Don’t Mute Newt
The trick to maintaining the US delusional
democracy is feeding the illusion for citizens that voting and elections really
matter. But when both major parties
are owned by rich and corporate elites it matters less than most people think
whether Republicans or Democrats win and control Congress or the White
House.
Their seeming differences
are a clever distraction that keeps fooling and manipulating Americans. With the help of the mainstream media,
making entertainment out of political races, Americans are deceived into
thinking that elections deserve their respect and participation.
As power shifts periodically from one party to the other partner of the
two-party plutocracy, the illusion of meaningful change sustains the corrupt,
dysfunctional political and government system and the economy rewarding the top
one percent. Winning politicians
are adept at lying convincingly, especially about change and reforms and, like
well advertised products, Americans consume the lies.
The perennial problem is that despite what so many Americans view as
failed presidencies and, even more clearly, failed Congresses, no Second
American Revolution is produced that would return the government to we the
people. The biggest lie of all:
Elections can fix the broken system.
The candidacy of Newt Gingrich presents a historic opportunity for a new,
bigger form of failure that could clarify to most Americans just how broken the
electoral system is. On the one
hand, the widespread anti-Obama sentiment coupled with a crippled economy could
be sufficient to elect any Republican opponent. On the other hand, despite a long list
of Gingrich deficiencies proclaimed by many mute-Newt conservatives and
Republicans, he just might grab the Republican nomination and beat Obama. Counter intuitively, President Gingrich
could help revive American democracy.
He is the failure we have been waiting for, just the right old, fat, loud
mouth, hypocritical white guy.
He would be such an utter and complete disaster as President that,
finally, a vast majority of Americans, especially those that still vote, would
reach a heightened level of despair, anger and disgust that some form of
rebellion akin to what created the nation in the first place could occur. Think of Gingrich as the Segway
President: all hype and fakery with no possibility of success, being much, much
worse that George W. Bush and Barrack Obama.
In other words, the US would finally reach a bottomed-out
political state more analogous to the tyrannical regimes that have fallen to
grassroots revolutions. The
illusion of a functioning democracy would melt away and the nonsense of being
the greatest democracy would become crystal clear. History suggests that things must get so
bad and painful that no amount of rationalizations, propaganda, lies and
distractions can keep sustaining a corrupt and delusional democracy.
In this nightmare-salvation scenario, here are possible concrete actions
that would put the US on the path to revolutionary reforms: overwhelming public
demands for reform constitutional amendments through the use of an Article V
convention bypassing Congress, successful emergence of a competitive third
party, massive voting out of incumbent Democrats and Republicans, a stronger
Occupy movement leading a populist, nonpartisan rebellion aimed at overturning
the status quo political and economic system.
Even if you cannot get yourself to vote for Gingrich you can still help
by not voting for any of his Republican opponents in primaries and, later, not
voting for Obama. Think of this
behavior as courageous patriotic dissent.
Desperate action for desperate times. Sure, you might worry about some awful
consequences for the nation from a scary Gingrich presidency. Against this, however, how much more can
the nation suffer from presidencies that serve rich and corporate interests
rather than the 99 percent? With
Gingrich we could get a populist backlash to drive rebellion and reform. Any system that produced a President
Gingrich would clearly justify tearing it down.
The recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that 50 percent of Americans polled would
never vote for Gingrich, clearly a sign of how little trust and confidence he
engenders. This sentiment must be
overcome by seeing Gingrich as the devilish stimulus for national rebellion
against the two-party oligarchy. Of
note, 37 percent said they were certain to vote against Obama, and 34 percent
said the two-party system is seriously broken, and the country needs a third
party. But the current system has
been rigged to make a third party presidential candidacy extremely difficult,
though the Americans Elect effort may be significant in 2012.
Note that a President Romney would probably not help; he just does not
have what it takes to talk and behave recklessly, stupidly and crazily enough to
embarrass and chagrin most Americans at historic levels. Unlike the genuinely reptilian Gingrich,
Romney is no more genuine than our current democracy, which would stay
fake. Like Obama, Romney has far
too much self-control to be bad enough to wake up Americans to our warped
democracy. Replacing Obama with
Romney would be like choosing white eggs instead of brown eggs; a difference
without distinction.
[Contact Joel S. Hirschhorn through delusionaldemocracy.com.]
