By David Swanson
Above is a preview of a forthcoming film that I’ve seen and highly recommend.
The film is vague about when the corporate takeover of the U.S. government began, probably because it actually predates
the U.S. government and wasn’t entirely new in the 1970s or the 1980s but did see, at that time, a major acceleration
that in some ways was a leap backward and in other ways a leap into something unseen before.
The film contains insightful comments from people like John Ralston Saul, who makes a case that the winner of World War
II was Mussolini, that his military was defeated but his ideology triumphant. Certainly corporatism, the rule by wealthy
business interests, was never met by complete opposition in the U.S. or any other government, including the Russian. One
might add that the militarism and global imperialism that we are urged to associate with Nazism has triumphed as well.
Corporate Coup D’État shows us sacrifice zones, areas of the United States devastated economically by shutdown businesses. One might group
them with areas destroyed environmentally. A Pennsylvania town with a closed-down blast furnace and a Pennsylvania town
with a coal fire still burning just underground after catching decades ago both have the same empty houses. One might
group these zones with the many large zones of the earth outside the United States that have been sacrificed. In fact,
it will soon become apparent to most people that the entire planet falls into the same category.
What’s most interesting about this film is all the interviews of people who voted for Obama and then Trump, or voted for
Democrats for decades and then Trump, or voted for Bernie Sanders and then Trump. Some of them explain that they saw
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as the worst two choices ever, and they chose the one who was new and different. That
may strike some people as irrational. Even if it doesn’t, the continued loyalty these poor people express for Donald
Trump may seem willfully delusional.
But imagine that you live in a place where half the buildings are empty, that you have no savings and no health
coverage, that your choices of schools for your kids are the crappy public school down the street and . . . that’s it,
that your job involves no improvement, no raises, no benefits, no voice or control or possibility of a union, no options
of switching to any other job, and the distinct possibility that you may be out of work altogether at any moment.
Imagine further that you’ve been told that all you can do is vote for a president or sit around bitching, that you have
no knowledge of activism or civic engagement and very little time or energy for it if you did. Imagine that even the
experts in movies like this one that you yourself now play a bit role in (presumably unpaid) describe numerous actions
that Congress has taken in the past two years as having been taken by Trump, because it simply goes without saying that
presidents make laws and presidents make budgets.
You’ve concluded that politicians are all slimy, that voting is not very different from doing nothing at all, and that
you have a choice between an evil you know and an evil you don’t, or an evil you know as a disastrous public official of
long standing (why is my brain flashing to images of Joe Biden walking onto a stage?) and an evil that’s been presented
as likeable on idiotic television programs of long standing?
Your conclusion is not particularly irrational. In Corporate Coup D’État we see journalist Lee Fang interview members of Congress, and — with very few exceptions — to call them slimy would be
an insult to slime.
I think it may be easier for many people to write about Trump Democrats than to talk to them or even to watch them
talking on video. It’s certainly easier to fantasize that they’ve all seen the light and repented than it is to watch
them, over and over, stating clearly and articulately that they have done no such thing.
To the extent that they deny the evidence of Trump’s malicious mendaciousness and stay loyal to their leader or party,
they are no different from most Republicans or Democrats. One can blame them for it, but it’s like blaming theists for
believing in God. (It’s stupid, it’s harmful, but it’s so widespread that if you don’t find a way to interact with them
respectfully, you’re going to be pretty darn lonely.)
To the extent that Trump voters, or non-voters, might recognize what a walking disaster he is, that wouldn’t mean they’d
rationally be obliged to reject him in favor of a different variety of walking disaster like Joe Biden. Even if offered
the notably superior choice of Bernie Sanders, many of them could be too fed up; it could be too late to reach them. But
certainly a Democratic Party that chooses not to impeach Trump and not to try offering a decent candidate who
legitimately gives a shit about people and is willing to try to help them should be banned from looking down its nose at
anybody. In terms of stupidity, it will take the prize.
--
David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio.He is a 2015, 2016, 2017 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee.
Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook.
Help support DavidSwanson.org, WarIsACrime.org, and TalkNationRadio.org by clicking here: http://davidswanson.org/donate.
Sign up for these emails at https://actionnetwork.org/forms/articles-from-david-swanson.
ends