{"id":237988,"date":"2016-04-15T00:34:44","date_gmt":"2016-04-15T00:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=237988"},"modified":"2016-04-15T12:04:44","modified_gmt":"2016-04-15T12:04:44","slug":"american-dictatorship-2-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/american-dictatorship-2-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The American Dictatorship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse<\/span><\/p>\n

Even for the post of U.S. President, the preferences of the American people have only a marginal, if any, impact upon the selection of the person to occupy that post.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Colorado\u2019s Republican race to win delegates to the Republican National Convention for selecting the Republican Presidential nominee, there was no primary, and there was no caucus. As the Republican magazine National Review<\/i>\u00a0headlined on April 11th, attempting to justify what a Republican wag had just headlined as \u201cCruz Celebrates Voterless Win\u201d:\u00a0\u201cDonald Trump Laid a Colorado Goose Egg because He Was\u00a0Disorganized and Amateurish.\u201d<\/span><\/a>\u00a0Their argument (since they campaign for any Republican but Trump) was: he lost \u201cbecause he was disorganized and amateurish\u201d \u2014 not because he had been cheated by the Party-hierarchy.<\/span><\/p>\n

National Review<\/i>\u00a0explained that, in the process which had been set up by the Colorado Republican Party (it\u2019s set up by each individual state\u2019s Republican Party, not<\/i> by the National Republican Party), \u201cdelegates to the national convention would be selected at\u00a0congressional-district conventions and the Republican\u2019s state\u00a0convention\u201d [NR’<\/i>s illiterate writer there meant \u201cthe Republicans\u2019 state convention\u201d and couldn\u2019t distinguish between \u201cRepublican\u2019s\u201d and \u201cRepublicans\u2019,\u201d so used the wrong one], and this was done in order to\u00a0\u201cgive Colorado\u2019s delegates more\u00a0flexibility,\u201d not done in order to require delegates to reflect the Republican (or any other) electorate in Colorado (since NR<\/i> doesn\u2019t like even its own<\/i> Party\u2019s electorate).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This was the explanation that was provided by that magazine, which backs Cruz, and which has been campaigning ferociously against Trump. Their article was built upon, and extensively quoted, the justifications put forth by one particular Cruz delegate, who said, \u201cThe grassroots made the decision that Ted Cruz was the best\u00a0candidate for us, and the grassroots made the decision to come out for\u00a0Cruz and absolutely swept the table.\u201d He called it \u201cour caucus system.\u201d Whatever it was, it shut out all rank-and-file Republican voters, and left everything to people like himself, who could afford to do this: \u201cYou have to put in the work, you have to put in the effort, and you\u00a0have to do it months ahead of time.\u201d In other words: only Republican Party activists in Colorado could participate in selecting the delegates who would participate in selecting the Republican nominee. No one else was allowed to. Their conception of the Colorado Republican Party is that it\u2019s only the Party\u2019s activists; and, if you\u2019re not a Republican activist, you have no say. It\u2019s as if to say: Only people who work in the government can have a say in how the government is to be run. It\u2019s for insiders only \u2014 and, of course, indirectly it\u2019s for whomever pays those insiders and so enables them to \u201cput in the work\u201d to participate.<\/span><\/p>\n

National Public Radio had a different take on this matter. Steve Inskeep headlined there,\u00a0\u201cGOP Delegate: Trump Primary Wins ‘Absolutely Irrelevant’ At\u00a0Convention.\u201d<\/span><\/a>\u00a0He interviewed Curly Haughland, a member of the Republican National Committee who lives in North Dakota, and who said: \u201cNo matter what the popular belief might be, \u2026 there is no\u00a0connection between primaries and the actual convention.\u201d Well, that\u2019s putting it rather bluntly. Haughland:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201ccited the GOP’s convention Rules 37 and 38. He interprets these\u00a0convoluted rules to mean that delegates may \u2018vote their\u00a0conscience.\u2019 The rules do not explicitly say this. Rule 37 is a\u00a0detailed explanation of the procedure for roll-call votes. However,\u00a0Rule 38 does say that no delegate may be \u2018bound\u2019 by the \u2018unit rule,\u2019\u00a0meaning that delegates from a state can\u2019t all be forced to vote the\u00a0same way. \u2026 Another of Haughland\u2019s points is indisputable: \u2018When the\u00a0convention convenes,\u2019 he said, \u2018the delegates adopt their own rules,\u00a0which haven\u2019t been adopted yet.\u2019 There is a standard template for\u00a0conventions, but delegates could tweak the template, changing the\u00a0game in any way that they want.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In other words: the National Republican Committee says that all of the delegates to the Republican National Convention are allowed to \u201ctweak the template, changing the game in any way that they want.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

So: the delegates at that Convention won\u2019t actually be representing anyone but themselves there \u2014 they are entirely free to push for anyone whom they personally want to win the Republican U.S. Presidential nomination. They\u2019re not bound, not even on the first ballot. They might pretend to be, if they feel a need to put on a show that looks \u2018democratic\u2019, but any who don\u2019t feel the need to make such a pretense, can do whatever they want on the first ballot, just like on any successive ballot. They are free; all of them are free. It\u2019s only the electorate who aren\u2019t \u2014 they\u2019re not represented, at all<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

What about on the Democratic side? Wyoming had held its Democratic Party caucuses August 9th, and there really were<\/i> caucuses. Two days later, CNN headlined\u00a0\u201cWyoming Democratic Caucuses: Bernie Sanders Picks Up Another Win\u201d<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0and reported: “Bernie Sanders won the Wyoming\u00a0Democratic caucuses Saturday,\u00a0providing his campaign with one\u00a0more jolt of momentum before the\u00a0race against Hillary Clinton heads\u00a0east. Even so, he made no gains in\u00a0Clinton\u2019s delegate lead, as each\u00a0earned seven delegates as a result. On April 12th a youtube was posted,\u00a0\u201cMSNBC Morning Host Admits The \u2018Whole Voting System Is Rigged\u2019 After\u00a0Bernie Get’s Cheated!\u201d<\/span><\/a>\u00a0Here the co-hosts had a conversation about the results: \u201cSanders beat Hillary Clinton by twelve points, 56 to 44, \u2026 He wins by\u00a0twelve points.\u201d The accompanying image showed the delegate-count, in this contest that Sanders had won by 56% to 44%: \u201c18 total. Hillary Clinton 11, Bernie Sanders\u00a07.\u201d It wasn\u2019t 7 to 7, after all. Though Sanders had outscored Clinton by 12%, it was worse than even-steven for him; he had actually lost by 11 delegates to 7 delegates. \u201cThis system is so rigged!\u201d said one host. \u201cThere\u2019s absolutely no reason any of those\u00a0people voted,\u201d said the other. A Hillary Clinton supporter was the \u2018expert\u2019 on the panel, and he said, \u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0not rigged. These are the rules.\u201d He wasn\u2019t given time to explain that fine point \u2014 or how \u201cthe rules\u201d were necessarily<\/i> \u201cnot rigged.” Also on April 12th, Public Radio International\u2019s Todd Zwillich headlined (falsely),\u00a0\u201cSix Reasons Bernie Sanders Won Wyoming, But Still Tied in the Delegate Race\u201d<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0and Zwillig failed to explain that word \u201cTied.\u201d He opened: \u201cHow, many of you ask, could Bernie\u00a0have won Wyoming 56 percent to\u00a0Hillary\u2019s 44 percent, but still split the\u00a0delegates with her 50-50?\u201d Then, he repeated that there had supposedly been \u201cThe 7-7 split,\u201d but he also said “Wyoming has a total of 18\u00a0delegates\u201d (which obviously isn\u2019t<\/i> the sum of 7+7) and he was also likewise incoherent, all the way through.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe, \u201cthe rules\u201d in the Wyoming Democratic Party are like that; but, whatever they are, is so convoluted, America\u2019s news-media couldn\u2019t explain what they were, much less were they able to argue persuasively that this was somehow a democracy<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The only thing that\u2019s clear is that the electoral system in the United States is so convoluted, so complex and so different from state to state and party to party, that whatever the intent of the writers of America\u2019s Constitution might have been, the system as it is today, can be successfully gamed and won only by interests who can afford to spend whatever billions of dollars are necessary in order to win. It\u2019s certainly anything<\/i> but democratic.<\/span><\/p>\n

Right now, there are only two Presidential candidates who are shown repeatedly, and almost consistently, to be preferred by the majority of the U.S. electorate, across all parties and no party:\u00a0the Democrat Bernie Sanders is strongly preferred over the Republicans Trump and Cruz, and he is barely preferred over the Republican Kasich; and the Republican Kasich is strongly preferred over the Democrat Clinton. (Clinton loses strongly to Kasich and barely beats Cruz, while Trump is the weakest general-election candidate of all.)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The strongest general-election candidates are, clearly, Sanders in the Democratic Party, and Kasich in the Republican Party. In a democracy, those would be the candidates. Throughout the contest thus far, neither of these two has been favored likely to win his respective Party\u2019s nomination, much less the Presidency.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whatever America is, it isn\u2019t<\/i> a democracy \u2014 a one-person-one-vote majority-rule republic. In fact,\u00a0the only scientific study that has ever been done of the U.S. political system, finds that it\u2019s no \u201cdemocracy\u201d at all, but instead an \u201coligarchy,\u201d<\/span><\/a>\u00a0a nation ruled by its aristocracy, its billionaires. It represents them, not<\/i> the citizenry. That might not be the theory, but empirically it is the fact<\/i>. An oligarchy is the commonest type of dictatorship, and it certainly is never a \u2018benevolent dictatorship,\u2019 even if that phrase is not an oxymoron in itself.<\/span><\/p>\n

To sum up: the U.S. is ruled by and for the corrupters. Or, at least, this study showed that it has been like that since at least 1980.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of\u00a0 They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of<\/span> \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse Even for the post of U.S. President, the preferences of the American people have only a marginal, if any, impact upon the selection of the person to occupy that post. In Colorado\u2019s Republican race to win delegates to the Republican National Convention for selecting the Republican Presidential nominee, there was no primary, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":236888,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,461,18],"tags":[30,951,96,971,698,13803,804,949,6257,49,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-237988","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-editorials","9":"category-latest-news","10":"tag-big-brother","11":"tag-clinton","12":"tag-cover-up","13":"tag-cruz","14":"tag-hillary-clinton","15":"tag-kasich","16":"tag-politics-2","17":"tag-sanders","18":"tag-trump","19":"tag-usa-news","20":"tag-white-house"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}