As I have noted elsewhere, radicals who attack the Democratic Party -- especially on the grounds of corruption -- are often accused of conforming to a mudslinging campaign waged by conservatives, which is just a distraction, and one that ultimately helps those that liberals should be opposing the most. This claim is particularly relevant to Hillary Clinton and this election cycle. However, most of these mudslinging campaigns waged by conservatives are distractions away from the similarities rather than toward the real differences.
Surveillance and Civil Liberties
Both parties -- demonstrated well through Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama -- support wholesale surveillance on most of the nation's population, as well as much of the world, as was revealed in the leaks by Edward Snowden. Wholesale surveillance is the most obvious of the civil liberties breaches, and if one simply types into a search engine, "Hillary Clinton, surveillance," all the ugly positions she has taken in defense of the surveillance state will show up, including her calls for more -- a stance which seems nearly inconceivable and impossible. It has also been shown over and over that these surveillance programs have stopped no terrorist attacks, according to a member of the White House review panel on the NSA programs, a revelation that exposes countless lies and debunks the only comfortable defense of the programs that exists. The Obama administration has prosecuted more people under the espionage act than all previous administrations in U.S. history combined.
The Obama administration has also used and, in the opinion of many experts, abused the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) for many years, through his extension of it in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). As Ariel Schneller writes in the Harvard Law Record ,
"Section 1021 affirms that the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) authorizes detention of anybody whom the President determines was involved in the attacks of 9/11, as well as detention of anybody who substantially supports or is a member of al-Qaeda, the Taliban or associated forces. This detention is authorized so long as the hostilities authorized by the AUMF are ongoing. Of course, because the battle against al-Qaeda may never end, Section 1021 is essentially a de facto authorization of indefinite detention."
This is a truly mind-boggling law passed by a president who is a former constitutional lawyer. As Chris Hedges, a journalist who sued the Obama administration over the NDAA -- and eventually lost, has pointed out numerous times -- section 1021 is riddled with nebulous, non-legal terms, such as "substantially supports" and "associated forces," building off of the vague, anything-is-permissible language that created the AUMF.
Many of the previously mentioned categories, such as the immigration record, the killing solely of people who have not been charged with a crime through the drone and targeted assassination campaign, including US citizens, and the sad environmental record can, and should, also be interpreted under the issue of civil liberties. Another key issue is the militarization of police, which rose substantially under the Obama administration, saw a brief reform for one year, and then a repeal of that reform. Glenn Ford has done great work on this subject.
II Discussion of Differences, what they Mean, and Some Basic Reasons to Support the Green Party
The issues explored in section I are not the only issues on which there is continuity, and there are also some noteworthy differences between the two parties. Abortion and LGBTQ rights are probably the two most substantial differences, and gun control and health care are two of the most minimal differences, since no mainstream Democrats oppose the second amendment -- they just interpret it differently -- and the opposition to healthcare on the right and support for Obamacare on the left both serve the same corporate agenda. The primary agenda of the corporate establishment is carried out to the exact same extreme and with equal consistency by both parties, with some individual exceptions.
The biggest and most consistent difference, however, is the difference between how both parties speak. The Republican Party, most recently perfectly embodied in Donald Trump, is overtly racist, classist, ecocidal, self-destructive and hawkish, while the Democratic Party is all of these things in their actions and policies, but are masked from the public by their liberal rhetoric. This has been the key focal point of the work of journalist Chris Hedges for a long time. Indeed, for over a year, this has been Hedges' main concern in his columns. Hedges points out why the liberal rhetoric of the Democratic Party is as destructive as the more openly destructive rhetoric of the Republicans: the logic goes that if Democrats present themselves as the opposition to the Republican Party by speaking in a liberal language, while ultimately serving the same exact centers of power, their outright betrayal of the people on behalf of the corporate establishment will fully enrage the population, as it should. In other words, the actions of the Democratic Party covertly betray what the Party claims to stand for. Hedges writes in one of his many articles on the subject,
"[The] duplicity -- embodied in politicians such as Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama -- succeeded for decades. These elites, many from east coast Ivy League schools, spoke the language of values -- civility, inclusivity, a condemnation of overt racism and bigotry, a concern for the middle class -- while thrusting a knife into the back of the underclass for their corporate masters."
In this way, the Democrats are responsible for the rise of the underclass neo-fascist movement, by their perpetual refusal to walk the walk. Hedges writes as well any contemporary social critic about the continuity between the Democratic and Republican parties and their shared service to corporate power. When we look back at these times in whatever is left of our future, Hedges will have his place in history as one of our most important messengers.
There are, however, substantially noteworthy differences between individuals, beyond rhetoric, on both sides of the aisle. For example, one does not have to be twelve years old to understand that Hillary Clinton is a stronger candidate and more levelheaded person than Donald Trump, and would make what can be called a "better president." The point is that this essentially does not matter in our society anymore; the same corporate agenda will be carried out to its apocalyptic end, no matter which Democrat or Republican holds office, including Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, and "the left" no longer exists within the two party establishment.
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