From Truthdig
Imagine yourself in early 2019. The Democrats, despite never articulating a political vision other than not being Donald Trump and refusing to roll back Republican legislation such as the 2017 tax bill, have regained the House of Representatives by a slim majority. They vote articles of impeachment. The Senate Republicans, pressured by many within their own party to abandon Trump because of his ineptitude, increasingly erratic behavior and corruption, call on the president to resign. Trump refuses. He uses the megaphone of his office to incite violence by his small, fanatic base. The military, whose deployment as a domestic police force is authorized by Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act, is called into the streets to quell unrest. The United States, by the time the violence is snuffed out, is a de facto military dictatorship.
That such a scenario is plausible to public figures such as Ralph Nader is a sign of the deep decay of democratic institutions. The two major political parties lack a coherent vision. They are subservient to corporate power. They have abandoned the common good. They have turned politics into burlesque. They have rendered the citizenry impotent. The press, especially the electronic press, has transformed news into a grotesque reality show filled with trivia, gossip and conjecture. The elites in both parties, along with the rich and corporations, profit from a naked kleptocracy. Everything is for sale, from public lands to public education. And the juggernaut of corporate power impoverishes the people as it willfully destroys the facade of the hollowed-out democratic state.
"There is no democracy," Nader said when I reached him by phone in Connecticut. "The only democracy left in this country is they don't haul you to jail for speaking out. What's left of democracy is a significant due process, habeas corpus, freedom of speech and probable cause, and that's violated when there's a terrorist attack and people are rounded up, like Muslim Americans.
"Can there be a democracy when you don't have a competitive electoral system?" he asked. "No. Can there be a democracy when people who come in second win the election? No. Can there be a democracy when it's tougher to get on the ballot than in any other Western country in the world by an order of magnitude? No. Can there be a democracy when money rules? And not just the money that politicians raise, but the third-party money. No. Can there be a democracy when people have no influence on the military budget? No. It's not subjected to hearings. It's ratified on the floor of the House and Senate, but it doesn't go through the appropriations process. It's subject to the most anemic, pathetic, servile questioning you can imagine. The Congress has destroyed any kind of democratic participation ... in the military and foreign policy. The Congress is [supposed to be] invested in the sovereignty of the people. They [those in Congress] do not comply with the Constitution and the declaration of war authority. They don't comply with the appropriations process. They have increasingly less public hearings. They are cocooned on Capitol Hill with a force field of money, militarism and materialism. Self-interests block the American people, who can hardly call their member of Congress [because the calls are diverted to voicemail]. This is the latest racket.
"Trump is playing rope-a-dope with the Democrats," Nader continued. "He's such an inviting target -- all the lies, the stupidity, the outrage, the racism, the misogyny -- they can't resist. As a result, they're weakening themselves by not having an affirmative agenda. They're still talking about how they can learn how to connect with the average person. Can you imagine? It's now the end of 2017. They're trying to figure out a message."
House Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Nader noted, has adopted the mantra "money, message, and mobilization" for the party. "If you start with money, what kind of a message are you going to have?" he asked. "If you don't have a message, what are you going to mobilize around? So here it is. They still haven't learned because they will never learn. The party will always be weak, flabby, indentured and dialing for the same commercial dollars as long as the four-time losers continue to run the party.... The country is spinning into the abyss."
The Democrats have never called for an audit of the Pentagon's massive and bloated military budget. They do not address corporate crime, champion consumer protection, promote the rights of workers or demand a living wage or full Medicare for all. And because they stand for nothing other than the politesse of identity politics and high-blown liberal rhetoric they have been unable to protect the country from the worst generation of the Republican Party in the nation's history.
"They don't even know how to have sonorous political language," Nader said. "They're stealing from you -- my fellow Americans. A handful of corporate, greedy bosses controlling your government on this national stage and local level, gouging out whole communities, sending industries to fascist communist regimes abroad. They have no loyalties to this country. They have no allegiance to communities other than to exploit them, abandon them. They rose to power on the backs of you, the workers. They were subsidized by Washington and state capitals, by you the taxpayer. The Marines bailed them out when they got into hot water, palling around with dictators and monarchs. Why do you allow them to rule you?"
Nader said the ruling elites have "lost the fear of the people." This has given rise to "a multifaceted dictatorial government indentured to the plutocratic class symbolized by Wall Street."
Corporations, enjoying a new tax code that reduces corporate income taxes to 21 percent while individuals pay up to 37 percent, have been awarded the constitutional rights of individuals while individuals have been stripped of their rights.
"The Constitution is increasingly a dead letter," Nader said.
Corporate media companies view the news division as a revenue stream. They collude with Trump in the daily Gong Show that masquerades as news.
"Trump took the press from profanity to obscenity," Nader said. "He learned some lessons from 'The Apprentice.' He realized the media, with a few exceptions, will do anything for ratings and money. What does he do? He goes down the sensuality ladder. He starts talking openly about racism, rapists and sex, grab them wherever you want and get away with it. They [the media] go wild. That destroyed all the opponents in the Republican primary. Knocked them out day after day, as the press went after sensuality. The coarseness, the brutishness. There's always a novel attack. He kept them catching up with him. One day he goes after [Sen. Marco] Rubio. Another day, he goes after Hillary. Another day, a veteran family.
"When The New York Times has two pages of tiny print of Trump's lies, what impact does it have unless there are remedies and mobilizations that use that material to strengthen the opposition to replace him?" Nader asked. "After a while, people just shrug their shoulders and go back to playing video games. The margin for the defeat of the Democrats by the Republicans can be attributed sufficiently to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and all these creeps. They have a massive soliloquy, day after day after day with no rebuttal. And they've got the blue-collar worker that way. What kind of a population on the left of center would have allowed that to happen? Using our public airwaves for free."
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