By Alan Bean
I cannot recall another presidential electionwhen both the official guardians of both major political parties were shocked and dismayed by the preferences of the base. The Republican establishment is scared to death that Trump or Cruz will win the nomination. Democrats are freaking out over a surging Sanders campaign.
But let’s face it, Trump and Cruz are serving up the kind of red meat the party base has learned to love. The elite might prefer a compassionate conservative, but the folks in the trenches want an America that looks and sounds like 1953, a blessed time when the electorate was overwhelmingly white, men ruled the national roost, American economic and military power defined the world and one-nation-under-God civil religion was the height of fashion. The Republican base wants candidates who promise a return to White Eden and Trump and Cruz promise to deliver.
However George Will or David Brooks might define the term, Trump-Cruz is what contemporary conservatism looks like.
Conversely, the Democratic base looks and sounds like Bernie Sanders. The prospect of a female president resonates, but economic populism is the driving passion of the Democratic base. Sanders needs a haircut (badly) and his unmodulated apocalyptic rhetoric is shrill and predictable, but we all know what Bernie stands for. Most movement Democrats, including many of those who think the man from Vermont is unelectable, agree his economic analysis.
In fact, most Republicans agree with Bernie. American politics is controlled by corporate America and Hillary Clinton, for all her political merits, would do nothing to change that fact.
Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and the rest of the dwindling Republican field, understand full well that political success means swearing fealty to their corporate sponsors.
Donald “you’re fired” Trump is the very face of corporate America. We might not like the guy, but his entrepreneurial passion makes the economic magic, so we are willing to bow the knee.
Ted Cruz has been a willing tool of the corporate community since he was in high school. All the constitutional blather boils down to setting big business free of federal regulation and the IRS. The money people allow men like Cruz to talk tough on foreign policy because militarism has always been as good for business as it is bad for everyone else. Cruz can talk tough on immigration because our dysfunctional immigration system is as good for business as it is bad for everyone else. Cruz can take an aggressively pro-life stance on the abortion issue because his masters have no strong feelings about the issue yea or nay.
Social and foreign policy issues, from the perspective of those who own American politics, are a convenient distraction from the only agenda that really matters: the well being of the CEO class. They want us to believe that only a plutocracy–rule of the wealthy–can keep America strong, prosperous and virtuous.
To the extent that American business is still subject to government regulation, the American form of plutocracy is approximate, not pure. To the extent that American business is taxed at all, the revolution is incomplete.
Some corporate interests are satisfied with the status quo. Hillary is their candidate.
Others will only be satisfied when the taxing and regulatory powers of government disappear altogether. They are funding men like Cruz.
Donald Trump is tired of working through “conservative” surrogates; he wants to impose his will directly. Initially, perhaps, he just wanted to inflate his celebrity quotient by throwing a spanner into the political works. I suspect that even Trump is surprised by his success. Now he’s in it to win it.
Most American voters limp between two opinions. We resent and envy the monied class and believe they have altogether too much influence. On the other hand, we believe that we our prosperity to the captains of industry and would be lost without them. Where we fall on this continuum determines our politics. Should we placate the 1% a little or a lot, that is the question.
Bernie isn’t the kind of socialist who believes in government control over the economy; but he is challenging the suggestion that the average worker can’t do well unless the corporate class does 500 times better. He’s calling for balance. He wants more regulation and more taxation of the master class and he’s not embarrassed to say so.
And that’s why Bernie’s star is currently in the ascendency. He ain’t pretty. He ain’t smooth. But he’s asking the right questions and jabbing his finger in the right direction. The media (liberal and conservative) aren’t feeling the Bern. If we ignore him, they seem to be saying, maybe he’ll go away.
Bernie’s not going away. And that is a great thing for American political discourse.
