{"id":340975,"date":"2017-12-24T23:29:43","date_gmt":"2017-12-24T22:29:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=340975"},"modified":"2018-01-01T16:55:48","modified_gmt":"2018-01-01T15:55:48","slug":"polls-increasingly-confirming-america-dictatorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/polls-increasingly-confirming-america-dictatorship\/","title":{"rendered":"Polls Increasingly Confirming that America Is a Dictatorship"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Gallup headlined on December 18th, \u201cAmericans View Government as Nation’s Top Problem in 2017\u201d<\/span><\/a>. Their report made clear that though this finding was unprecedented, it\u2019s part of a longer-term trend, toward Americans naming America\u2019s own \u201cgovernment as the most important problem facing the nation.\u201d In a democracy, the public do not view the nation\u2019s government to be (as in America) their enemy (which is the case if they view the \u201cgovernment as the most important problem facing the nation\u201d). Americans increasingly<\/i> view the Government as their enemy.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a dictatorship, only the people who control the government are satisfied with the government; but, in a democracy, the public are satisfied with the government \u2014 or else that government will be replaced in elections by people who control the government and who do<\/i> provide government that the public approve of. In the United States, we\u2019re instead moving in the exact opposite direction: steadily going from one government to another, none of which wins the public\u2019s approval; and the present American government winning the public\u2019s approval even less<\/i> than its predecessors did. This is not<\/i> the situation that exists in authentic democracies. It\u2019s what one expects to find in a country that\u2019s ruled by a dictatorship. Dictators don\u2019t need to worry so much about polls, because they don\u2019t represent the public; they exploit the public \u2014 they use<\/i> the public.<\/span><\/p>\n

The only scientific study that has yet been done on the question of whether the U.S. is, in fact, run by a democratic government, or instead by a dictatorial one (specifically by an oligarchy, or a government that represents only the richest<\/i> citizens), was published in September 2014, and it found clearly that the U.S. is definitely not a democracy, but the other type: that \u201cthe preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy\u201d<\/span><\/a>, whereas “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy\u201d<\/span><\/a>; and, furthermore, that, \u201cThe real-world impact of elites upon public policy may be still greater\u201d than their statistics indicate, because the researchers weren\u2019t able to measure the impact that the super<\/i>-rich have on policy, but only the impact that the rich have on policy (versus the impact that the total American public have on policy). The rich control America\u2019s Government, but whether the richest<\/i> do, wasn\u2019t able to be researched, as of 2014. <\/span><\/p>\n

This academic study\u2019s scientific methodology was so good, so that no one, as of yet, in the more than three years since its publication, has been able to find any flaw in its data or methodology. Its headline, like its writing, was as dull as possible, “Testing Theories of American Politics\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and this (and especially its atrocious writing) might at least partially explain why America\u2019s mainstream press overwhelmingly has ignored that seminal and landmark study in the social sciences, and especially has ignored that study\u2019s enormous implications, regarding contemporary U.S. politics and government. (A vastly clearer presentation of that study, and of its findings, can be found here in this 6-minute video summary of it<\/span><\/a>.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Increasingly after that time, particularly after Donald Trump’s becoming U.S. President on 20 January 2017, polls are confirming strongly that what this scientific analysis said, describes, even more starkly than before, the American reality \u2014 that the U.S. federal Government now blatantly<\/i> ignores public opinion, and is controlled instead only by the rich.<\/span><\/p>\n

One example of this phenomenon was recently headlined by me “Poll: By 2-to-1, Americans Oppose Moving U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and it reported that in the only two published national polls in the U.S. that were taken prior to Trump\u2019s announcement that the U.S. Embassy in Israel will be moved from Tel Aviv to the disputed city of Jerusalem \u2014 one having been a November 2017 poll of 2,000 Americans, published on December 11th, and the other being a September 2017 poll of 1,000 U.S. Jews \u2014 the overall U.S. public opposed any such move by 63% to 31%, and U.S. Jews opposed it by around similar percentages (though the polling-questions on the two polls differed significantly and therefore their findings are not directly comparable). Furthermore, that article also linked to another question which was included in the November poll, and which showed that only a minority of Americans \u2014 almost all of whom are Democrats \u2014 believe that Russia is a \u201cfoe\u201d of the United States; and, of course, the U.S. federal Government (even the existing Republican one) does consider Russia, more than any other country, to be America\u2019s foe<\/span><\/a>; so, that, too, presents a stark contrast between the Government and its public.<\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore, on December 14th, Hillary Clinton\u2019s 2008 campaign manager, the pollster Mark Penn, whom she had mis-cast into the role of her campaign\u2019s strategist in 2008, headlined at The Hill<\/i>, “Mueller, FBI face crisis in public confidence\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and he summarized numerous polls which were finding that whereas Americans overwhelmingly distrust President Donald Trump, Americans distrust even more<\/i> the Special Counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s investigation that\u2019s trying to find reasons to impeach and remove him from office. Americans are getting increasingly scared of their Government, and now distrust both sides of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another addition to these polls that show America\u2019s public to be ignored by America\u2019s Government (other than for the public to be manipulated by means of the major newsmedia that the billionaires who control this Government own), was also issued on December 18th, and this poll was headlined \u201cHalf The Public Say Their Taxes Will Go Up Under GOP Plan\u201d<\/span><\/a>. It scientifically sampled 806 Americans, and reported that: <\/span><\/p>\n

“Nearly half the American public (47%) disapprove of the tax reform bills passed by the Senate and House and just 26% approve. \u2026 Strong disapproval (35%) of the proposal far outweighs strong approval (13%). \u2026 In \u2018swing’ counties where the margin of victory for either candidate was less than ten points, 30% approve of the plan compared with 38% who disapprove. \u2026 Many Americans see this bill more as an attempt by Republicans to gain a political victory and would rather see Congress scrap this plan and start over. \u2026 Half of the public (50%) predict that the federal taxes they pay will go up with the plan now under consideration by Congress. Just 14% say their taxes will go down. \u2026 The public was much more optimistic right before Trump took the oath of office in January. Back then, two-thirds expected that the middle class would benefit from the policies of a Trump administration.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

All polls show that the American public believe overwhelmingly that only the rich will benefit from the Trump\/Republican tax-law changes. (If purely the long-term impacts, such as the resultant soaring public debt, are considered, then this perception, by the public, of the tax-law changes, is almost certainly accurate.) The blatancy with which U.S. federal policy violates what the polls show that the American public overwhelmingly want (such as reducing<\/i> the federal debt), and imposes instead upon the public what they clearly don\u2019t<\/i> want (such as increasing that debt), is now stunning.<\/span><\/p>\n

Such findings provide yet additional evidence that the far more extensively documented findings in the massive study \u201cTesting Theories of American Politics\u201d apply with special force today, probably even more so than they did in the period from 1981 to 2002, which was the period that that empirical study had examined in detail. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter expressed publicly on 28 July 2015 (even before Trump was President), that, “Now it’s just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or being elected president.<\/span><\/a> And the same thing applies to governors, and U.S. Senators and congress members.\u201d He was stating what is, by now, an increasingly proven<\/i> fact. America is a dictatorship.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, current U.S. Government office-holders haven\u2019t publicly expressed any<\/i> such view, although the Democratic U.S. Presidential candidate whom Hillary Clinton \u2018beat\u2019<\/span><\/a> in 2016, Bernie Sanders, has come the closest to saying it. <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not even clear, however, whether a majority of Americans actually want<\/i> a democratic government. On 9 September 2015, the YouGov poll headlined \u201cCould a coup really happen in the United States?\u201d<\/span><\/a> (which question presumed that a U.S. coup hadn\u2019t already happened, such as on 9 December 2000, or on 22 November 1963, though there is evidence that it happened in both cases), and YouGov reported that \u201cwhen people are asked whether they would hypothetically support the military stepping in to take control from a civilian government which is beginning to violate the constitution, 43% of Americans would support the military stepping in while 29% would be opposed.\u201d Perhaps many in that large 43% plurality of Americans were somehow blissfully ignorant that the American Government routinely not only was \u201cbeginning to violate\u201d but routinely had been and were<\/i> violating, the U.S. Constitution, such as by placing onto its Supreme Court, anti-Constitutional \u2018Justices\u2019 who arbitrarily label political money as \u201cspeech\u201d that\u2019s unlimitedly protected by the First Amendment, so that unlimited political spending by billionaires can effectively control the U.S. Government (such oligarchy as is now scientifically established to be the case<\/span><\/a>), or by violating the Constitution in so many other ways, such as by simply not enforcing certain laws in certain cases, such as by refusing to prosecute the banksters whose frauds caused (and who profited from) the 2008 financial crash<\/span><\/a> \u2014 they perpetrated a massive unpunished crime against the public, and this is supposed to be \u2018democracy\u2019. But regardless: a 43%-to-29% plurality of the nation\u2019s public are so<\/i> pro-military as to favor a U.S. coup under that vague condition; they would prefer the military, an intrinsically anti<\/i>-democratic authoritarian institution, to take direct control over the U.S. Government \u2014 as if there could be some valid excuse for this intrinsically dictatorial institution to overthrow the established and supposedly legal government, and to replace it by one that\u2019s not just supposedly, but blatantly, illegal to be in control of the Government. This would mean that America\u2019s billionaires \u2014 people who already own and profit from the military\u2019s weapons-making firms \u2014 will take control of America, even if they don\u2019t already have control. They control the military-industrial complex, because they control the Deep State that, in any capitalist country, IS<\/i><\/b> the military-industrial complex. They control the weapons-manufacturing firms such as Lockheed Martin, and also the megabanks, and the lobbying firms, and all the rest of the systematic corruption (the Deep State), which controls the U.S. government.<\/span><\/p>\n

That same poll (question 13)<\/span><\/a> also asked \u201cDo you believe that the military has a duty to protect the Constitution against domestic enemies?\u201d and 72% answered \u201cYes\u201d and 12% answered \u201cNo.\u201d Thus, by a 6-to-1 margin, Americans don\u2019t know the difference between the function that the military and CIA are supposed to perform, versus the function that the police and the FBI and entire Justice Department are supposed to perform. As if that\u2019s not frightening enough about America, Americans now support the nation\u2019s military-industrial complex above all other institutions, public or private<\/span><\/a>. The war-making institution isn\u2019t used only<\/i> for defense (though its PR euphemism is \u2018the defense establishment\u2019 and it should instead be called \u201cthe invasion-and-coup establishment\u201d), but it is also \u2014 and now almost exclusively \u2014 used for invasions and coups that are based on lies (from \u2018the defense establishment\u2019, boosting their own business), such as invasions and coups against Iraq 2003<\/span><\/a>, Libya 2011<\/span><\/a>, and Ukraine 2014<\/span><\/a>. Instead of despising that institution of conquest, Americans now admire it, above all others \u2014 and far above all the rest of the U.S. Government<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

So: \u201cCould a coup really happen in the United States?\u201d A coup wouldn\u2019t even be necessary in order to produce here dictatorship, which has already long existed in this country. And, while domestic spending is being slashed by the existing U.S. regime, military spending (which already is as large as the next ten largest national military budgets in the world<\/span><\/a>) is soaring. Why would America\u2019s generals want to perpetrate a coup? They\u2019re already getting almost everything they want \u2014 and without the opprobrium they\u2019d suffer from a coup. It would be plain stupid for them to do that. The very question which was asked in that poll was a bad joke, but a full 72% of the U.S. public not only didn\u2019t ridicule the idea, but actually endorsed it. They endorsed what\u2019s commonly called a \u2018police state\u2019, but which actually<\/i> is a \u201cmilitary state\u201d \u2014 rule by the military<\/i>. Maybe that\u2019s what we\u2019ve already got. But, behind the military-industrial complex, stand the nation\u2019s billionaires \u2014 the people who really run U.S. foreign policies<\/span><\/a>. If that brute fact can\u2019t become understood by the American people, then not only does democracy no longer exist in the U.S., but the basis to create<\/i> (or restore) democracy here is likewise absent. Americans are big supporters of the military-industrial complex. The U.S. public have been deceived about what it is, and what it isn\u2019t \u2014 so deceived, that they place it at the top, as the most respected of all institutions<\/span><\/a>. How much more upside-down \u2014 black is white, white is black \u2014 like Big Brother\u2019s \u201cNewspeak,\u201d could the U.S. public be duped to be, than that? If America\u2019s invasion-and-coup institution is at the top, then why are all the others held in lower<\/i> esteem than this \u2014 the most-corrupt of all institutions in America<\/span><\/a>?<\/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>. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse Gallup headlined on December 18th, \u201cAmericans View Government as Nation’s Top Problem in 2017\u201d. Their report made clear that though this finding was unprecedented, it\u2019s part of a longer-term trend, toward Americans naming America\u2019s own \u201cgovernment as the most important problem facing the nation.\u201d In a democracy, the public do not view the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":340976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[905,30,32,96,974,36835,59,4203,524,915,755,49,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-340975","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire","8":"tag-aristocracy","9":"tag-big-brother","10":"tag-cia","11":"tag-cover-up","12":"tag-democracy","13":"tag-dictatorship","14":"tag-military","15":"tag-oligarchy","16":"tag-russia","17":"tag-u-s","18":"tag-usa","19":"tag-usa-news","20":"tag-white-house"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}