If you think that the exhibition of Presidential politics at work in 2015 reminds you of some sort of theater – somewhere between farce and horror – you may be right.
In the media-heavy world in which we now live, American Presidential elections have taken on a life of their own and so reveal the state of affairs in our nation as nothing else can.
For purposes of comparison, this year’s version recalls a movie released in 1945…a movie based on the work of the brilliant British writer and playwright, Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Filmed in vivid black and white, the plot was simple. Based on life in England at the turn of the 20th Century, the idle rich spent much of their time talking about each other. Among the most talked about was Dorian Gray, an elegant, beautiful young man… admired most of all for his looks.
An artist friend paints a glowing full length portrait of him. Gray is so delighted with his image that he proudly places the painting at the entrance of his sitting room for all to see.
What is quickly obvious is that Gray’s good looks totally mask a completely amoral, self- satisfied, self- obsessed, self-centered human being who thinks of nothing but himself.
The brilliant twist of the story is that while he never changes, never ages, his true nature never revealed, his portrait changes day by day, week by week, year by year to reveal the horrendous man within.
When he begins to notice tiny, unflattering changes in the portrait, he rushes it out of view and locks it away. Years go by and the portrait is forgotten. Year after year he remains unchanged while the portrait becomes the picture of a horribly deformed monster.
The movie ends with the grand revelation and the self destruction of the hero. As he is so horribly revealed in death that people turn away… his portrait resumes its original glorious look.
Now consider what we have all been watching on TV since late Spring and you will notice that while the ‘actors’ don’t change their looks, the portrait of an America revealed by them can’t make anyone who cares about our future happy at all.
REAGAN REDUX
In 1980’s, Ronald Reagan’s ‘reaganomics’ totally obliterated what remained of the New Deal.
It is with us today… lasting just about as long as the New Deal did…but with very different results. It has reached its zenith in this Presidential election cycle. No matter the theatricality of the actors:
plus seven more
Here’s what we know. Behind the personalities all in a row is a single, damning image. It is ugly. It is the message of the Reagan Presidency. The power of a few dictates the lives of us all. The rich need to get richer so that the rest of us can dine on the trickle-down remains.
Bill Clinton brilliantly triangulated the message, convinced middle of the road Democrats to buy it – and the country prospered. But in six months of George W. Bush, the message was back with a vengeance and the debt hasn’t stopped yet. It has failed this country year after year…causing us to become a non-productive, debtor nation needing to collect outrageous student loan debt because corporations are holding huge profits in Europe to escape the tax man.
Ignore the theatrics of the debates…the arguments with the media moderators, the verbal sparring for a sound bite. Look beyond the well-dressed performers on stage to the problems their policies have caused.
Listen to what is being said by all of them: Obama is evil, stupid and unfit. There must be income inequality that’s how America works best. Anyone knocking our present version of capitalism…all for a few and little for the rest … must be a SOCIALIST!!!
And after ‘lower corporate taxes’ try to find the programs that will improve things, offer jobs, bring back the middle class, better educate our children, successfully operate with global competition, hold the line on social security, successfully replace Obamacare and maybe medicare too. Where are they? What are the details? No answers.
None of it makes any sense…just the same old rhetoric and outrageous behavior that almost brought down the nation’s banking system and our economy…and continues unchecked.
Despite two Democratic Presidents since, Reaganomics exists.
The rich get richer and more powerful…the one percent owning more of America now then the Robber Barons of the 20th Century did then (adjusted for inflation!!!). Ten percent of Americans own 90% of our wealth. Businesses are again consolidating to become bigger smothering competition and controlling prices. Bad car loans are now being bundled and swapped the way mortgage loans were just a few years ago. Financial advisors are cheating their customers and getting away with it. Health insurers and pharmaceuticals are raising prices at will. The middle class continues to fade away. Our children are being failed daily by a shattered public education system.
Enormous, life-altering student loan debt is outrageously driven by laws permitting usurious rates, a lack of bankruptcy protection and supporting college tuition increases of 1,200% in 15 years.
How much longer will all of this last? How much longer will a tiny percentage of the powerful get to dictate the terms and laws that consolidate their power? How longer will we look at the pretty face of false promises and ignore the ugliness beneath.
WEALTH, POWER AND HILLARY AND BERNIE
Not since the Watergate scandal have so few families and businesses contributed so much early money enabled by the infamous Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision five years ago.
The majority of money flows from those who have profited from financial markets, hedge funds and from energy involvements such as fracking. This is independent wealth which is able to carefully maneuver through the thicket of tax loopholes which so often protect just such wealth.
Clearly their desire is to support candidates who will continue to work for them. And yet, two-thirds of Americans support higher taxes on those earning $1 million or more a year; six in 10 favor more government intervention to reduce the gap between rich and poor; seven in 10 favor preserving Social Security and Medicare benefits as they are.
Do these statistics indicate that despite the ‘buying of Congress’ Americans will back a Democratic candidate for President no matter who the Republicans choose?
A question to be answered soon.
This not so warm and cuddly curmudgeonly politician has been speaking directly against the Reaganism that exists to this day. While he would prefer progressive Democratic-Socialist to the simpler liberal label, Sanders has been saying what millions of young and older Americans all across the country want to hear…an end to this very unequal and no-longer-so free America.
But because he has no answers nor gift and experience for achieving them, he cannot become President. Only Hillary Clinton will have the opportunity to rise above whatever accomplishments her experience and superior knowledge has helped her achieve so far to break the spell of Reagan, as surely as he ended the New Deal years.
The New Deal needed a ground-up change. Now so does the trickle-down deal which has so weakened this country in so many ways large and small.
Can Hillary bring us something very new? Or will she be a transition President as we await the man or woman who can deliver a newly inspired, fully-realized system that once again equalizes the liberalized American dream of unlimited opportunity?
We’ll see. But for now the portrait of Dorian Gray – the beauty and elegance – lives on even as his human remains horrify us. The metaphor holds.
Who is Dorian Gray in this metaphor?
All the Republican candidates.