Monday, February 12, 2024

Don't put your trust in either political party

 

I'm getting very tired of people lambasting "Republicrats" or "Demoncrats" or the like on social media.  Partisans of both parties routinely denigrate and insult the other, and those who follow it.  The problem is, both parties are just as bad as one another.  There isn't much to choose between them.

Sundance had this to say about it:


The Republican National Committee (RNC), and the Democrat National Committee (DNC), are private clubs.

The RNC and DNC are corporations, private businesses; and just like all private businesses, they have the ability to make rules, bylaws, terms and conditions of membership and association that are completely arbitrary according to their charter.

The RNC and DNC are not entities of government.  The RNC and DNC are not affiliates of government.  The RNC and DNC have absolutely no connection to government, other than their arbitrary business model for helping politicians enter and remain within government.

In fact, the RNC and DNC are simply private corporations who engage in the business of politics.  Whenever we start to forget the DNC and RNC are private corporations, we can slip into the mistaken belief that they operate on any form of baseline altruism.

These corporations exist for the fulfillment of their mission; and their mission is to use the business of politics as a method of financial reward to sustain the business model.

Some call these private entities, these corporations, “clubs,” because using that term helps to remind us that these groups do not operate without a private agenda.

The rules within the RNC club are determined by the people who control the club charter, primarily large donors who fund the corporate business.  If they have a particular intent or direction, they wish the club to support or take, they control how the club engages in the process of achieving their outcome.  That effort is taken regardless of the opinion from the subordinate members in the club.

Through the process of controlling the corporations, the private clubs, both the RNC and DNC control how political events take place.  Nothing within this process is contingent upon the support of the voting electorate.

Each state and local precinct has their own chapter of the club, and often the corporate direction, specifically the club activity in/around Washington DC, is different from what the local groups want to see take place.  However, just because the local chapter of the group disagrees with the parent company or board of directors, does not mean the larger corporate entity will change anything.

When we are evaluating political events inside the United States, it is critical to keep reminding ourselves that what is taking place, or what is not taking place, are outcomes determined within the executive suites of a private club.   This is an unfortunate system dynamic, but it is a critical point that once fully understood explains many of the issues people have with the registered politicians within the club.

The RNC and DNC are businesses.  Their decisions are business decisions.  The club actions, or lack thereof, are all part of the business of politics.

The tenured participants in the club do not operate arbitrarily in a vacuum.  They talk to each other, communicate with each other, organize with each other, plan with each other, and collaborate for the larger objectives of the private corporation.

Nothing within the business system of DC and club politics has anything to do with the constitutional framework of U.S. government.

Again, for emphasis.  The governing process and constitutional aspects of the framework within the U.S. government, have absolutely nothing to do with the two private corporations known as the RNC and DNC.


There's more at the link.

Bear that in mind next time you hear someone fulminating against either of the major political parties.  It doesn't matter what the parties' official platforms claim to be their policies.  The reality is, they'll consult with each other and come up with a "compromise" that, in fact, is nothing more or less than a way to ensure that both parties continue to derive the maximum possible benefit from running the country.  It's "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" writ large.

If you dislike one political party and/or its representatives, remember that those you support are just as corrupt, just as two-faced, just as self-centered, just as dishonest.  Neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party are trustworthy.  Nor are most of the individual politicians within those parties (although there are a few honorable exceptions).  As the late, great H. L. Mencken put it:


A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker.


Word!

I've said for years that I won't vote for the party, but for the person - the individual candidate.  Many have derided that position, saying that since the individual has to "toe the Party line", he or she won't be able to be honest or independent.  That's true:  but I continue to hope that if we elect enough relatively honest representatives, they may be able to exert their influence inside their party and make it that much less dishonest and corrupt.  That may be (probably is) a pipe dream . . . but one may hope.  Indeed, we'd better hope, because if there's no hope, then the time has come to take stronger, more decisive action against all our politicans than we can do through the ballot box.

I've seen that happen often enough in the Third World.  I never want to see it again . . . particularly not in these (nominally) United States.

Peter


21 comments:

  1. It is a Uniparty... Two different wings of the same thing! sigh

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  2. I've only ever used Republicrats as portmanteau to signify members of the two parties joined together to represent well-healed establishmentarians. You know: the "we have more, can't get enough, don't you dare rock our boat and, btw, we despise the voters we convince to elect you" elites.

    Back in 2003 I commissioned a cartoonist who made it clear.
    Click to see cartoon. (I'm sorry that Blogger still refuses to allow img src, nor target='blank' in its version of html.)

    Back then it contained the caption "Nibbling at the edges" [of the constitution]. Today it would read, accurately, "Chewed to shreds."

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  3. besides which, no matter who's president or which party, the State Department still runs our foreign policy, regardless.

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  4. I call them the repuglicans and the dumbrocrats, the two sides of The War Party.

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  5. Not two clubs. Two criminal organizations whose primary concerns are unbridled graft and corruption.

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  6. It's a club, and we're not in it.

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  7. Choosing between the two parties is akin to trying to pick up a turd by the clean end.

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  8. To paraphrase an Englishman I heard the other day: They are two cheeks of the same arse.

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  9. I have been slamming these the duopoly since 1974 and am unapologetic for it. They are both for the expansion of government powers, for big government to eclipse the citizenry and for war without end. The individual does not matter if an R or a D follows his/her name. Proudly, I have never voted for either.

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  10. There is only the Uniparty...

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  11. I strongly disagree! While neither party is ideal, they are definitely not interchangeable.
    To draw one example of many, Democrats support murdering defenseless children. Republicans don't. They don't always make a strong stand, but there ARE differences between the parties.

    I prefer to call them the Evil Party (Democrats) and the Stupid Party (Republicans).
    One thing you don't mention is how electoral law is set up to favir the rich and the major parties, which is why we have two major parties instead of 5 or more.

    Jonathan

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  12. I respectfully disagree. I mean Yeah they are both bad but there's a big difference: GOP are like some idiot burglar while Dems are like Hannibal Lecter. GOP is the Stupid Party and DNC, Evil Party.

    GOP does little shenanigans like Mitch's stuff with AZ Kari Lake bribery, or that clown George Santos pretending to have Batman's creds.

    While DNC routinely does treason, big$ theft&fraud, arkancide, pedophilia, trafficking and Satan knows what else.

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  13. The two sides of the Uniparty coin argue loudly & publicly over a lot of things but the big buck money still goes to the same places it's been going all these years.

    That's why they came down hard on Trump (& his supporters), the Uniparty has a lot to lose.

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  14. "... but I continue to hope that if we elect enough relatively honest representatives, they may be able to exert their influence inside their party and make it that much less dishonest and corrupt. "



    Wrong planet. This one is populated by humans. Look elsewhere.

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  15. I've been saying the same thing for damned near 50 years now, since I got clued in by the Democratic Kansas Senate Minority Leader, for whom I worked in my last year of high school as a Legislative Assistant. He and I had a little sit down talk, in which he informed me that I was taking the partisan stuff a lot too seriously. "Look, the campaign stuff, and the flags, and the banners, and the rhetoric - that's all for the voters. They expect it and love it and truly believe it, but when we get back up here, all of that stuff gets put in the closet, and we forget about it for the next four years, and get down to business. So cool it, OK? Pat Reilly (the Republican Senate Majority Leader) and I are close friends, we socialize together, our families are close friends and we have been for years. That stuff during the campaign is just for show, we all realize it, and you should grow up a bit and realize it, too - and act like it, OK?" So I chilled out on the partisanship, and ended up helping Senators Reilly and Steineger with a prank that sent the Senate into peals of laughter - and its President, Richard Rogers, who later became a Federal Appeals Judge (and for whom the Kansas City 8th Circuit Federal Courthouse is named), into a towering rage, fire and brimstone and gavel-pounding to no avail. The two party system and the "dignified" government on Capitol Hill and the White House are the public-facing side of the US government, they exist to announce the policies set out by the unelected private side of the US Government - the National Security State - see https://www.fff.org/2020/12/11/the-national-security-establishment-is-in-charge/

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  16. all else being equal, one party has such control that they pretty much always get everyone to vote the same way (with a couple of exceptions that are notable for being exceptions), the other side has a lot if public disputes and trouble getting everyone to vote the same way.

    that tells me they are not the same.

    Yes, it used to be that it was a club where they all were friends and had more in common with each other than with the people who voted for them. One side has broken that and the other side is largely being slow to respond (and probably won't until a few more people die or are voted out)

    David Lang

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  17. The GOP and DNC are simply two sides of the same coin. The two factions of the Janus party...Janus being the Roman god with two faces.

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  18. "The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then they get elected and prove it." - P. J. O'Rourke

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  19. Ya'll keep missing an important detail:

    Quote: As the late, great H. L. Mencken put it:

    A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker.

    Endquote.

    Mencken is unfair to streetwalkers. They actually do provide a desired service to their clients.

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  20. I realized today...that I have no loyalty to the entity that calls itself the United States of America. I will pay its taxes, I will obey its laws; because I wish to not only survive but to live and live well. I can do that here if I keep my head down mostly and live in the margins, I could also do it elsewhere just as people always have through history. But, I no longer believe in this country or its government. I do not believe in any of the people 'elected'; they are the public face of an entity that I will pay and obey until it becomes clear that someone else is the stronger. I will not swear allegiance to its flag or to its government.
    I'm a little peon "pee-on" I can't go head to head with it. However I no longer care about it, I certainly wouldn't die for it.

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  21. Voting for the person instead of the Party may make you feel better, but accomplishes nothing. The person is still going to vote with their party, except in the rarest of cases.

    That said, at least the DNC provides payback for their constituents. The RNC does practically nothing

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