbook-picture of democracy: a political flavor for every Republican. Of course the truth is that most of the candidates have no hope of winning the nomination, but do hope to gain political advantage, jobs, or future consideration. Many candidates appeal to the storm troopers of the Republican Party, the angry bigots, religious zealots, and unhinged war mongers; these forces serve as a social base for a future fascism. But they present a painful contradiction for the Republican Party, a party first and foremost serving the interests of monopoly capital. They can, and have won regional and local power, but they will not win a national election. The leaders of the Republican Party know this. They also know that the vulgar xenophobic right will not necessarily or consistently carry out the corporate agenda.

That's why the Donald Trump campaign is such a problem for the Republicans.

A recent lengthy Wall Street Journal commentary (July 25/26, 2015) featured on the front page of the week-end Review section addresses this problem. Written by a prominent senior fellow at the right-wing Hoover Institute, Peter Berkowitz, the article expresses the tensions in the Party and calls for reconciliation, while promoting the interests of wealth and corporate power. Clearly, the Trump phenomenon is of big concern to Republican king makers. Berkowitz euphemistically distinguishes between “social conservatives” and “limited-government conservatives.”

His social conservatives are the Republican neo-fascists, the Doctor Strangeloves, who would like to boil minorities in oil, nuke the Iranians, and impose Old Testament law on the US. Since World War II, they have been both an essential element of the Republican electoral effort and a hindrance to winning national office. Republican leadership trumped nuke-happy General Douglas MacArthur with the saner, business-friendly, and genial General Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. When Barry Goldwater, a nuclear terrorist and neo-segregationist, won the 1964 nomination and was crushed in the general election, the point was driven home: the wacky-wing of the Republican Party must be mollified, but kept out of national contests.

While Reagan courted and appeased the social conservatives, his imprint is most felt with his restructuring of the relation of labor-to-capital, to the benefit of capital. To that extent, he was the ultimate limited-government (read: corporate) Republican. He served capital well, while fostering a small-town, Midwestern tradition-loving image to appease the rabid-right. While he may have been the ultimate con man, his ease in constructing images and his persuasiveness account for the respect won from supposed political adversaries like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

The Reagan approach-- attack taxes, unions, public services, benefits, pensions, etc. while coddling the haters and those rushing toward Armageddon-- served as the template for Republican national politics until our time. Unfortunately, Donald Trump-- a figure with B-grade acting chops rivaling Ronald Reagan's-- threatens to break the template. Trump's independence imperils Party stability. His open disdain for the rules and conventions demanded by the Republican leadership upsets the process. His imperviousness to Party criticism frightens the Party's watchdogs. His freedom from financial entanglements beyond his own resources erases possible leverage. But most of all, Trump's threat to run in the general election terrorizes Party big wigs.

Trump has brought Republican social conservatism to center stage, presenting a possibly fatal problem to the Party. While some polls show him with a lead, that lead constitutes, at best, 16% of the possible Republican primary voters. Republican leaders know that that will not translate into a majority in a general election, given an electorate largely hostile to the Republican Fringe. Berkowitz, fearing a debacle, urges moderation. He cites rising star Governor Nikki Haley as an example of the kind of tactical acumen needed in this campaign. Her ready sacrifice of the symbolic Confederate battle flag at the South Carolina state capital demonstrated her “maturity,” while safely securing the symbol for “...'those who wish to show their respect for the flag on their private property'.” The games our politicians play!

For Berkowitz, the options are clear. The candidates best representing Republican interests are the limited-government (corporate) candidates, namely, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Scott Walker. At the same time he believes that they must be good at “blending and balancing the demands of both schools.”

No one should be confused by the conciliatory tone. Berkowitz and the Republican leadership prefer, insist upon a candidate dedicated first and foremost to serving monopoly capital. They will not allow a campaign sacrificed to nut-case principles. But insofar as Trump may provoke a bloody split or bolt the Party, they are filled with dread.

Undoubtedly, they will get a corporate candidate (likely Jeb Bush, who is raising funds at an unprecedented pace), but at what price?

Democrats

Leftists can only wish that the Democratic Party had these issues. We can only imagine that Hillary Clinton wakes up every night in a cold sweat, dreading the next morning's news about Bernie Sanders. That is not happening.

Unlike the Trump campaign, there is no danger of the Party's left wing (the so-called “progressives”) bolting or disrupting the general election. Sanders has assured the Party establishment that he will not run independently of the Democratic Party or attack the Party or the primary victor. He guarantees that he will remain loyal to the Party throughout the general election-- a loyal soldier. He refuses to attack Clinton, arguing that he prefers the high road. In other words, he eschews Trump's independence.

Like Trump, Sanders polls as high as 16% among Democratic primary voters, far below Clinton's numbers. But unlike Trump, his most loyal followers pose no threat, make no demands on the Party leaders.

As millions of dollars flow into Clinton's campaign coffers, she benefits from both the Sanders and the Trump campaign. The afterglow of the Sanders' populist revival will deflect critics of her corporate allegiances and rabid foreign policy. Trump’s rousing of the Republican Taliban will rekindle the “defeat the ultra-right” crowd who always accept the Party's tacking to the right to win over the “vital” center. We've seen this script before.

So we stand in 2015 in the same position we stood in 2007. The media and commentariat are doing their best (hundreds of millions of advertising dollars are engaged) to create the excitement of a contest where the outcome will ultimately be decided more by fundraisers than by voters. Campaign veterans in both parties estimate that the winning candidate and (her) opponent will spend over a billion dollars before the election.

In this context, a polite “insurgency” within the Democratic Party will not leave a lasting mark on the political scene. To make a difference, an insurgent would need to begin years before an election and build a formidable mass base to counteract the power of money and the entrenched Democratic leadership. The candidate would need to commit to building a movement that would encompass state and local organizations while promising to sustain movement building beyond the current and even future elections. That has not happened in the past and appears most unlikely with the Sanders campaign.

For young idealists inspired by Sanders's departure from political banality, one can only hope that they will learn valuable lessons about the institutional inertia of the two parties and shed any illusions about “knights in shining armor.” Less optimistically, quixotic campaigns like Sanders's, and Howard Dean's before him, can leave a stain of cynicism and inaction.

Is Bernie-mania a second coming of Obama-mania, an exercise of fantasy politics on the part of the left? The test for Sanders supporters who are seasoned veterans of the political wars will come when Clinton wins the Democratic primaries. Will they docilely rally behind her and work for another pro-corporate, war-mongering candidate offering a dubious lesser-of-two-evils? Or will they seek a principled third party candidate (like Jill Stein) who offers a long, unsure, and arduous path, but a path possibly offering real change?

Zoltan Zigedy

zoltanzigedy@gmail

History Lessons

Remember in 2009, when the then White house chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, labeled the “progressive” wing of the Democratic Party “f**king retards”? Without Emanuel's notoriously crude bluster, President Obama expressed a similar sentiment on April 23 in public remarks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement.

According to MSNBC, President Obama said: “Some of these folks [opponents of the TPP] are friends of mine. I love them to death. But in the same way that when I was arguing for health care reform I asked people to look at the facts – somebody comes up with a slogan like ‘death panel,’ doesn’t mean it’s true. Look at the facts. The same thing is true on this. Look at the facts. Don’t just throw a bunch of stuff out there and see if it sticks...”

Obama's comparison referencing the “death panels” concocted by the lunatic right did not go unnoticed by his critics from labor and the left. Most objected that comparing their opposition to TPP to the ravings of crazies hardly suggests the sentiments of a friend.

Of course this is an old story. Since the defeat of Walter Mondale in 1984, the founding of the Democratic Leadership Council and numerous associated think-tanks, the Democratic Party has moved smartly and steadily rightward, shedding any semblance of New Deal or Great Society progressivism. During the Obama years, the process has reached a point where the Democratic Party's meager left wing pretends to represent the Party's soul while the leadership pretends to welcome its views. On occasions like the TPP incident, the leadership fumbles the script and reveals its true feelings.

Sadly, few lessons are drawn from this experience or the pattern of contempt and derision demonstrated by the party's corporate coddling leadership.

Flashback

As we enter the Silly Season-- the 18 months of lies, bluster, and empty promises preceding the Presidential election-- I am reminded of the last great moment of self-induced, liberal/left self-deception. In the lead-up to the 2008 presidential election, all but a few unrepentant Marxist-Leninists, Green Party hardliners, and assorted outliers joined hands in a mad orgy of Obama-mania. For those who need reminding, Obama was actually the corporate choice preferred by the ruling class to clean up the mess left by a failed, embarrassing Bush administration that destabilized the Middle East, antagonized allies, blemished the image of the US, and stood clueless before an economic crisis unprecedented since the Great Depression. A fresh face was needed, a politician unstained by the Bush era, untainted by the “insider” label.

Barack Obama fit the bill, just as Jimmy Carter, a Georgia peanut farmer and home-spun governor did nearly four decades earlier after the Nixon crimes and indignities. In both cases, an “outsider” promised to restore confidence in a tarnished office. I wrote in 2008:

There are some striking and illuminating parallels between this election season and the Presidential election campaign of 1976. Like the eight years of the Bush administration, the eight years of Nixon/Ford produced an unparalleled collapse of support for the Republican Party. The Watergate scandal coupled with the failure of the US military in Vietnam and an economic crisis left the Republican Party wounded and regrouping. The interim elections of 1974 produced gains for the Democrats, especially in former suburban Republican strongholds.

Most citizens looked to the then forthcoming elections with a profound desire for a new course. The Democrats chose a political outsider, Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia. Carter promised to make the government “as good as the people.” Pundits hailed Carter as a departure from the old politics and a fresh, honest voice for change (e.g. The Miracle of Jimmy Carter, Howard Norton and Bob Slosser, 1976).

Similar to 1976 and the Presidential candidate J. Carter, his presumptive 2008 counterpart, Barack Obama, is viewed as a Washington “outsider.” He has campaigned as a candidate of change. Pundits hail him as a fresh voice untainted by the vices of the establishment. (2008: a Reprise of 1976?)

Was Obama really the corporate choice? Or is this just baseless cynicism of a sectarian old leftist? I observed in 2008:

Wall Street has strongly supported the Democratic candidates over the Republicans. Through the end of 2007, seven of the big 8 financial firms (Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase, UBS, and Credit Suisse) showed a decided preference towards the Democrats. Only Merrill Lynch gave more to Republicans, though they gave the single most to Clinton. The Wall Street Journal (2-3/4-08), while noting that Obama receives a notable number of contributions from small donors, pointed out that “…even for Sen. Obama, the finance industry was still the richest source of cash overall…”

Through February, Obama leads the other candidates in contributions from the pharmaceutical industry and was in a virtual dead heat with Clinton with respect to the energy sector.

These numbers strongly suggest that candidates, especially Democratic Party candidates, are unlikely to challenge their corporate sponsors in any meaningful way. (The Political Economy of the Elections)

To underscore the meaning of these campaign contributions, I ventured:

This election cycle has revealed something new: Democrats are raising more money from corporate interests for their campaigns than the traditionally dominant Republicans. This process began before the 2006 elections, accelerated sharply in the Presidential elections, strengthened in the early primaries and continued into 2008. In March, 2008, McCain gained somewhat on his Democratic rivals, but still fell well below the total raised by the two Democrats.

Within the Democratic camp, Clinton dominated most corporate contributions until 2008, when Obama enjoyed big gains, pushing ahead through March especially in the key industries of finance, lawyers/lobbyists, communications and health.

Would it be far-fetched to say that the corporate choice was there for all to see? Is it difficult to imagine from these facts that unlimited, unconditional bail-outs were ahead for the financial industry in 2009? Or health care “reform” structured around the wishes of insurance companies, the health care industry, and pharmaceuticals?

Yes, it was there for all to see.

Of course many were willfully blind to the facts, embracing self-delusion instead. I wrote of one left pundit so struck with Obama-mania that he reported the Obama victory with wild hyperbole and messianic verve:

"...hundreds of millions-Black, Latino, Asian, Native-American and white, men and women, young and old, literally danced in the streets and wept with joy, celebrating an achievement of a dramatic milestone in a 400-year struggle, and anticipating a new period of hope and possibility." (Quoted in Getting beyond Euphoria)

That pundit has today found a new messiah in Bernie Sanders.

Two days after the 2008 election, weighing the new administration's chief players, their backgrounds, and political records, along with stressing the limitations deeply embedded in the national political institutions, I cautioned that Obama would not and could not deliver the goods expected by the broad left. I summarized the election as follows:

The 2008 US Presidential election is behind us. A fair estimation of the results might be as follows: A clear, significant statement of the US electorate; a hollow, likely disappointing result for the people. After the euphoria of the Obama victory, it is vital that we separate these two assessments and avoid the cynicism of leftist isolationism and the self-deception of hopeful idealism. What the voters wanted was unquestionably significant change. What they were promised was change. Whether change will come from the Obama administration is - at best - questionable. (The Presidential Election: A Victory for the People?)

I concluded the essay with the following remarks:

It's time for the left to put aside the comforting illusions and rebuild an independent, oppositional front that is not dependent upon the good will of the corrupted Democratic Party. We desperately need that left to forge a true people-saving agenda from the destructive gorilla.

Unfortunately, we (the left) have yet to construct the independent, oppositional front needed. Nor has the opposition to the Democratic Party steamroller advanced much beyond the motley group of “a few unrepentant Marxist-Leninists, Green Party hardliners, and assorted outliers” present in 2008. Accordingly, the new political season very likely will reproduce many of the same inanities and fantasies inflicted seven years ago.

 Hillary?

 With the ability and expectations of raising well over a billion dollars for the forthcoming presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton will likely be the Democratic nominee and very probably the next President. Unlike the 2008 Obama-moment, the ruling class is opting for “insiders” in the period ahead. Even with polls showing a twenty-five year low in confidence that the country is going in the right direction, even with barely double-digit approval of congress, and even with decidedly negative images of both parties by poll respondents, the masters of our fate are favoring old dynastic names: Clinton and Bush.

Chastened by its encounter with “hopey-changey,” the electorate appears to be looking for “experience” as the most important attribute of a candidate this election cycle (Washington Post/ABC News poll). Of course this is precisely the image Clinton has been carefully cultivating since her Senate tenure. Like her husband, the former President, Ms. Clinton seems untouched by her publicized failings. Neither the abuse of her internal communications while in government service nor her slimy horse trading with foreign and domestic wealthy donors to her billion-dollar family foundation has shaken her campaign. The Clintons know no shame, the media show no indignation, and Democratic Party loyalists own no principles.

While there is much talk that the Democratic Party's liberals need some red meat to keep them in the game, there is little evidence that it is forthcoming or needed. Elizabeth Warren likely pledged loyal opposition in her meeting with Ms. Clinton last year.

Even a recent dust-up between Warren and Obama over the secretive, corporate-friendly TPP never moved the compass leftward. Warren timidly and opportunistically raised fears that “foreign” corporations might use the TPP enforcement function to influence US regulation of financial institutions (instead of exposing it as a license for any corporation to violate the sovereignty of all participating nations). Obama shot back artfully: “...The notion that I had this massive fight with Wall Street to make sure that we don't repeat what happened in 2007, 2008 [the recession], and then I sign a provision that would unravel it? ... I'd have to be pretty stupid." Readers may be unacquainted with events occurring exactly as Obama recalls them. They may search their memories in vain for a “massive fight” with Wall Street. Instead, they may remember the massive bailout of Wall Street on his watch, vivid memories that should make one suspicious of Obama's defense of TPP.

Missing from the spat is any effort to call out Hillary Clinton on the TPP. Presumably, her stand on this controversial subject is of great importance for those wishing to make an informed choice in the 2016 election. But the Clinton campaign does not want informed opinion. Her campaign chief reportedly said of the issue: “Can you make it go away?”

Another anti-Clinton “populist,” former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, has cast aside his hard-line image while serving as Baltimore's mayor. Then, he was a Giuliani clone; his administration terrorized marginalized people to ethnically and class-cleanse the new Baltimore, a Baltimore that has made the murderous rough ride in police custody globally infamous. Today, he has been reborn as an ardent enemy of Wall Street.

But Democratic Party leaders need not fear. Opportunism has become so deeply embedded in liberal politics that 87% of liberal poll respondents “could see themselves supporting Mrs. Clinton” (Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll).

To corral the rest, Democrats have Bernie Sanders. Writing in BlackAgenda Report, Bruce Dixon astutely labels Sanders the “shepherd” for the Democratic Party:

...we have seen the Bernie Sanders show before, and we know exactly how it ends. Bernie has zero likelihood of winning the Democratic nomination for president over Hillary Clinton. Bernie will lose, Hillary will win. When Bernie folds his tent in the summer of 2016, the money, the hopes and prayers, the year of activist zeal that folks put behind Bernie Sanders' either vanishes into thin air, or directly benefits the Hillary Clinton campaign.

As Dixon understands and history shows, Democratic Party insurgencies end by sapping the energy and zeal of its idealistic fighters while herding them back into the fold for the ensuing center-right campaign. Before Sanders, Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich were the standard bearers for the futile Children's Crusades against the Party's bosses. Sanders' motives are irrelevant here. Whether or not he sincerely believes he can change the trajectory of politics within the two-party system, the Democratic Party has morphed into an institution irredeemably in the clutches of the rich and powerful. Only forces outside of the Party are capable of directing matters leftward.

Voters seem resigned to mediocrity and the parties seem anxious to comply. In a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, respondents' net positive feelings (positive minus negative) were graphed. Five Republicans scored in negative territory. Only Hillary Clinton managed a net zero to lead the pack. Despite rating quite poor on honesty and straightforwardness, Ms. Clinton is polling ahead of the early Republican candidates.

The Republicans face added obstacles with conflict between their corporate-coddling economic royalists and their ideologically extremist wing, especially the Tea Party. Republican leaders embrace the ideologues as foot soldiers, but recognize that they are a liability with voters in the general election and shun them as candidates. While most Republicans currently prefer Jeb Bush over the rest of the pack, the ideologues-- especially the Tea Party-- question his bona fides (among Tea Party loyalists, he is only the first choice of about 6%). Republican leaders know they must keep the Tea Party in the game (would any Republican leader dare call the Tea Party a bunch of f**king retards?) At the same time, they desperately want to minimize the Tea Party agenda. In 2012, they succeeded by securing the nomination for a corporate shill, Mitt Romney.

Undoubtedly, many dollars will be spent, speeches made, and articles written to convince the electorate that there are real differences between the parties and their candidates. But the differences that surface will not be with goals: the two parties share a common goal of US dominance in foreign policy; the two parties share a common goal of protecting and promoting capitalism in domestic policy.

The differences will be in contrasting assessments on how to achieve these goals. Some politicians believe that the empire is crumbling because the country has turned away from traditional values; others believe the empire is crumbling because we have acted rashly and highhandedly; and still others believe that the empire is doing just fine! But all but a very few fully support the empire. If you don't believe it, ask yourself how many elected officials show up at your anti-drone demonstration, your protest of Israeli outrages, or your solidarity march with Venezuela.

And on the domestic front, our political options are determined by which policies best promote the smooth operation of capitalism; some politicians see unions and welfare as obstacles to the optimal operation of the market; others see inequality and poverty as obstacles to the optimal operation of the market; and still others think that the economy is going swimmingly. But all pay obeisance to capitalism. And do politicians show up at picket lines; have they joined the fight against police brutality; are they leading the fight for a new minimum wage?

Rarely.

The silly season conjures frustration and anger. But as I wrote elsewhere, “...it is vital that we...avoid the cynicism of leftist isolationism and the self-deception of hopeful idealism.” We must not drink the dubious lesser-of-two-evils kool-aid, nor should we leave the electoral field to the hypocrites and liars. Many former loyalists now speak of Obama as a traitor or back-stabber. He is neither. He never was on our side.

I learned (Labor Notes, May 2015) that Vermont Governor Shumlin has rejected the Vermont health care program and has set out with fellow Democratic legislators to go after other programs through steep budget cuts. Author, Traven Leyshon, notes that “The sense of betrayal runs as deep among state workers and teachers as it does among health care campaigners.” But Governor Shumlin did not betray the workers; he was never on their side. This is the important lesson that we must continue to share if we are to move beyond the two-party trap.

Happily, Leyshon reports that “Unions here are drawing the conclusion that we need to run our own candidates. The existing Vermont Progressive Party, which now has nine legislators, could become the vehicle.” This, too, is the lesson that we must spread. If we are to fight the hopelessness and impotency of two-party politics, we must tackle the difficult task of mounting independent and third-party campaigns. Can we afford to wait on another election cycle?

Zoltan Zigedy

zoltanzigedy@gmail.com