False Choices

The 2016 US Presidential Election flea circus is heating up.

Now that the field of candidates has been narrowing, the remaining ones are starting to play dirty.

Scandals and embarrassing past misdeeds are being dragged out into the light about the candidates’ murky pasts.

As in presidential elections past, demagoguery and appearance have again won out over substance.

Watching the presidential debates, or what passees for them, is like watching a group of adolescents flinging insults at one another in the school yard. It's more of a comedy show than serious debate.

All this brings me to the main point that needs to be discussed.

The millionaires/billionaires running for president cannot, and will not, save us.

Their business acumen and success doesn’t automatically translate into the ability to govern well.

The obscenely wealthy individuals vying for the presidential office won’t make things better for those who aren’t wealthy. These people can talk all day long about how they’re going to ‘make America great again,’ about ‘moving forward,’ and about how they will ‘stand up to Wall Street.’ But we’ve heard this crap before in 2008 from none other than Barack Obama.

Didn’t he promise to stand with the middle class and those struggling at the bottom of the income ladder? Didn’t he promise to end Wall St. thievery and excess, and hold them all accountable? And he made these promises at the time of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

So if that real-time economic melt-down, and its ugly consequences throughout the globe, wasn’t enough for him to hold the bankster elites to account (which he hasn’t) AT ELECTION TIME, then there’s no use expecting it from any of the current gaggle of wealthy liars and nutcases.

To think that any of these obscenely wealthy, pampered, well-connected candidates will go against the status quo that made them wealthy is sheer delusion.

How can Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, who’ve made their fortunes off this system, act against it?

Does anyone really expect these candidates to fight Wall St., big corporations, and big banks? They’re never going to do this because it would mean fighting against their own interests. These candidates are in full collusion with Wall St. and their corporate/bankster pals. They take their money in the form of campaign donations. They worked for them, or with them in the past or in the present. Their businesses benefit from the tax breaks and bailouts Wall Street and their ilk lobby for, and mostly get.

These candidates certainly aren’t going to saw their arms and legs off for the sake of some middle class schmuck or a poor welfare check-cashing slob.

These wealthy candidates were born into, or spent the vast majority of their lives in, privilege and opulence. They don’t know how the working people and the poor live. They don’t have that frame of reference. Therefore, it’s not possible for them to help those below them.

Helping those below them means that these wealthy presidential candidates would eventually have to give up their own money, and that of their family and wealthy friends, then hand it over to those who aren’t wealthy. That’s just not going to happen.

There is only so much wealth to go around. So either the bottom takes it from the top, or the top takes it from the bottom; and income equality is anathema to the wealthy class. They are only taught to take. Sharing or giving is a loss for them.

When obscenely wealthy people get into power, they will naturally pull any and all wealth toward themselves, and do things that financially benefit them and their friends first and foremost. It’s their instinct; they can’t help it; regardless of what they say and promise to do for the working man.

So don’t expect anything from these wealthy smooth-talking asshole liars. They can’t help you. They won’t help you.

For them, being president is the height of their careers. It’s that one extra feather in their cap to add to all the others.

After you elect them, they will sell you out and forget about you.

Unless you’re a millionaire, of course.