Photo by 7beachbum | CC BY 2.0
For those people in the United States who still believe there are two major political parties, the Democrats’ Senator Chuck Schumer on July 24th of this year published an op-ed in the New York Times in the form of a policy statement intended to speak to “Americans clamoring for bold changes to our politics and our economy.” This statement was the synthesis of a public event staged in Berryville, Virginia, a small town that voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump and is represented by a Republican in Congress. One might call this event “taking the fight to the enemy” if, indeed, anyone believes that the Democrats and the Republicans are actually in opposition beyond the rhetorical feints.
As I have written in The Disinformation Age: The Collapse of Liberal Democracy in the United States (Routledge 2017): “If there is a difference between the two parties it is this: while the Democrats have a finger in the hole in the crumbling dike that is holding back the tidal wave of predatory capitalism (complete privatization of all resources), the Republicans are trying to tear the dike down. Thus, the Republicans provide a convenient alibi for the equally entrenched corporatism (neoliberalism) of the Democratic Party.” Donald Trump has brought in the wrecking crew to demolish the dike that the Democrats since the Reagan years have done nothing to rebuild. The continually rising figures in wealth and income inequality for the last 40…