Reform? Oh, no, no need for that! We just need to wonk the system, pay a bunch of high-priced experts to pour a little multisyllabic snake oil on problems and it’ll all be better. We know because...well, we’re the well-connected, well-educated elites and we always know better.
Let’s face it: The Democrats are unable to respond to the deep and profound dissatisfaction within the party because they are part and parcel of the corruption of today’s political system. Moreover, the party does not as yet acknowledge the role they play in maintaining a system that does not address the problems of a large part of the electorate. Dems have participated in the policies that deprive many people of life-sustaining work. Now that they have gotten “theirs,” they’ve helped to close off the ladders that used to lift others into the middle class.
I don’t hear Dems talking about
- corrupt contracting for the Defense Dept that has transferred so much money out of the public treasury to the benefit of private contractors
- the loss of public good like national parks and giving private entities mineral and other rights at absurdly low prices
- expenditures in the billions for a completely private luxury air transportation that spans the country, letting the rest of us squeeze uncomfortably into cattle cars
- expenditures of public colleges and universities on athletic teams, luxury dorms and sports facilities, bloated administrations, and other nonessential spending that does not go directly towards the educational mission
- the out-of-control quasi-public energy providers who gouge consumers at every turn
Instead, I hear HRC worrying about Trump’s children getting a free ride if public institutions were free — as if DT’s children would ever step foot inside a public institution! The defense of the status quo and the creation of ever more burdensome applications for public goods puts them out of reach of many people.
To give an example, my sister-in-law and I recently filled out an application to the VA for my 92-year old mother (a surviving spouse to a WWII vet) to get extra money for her Alzheimers care. The benefit, aid & assistance, is most needed. The application was 125 pages. It took 2 organized PhDs about 15 hours just to fill out the application and attached the required documents; it took weeks to compile all the documents. (I just received a letter that the agency has a backlog, so my poor mother may well be dead before they act!)
So now families who need “free” tuition for their college-age children will get to take on the same burdens. Really?! The old idea of setting up some kind of middle-class bureaucracy to pore over our eligibility applications is great — if you want to support that bureaucracy. Then the Repubs come in and kill the funding, effectively making it very difficult for many (if not most) people from benefitting from the program.
But you don’t hear Dem politicians talk about that problem either.
The role of the party in the massive corruption by elites prevents it from putting forward a reform agenda. At its heart, I think this is precisely what makes HRC’s campaign, with its wonkish claptrap, so utterly uninspiring. A woman president — that *is* inspiring. An elite-based government — not so much.
I think we will find ourselves in the same position as the Republican Party in the next election cycle. Yes, HRC will almost certainly win the nom. Yes, Dems will likely unite enough to give her a decent shot at winning — and I hope she does.
But I don’t think either the Dem Party apparatchiks or the Clintons themselves will be able to adopt policies that would address the needs of their constituencies. Why? Because they refuse to recognize their failed elitism, with its distorted views and perverted policies, that have brought us to this point, a country where a good part of the population has been left behind to struggle for survival.
So I think that, while the elite Dems won this time, I don’t think it’s a lasting victory at all, unless they can take off the blinders to see the damage they have themselves inflicted. I think that, after this election cycle, Democrats will see the same disaffection, rebellion, and rejection that the Repubs are experiencing this cycle. Unless they take on serious reform, Bernie is truly a visionary and a harbinger.