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The truth is that governing is a mixture of boring details and long hours – it essentially involves a lot of deal making. The truth is too boring. To engage the voting public in the political system those charged with the task make up a bunch of contentious stories. They craft a narrative where a group of people are to blame for many of the frustrations that the dominant cohort experience in their lives. Exaggeration is the order of the day when it comes to pinning the tail on the donkey or scapegoat. Emotive issues are called upon to rile up sections of the electorate. Gay people or the more collectively referred LGBTQIA are often in the crosshairs of the conservative minded parties. Gender identity and sexual preference are Rubicon’s not to be crossed in the minds of many. Therefore, these folk get the blame morally and, also, economically because diversity costs money according to the straight and narrow batting for the social conservatives.
This all appeals to the very un-Christian like hardline Christian groups who maintain an exclusive door policy as to who gets into their idea of heaven.
Confabulation, Lies & Mistruths
The stories inflaming political opponents in the US and elsewhere have grown legs of their own thanks to fear mongers like Fox News. Polarization is so extreme now everybody has their own media networks to watch and social media platforms to share on. Diversity is not only on the nose for those on the right but any diversity of views is too. Getting folks riled up is the click baiting policies of all media shows and channels. Rupert Murdoch told the court in Fox New’s recent libellous loss for $700 million that he was neither red nor blue but motivated by green, as in greenbacks. This was both true and false, as Murdoch is pandering to the right wing audience for his advertising revenue. The free speech first amendment malarkey means that there are no standards of reporting in the American media, especially in the political sphere.
Donald Trump can continue to spout The Big Lie despite numerous judicial and private enquiries finding no evidence for substantial voter or election fraud in the 2020 presidential election. This is another manufactured narrative employed by the GOP in their fund raising and political campaigns. Trump portrays himself as this celebrated victim in direct contradiction of what really happened – he lost fair and square.
Polarization A Product Of Political Grievance Narratives
The presentation of politics in America is so far from the reality of governing that it bears no resemblance to anything like the facts of the matter. The facts have gone out the window and we are left with this crazy alternate universe where up is down and black is white. A considerable number of Americans obviously love this chaotic piss and wind. Hot air is the Trump fare and he pumps it out on the hour day after day. President Joe Biden is so boring in comparison and the celebrity driven population want more Trump drama to fill their f***** up lives with entertainment. I mean you have a country where mass murdering children via gun violence committed at schools is almost a daily occurrence. Still, the nation’s elected representatives are unwilling or unable to do anything to stop it. Health in the US is run on a for profit basis with hospitals and medical insurance at the mercy of rapacious pharmaceutical corporations and private equity funds. They tell this neoliberal story about the market being more efficient but the cost of medicine in the US is more expensive than anywhere else by miles. Canada, the UK, and Australia provide far better health care at minimal cost to the user.
Higher education in America costs an arm and a leg, as student loans are around $1.7 trillion.
“The impact is broad. About 12% of the US population has student loans, over 43 million Americans hold a collective $1.7tn in debt. The youngest borrowers have just graduated from college and some of the oldest have retired with student loans. Many parents who took out loans to pay for their children’s education are also still burdened by debt.”
This idea that you can make money out of every aspect of life – the financialization of all things- is the burden that weighs so heavily on so many ordinary Americans. The GOP push this unfettered market BS to the detriment of so many lives. What kind of country makes getting medical care so expensive that it frequently bankrupts ordinary working Americans!
The racist nature of modern America was exposed during the Covid pandemic crisis. Nearly a million Americans died on Trump’s watch in the wealthiest nation on the planet. A large number of these folk were African Americans, as a racist white medical edifice failed those on the fringes of society. Black Americans have been locked out of the professions by institutional racism in education and within the medical bodies and boards.
“Dr. Uche Blackstock:
I’m going to say that many more barriers should have fallen since our mom graduated from medical school. Only about 6 percent of physicians are Black; 3 percent are Black women. So, we still are quite rare, and we think about, why it is that the case is, right, when we know that we are very able and competent to do this work? And so it’s a tremendous amount of work needs to be done. I think, if our mother were still here, I think she would very much agree, and still be still be working on all of the same efforts that we are.”
This is not because African Americans don’t work hard enough or aren’t smart enough, it is because of structural barriers erected to limit their access to opportunity.
Dealing The Dirt On Diversity
Still, we are hearing the GOP led narrative about diversity programs favouring underserving black people at the expense of whites. The confabulation and connivance of the conservative media, like Fox News, in promoting lies and distortions of the truth is paramount here. SCOTUS have ruled against diversity entrance programs for universities. This is especially galling when you consider that Justice Clarence Thomas was a beneficiary of such programs. Billionaires like Harlan Crow seem to have bought Thomas, as the evidence published by ProPublica indicates.
“Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s name is once again in the headlines with Texas real estate magnate Harlan Crow, this time over a ProPublica investigation that found Crow paid private boarding school tuition for Thomas’s grandnephew. Previous reporting by ProPublica in the last month has revealed a real estate deal and years of luxury travel that Clarence Thomas accepted but failed to disclose from Crow. “
Selling out your skin and selling out your identity can be quite lucrative in the United States.
The truth is too boring to tell in the political sphere, apparently. We are much more likely to engage if we are told a story. Made up narratives about grievance and injustice are much more juicy to spin. The immigrants are pouring into the country and poisoning the bloodstream of the nation. What a load of rubbish! Blaming the foreigners is an oldie but a goody. Focusing voter hate on those lower down on the wealth ladder like refugees and immigrants is smart politics. Directing the blame upon those not in any position to fight back appeals to the cowardly sensibilities of cheap bullies. Build a wall. Trump had 4 years last term to build that wall and didn’t, why? Because he is a BS merchant and doesn’t really want solutions. He wants the imaginary problems to always be there. Dictators stage manage crises to keep the masses on edge and a police state on red alert. Look at Putin’s Russia for a view into a Trump second term. Do you really think that Trump will ever relinquish power after what happened on January 6th if elected? The bankers and money men will vote for Trump because they want lower taxes and potentially greater profitability. Big business backed Hitler in Germany in the 1930’s. Americans are endlessly encouraged to buy stuff. Will they buy the GOP crap about wokeness and liberal lefties damaging the fabric of the nation? Biden has brought America back from the inflationary economic shores of recession and restored market confidence. He might be boring but he has steered the nation toward better times. Will America really embrace the chaos of Trump once again? I doubt it. Politics feeds on stories and fear mongering only works for so long before the banality of reality stands up. Bill Clinton famously said, “it’s the economy, stupid.”
The orange Jesus with his fake tan painted on looks like an illustration from a comic book. Electing a cartoon character for president is not going to do anyone any favours. Has America so lost contact with reality that it will install a dangerous buffoon. The Germans thought Adolf Hitler was a bit of a joke in the early 1930’s and those in the establishment thought that they would be able to control him. Plenty of domestic violence victims were attracted to their sexual partners for their ability to make them laugh – they soon experienced the other side of that charming characteristic. The political system may seem like a circus but a clown is not the best candidate for president.
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of Money Matters: Navigating Credit, Debt, and Financial Freedom.
©MidasWord
