 · Both traditional political parties now operate in service to an economic elite and are therefore irrelevant to most of the populace.
 · Nearly all the political institutions have now been co-opted by that economic elite including the Presidency, the Congress and the Supreme Court.
 · Oversight and regulation have been turned over to the industries they are intended to oversee and regulate.
 · The underserved citizens are frustrated and left open to the devices of demagogs, conmen and charlatans who recognize and value the potential of their supportive energy.
 · Ignoring the real issues of equality of gender, sexual orientation, religion, race, or ethnicity.
 · A politics disconnected from the will of the people, in which policy serves an economic elite and our politics become an empty and elaborate form of political theatre.
Constructing the System
The edifice which has been constructed over the past half century took form after the 1968 election with the "law and order" direction of Nixon and the Powell Memorandum which became the battle cry for business to become directly involved in our national politics and made Chambers of Commerce the battle centers for the take-over of our national politics.
Since then, democracy has been systematically dismantled beginning with deregulation and the destruction of unions as the voice of workers. It proceeded through a switch to neoliberal economics, a surge of privatizing public functions and a massive overhaul of the tax code.
All of this was consolidated, protected, and eventually entrenched, becoming the new reality. In the place of the human energy of the old democratic system which relied on the buy-in of the citizenry we now have economics as an artificial energy source with the health of the society measured by the Dow Jones and corporate growth.
The only dynamism was in the economic sphere, everything else began to stagnate.
We now have the least cost-effective, but highly profitable, health care system in the world and higher education is being priced out of reach for most ordinary citizens.
Our penal system began to grow with much of it being privatized. We now have, by far the largest prison population in the world. With our focus on militarization, war and a strange interpretation of the Second Amendment, gun sales rise as does gun violence, again making us unique in the civilized world.
Violent responses to any perceived disrespect of our system is encouraged and wars become a wonderful distraction, leading to great corporate profits and making us the leading arms dealer of the world.
We also saw the entire electoral system being weakened and corrupted with jerrymandering, adjusting voting rolls, restricting voter access, weakening voter protection and making voter registration more difficult, weakening the integrity of one of the most basic foundations of a democratic society.
With the frustrations of a dysfunctional system, those in power needed to find scapegoats and they turned on those who were immigrants, or were "different" racially, religiously, or who had different lifestyles. Civic discourse became more confrontational as entire elements of the society were clearly left out of consideration.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
