Then someone turned the lights on.
Once in power the populist ditched the disguise and became what he had always been -- a slick talking snake-oil salesman who'd no more "walk with unions" than have tea with Assad. Say one thing. Do another. Lie in between. Help rebuild Baghdad but dodge on Detroit. Bail out banksters but bail on homeowners. Escalate wars of aggression. Expand drone killings. Give more tax breaks to the wealthy. Offer cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medical.
Back on track.
Not surprisingly, in 2012 voters were force-fed more of the same: cast a ballot for one of the two candidates -- the surveillance-loving K Street clone versus the life-sized embodiment of Gordon Gekko -- or light your hair on fire and jump off a cliff. (Not really. I made that last part up.)
Face it. Presidential elections are a charade. A kabuki to fool the masses. Dej- vu all over again. And again. And again. And again.
From the perspective of those in power, it wouldn't have mattered a whit if Grandpa McNasty had won in 2008 -- or Al Gore in 2000, or hapless John Kerry in 2004, or Mitt the Twit in 2012. Democrat. Republican. Nothing substantive was going to change. It's not a question of which progressive policies or how best to implement them. No one who would actually try to govern as a progressive -- raise taxes on the wealthy, cut the military budget, fund domestic projects, expand voting rights -- no one who thinks like that is going to be allowed anywhere near the levers of power, let alone the presidency itself.
Which is why Hillary the Hawk will be the Democratic nominee for president in 2016. Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane!
Nope. It's Hillary Clinton, smiling like a caged dove, all the while mapping strategy with her corporate sponsors on how to repeat the scam. They know the routine. Step one: rouse rabble with populist fable. Step two: govern as CEO.
Fool me twice. Count on it.
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