Do the People Have a Say in Politics
Is the United States a Democracy?
Most people argue in favor of democracy without even understanding what they are talking about, and in fact, many will say that something is democratic when they agree with it but claim that it is anti-democratic when it runs contrary to their established belief system. For example, to the Left, Donald Trump winning the 2016 election was fascistic, and for the 2022 midterm elections, the Democratic Party, and particularly President Joe Biden, suggested that the only way for democracy to win was for Democrats to be elected. In essence, he was saying that Republicans winning a so-called democratic election was not democratic at all. Both political parties play around with terms and concepts without really knowing what they mean, but the question becomes: is the United States really democratic, or even republican, in the first place?
On the surface, any typical American would think that this question is absurd. What do you mean, “are we a democracy?” Of course, we are. We vote for our representatives, who then legislate on our behalf and determine the course of the country. Aside from the fact that a direct democracy would comprise of the people voting on behalf of themselves and for all policies of the country, the United States is not even a de facto representative democracy or republic (we may be a de jure one, but does that even matter?).
First and foremost, does our vote even really matter? If you live in a Republican county or state, your representatives are going to be Republicans, and likewise, if you live in a Democratic city or state, your representatives are going to be Democrats. In reality, whether you are in the majority or minority in the jurisdiction in which you live, the outcomes are likely going to be the same whether you cast a vote or not. Your one vote is not going to change the results, as your voice is drowned out in a sea of people blindly voting along party lines or according to some manipulated narrative. Plus, how many representatives, once reaching their desired office, will care about anything you have to say? I have written to politicians on every level of government, from municipality up through the federal government, Republican and Democrat alike, and I have not once received a response back.
The concept of elections representing the majority opinion is assuming that the elections are not rigged against a specific candidate or in favor of another. As we are well aware, many Republicans suggest that the 2020 election was stolen because of voting machine fraud, and Democrats consider that idea as the Big Lie. In reality, the whole thing is theatrical, because it does not matter whether the machines were rigged or not. From the Twitter Files, we can clearly see that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and other agencies were actively working to censor information on Covid-19 and other concepts that went against the mainstream views, and they were working to rig the election through social media and the corporate news media and were moving the public opinion against Donald Trump. They even suppressed the potentially damning Hunter Biden laptop story so that it would not hurt the Biden campaign (the story was branded as Russian disinformation when it clearly was not). The CIA regularly engages in manipulation of foreign elections in order to rig them in favor of pro-American candidates, so to believe that this does not happen domestically is naïve (and more will eventually come out about the 2020 election). If our elections are manipulated in areas where the results might be unfavorable to the establishment and the individual vote makes no difference in changing the outcome of an election, why do we even vote? If we lack any type of political power, why do we keep participating in the predestined selection process and act like we can actually change things? The reality of the situation is that our ignorance and lack of critical thinking abilities help to preserve the status quo. Our belief that we have a say helps to keep it going.
If we have no say in the power structure that rules over us, at least there are checks and balances, right? Well, in reality those do not exist to the extent to which we believe either. Although there is some limited judicial review of potentially unconstitutional laws and executive orders, most policies go unchecked. A good example of this was during the Covid-19 pandemic. In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo was given blanket authority to alter, create, or abolish any legislation of his desire, and this power was hidden away, without any debate, in a bill that would allow the government to increase spending on combating the virus. Basically, all legislators who did not vote in favor of the bill would have been seen as standing in the way of keeping New Yorkers safe from a virus that turned out to be far less lethal than was originally stated. The spending bill passed easily, and Governor Cuomo had temporary dictatorial powers. The legislative and judicial systems were suspended, and the executive branch gained sole power for a time. There were absolutely no checks and balances.
Well, that was just because times were uncertain, and the temporary dictatorial period eventually came to an end. Surely, executive branches do not have that much power all of the time, do they? It is true that during normal times, the executive branch does not have unlimited power, but governors and presidents are often able to declare an emergency unilaterally and issue executive orders to deal with it. Although they cannot regularly do what Governor Cuomo was able to do during the pandemic, emergency orders carry with them a lot of legislative power. For example, Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102 to confiscate the average person’s gold, using his presumed authority under the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 and the Emergency Banking Act of 1933. In addition to this theft from the people, he also issued Executive Order 9066 to intern (in concentration camps) Japanese Americans under the presumed authority of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 (it is unlikely that the legislators of the 18th century had Japanese Americans in mind when this was passed). Citing the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) COVID-19 Vaccination Emergency Temporary Standard, President Biden legislated that all companies with over 100 employees needed to get the experimental mRNA vaccine (or the adenovirus equivalent), and it is extremely unlikely that when the Occupational Safety and Health Act was signed into law in 1970 that the Covid-19 pandemic, or even vaccine mandates, was on the mind of those passing and implementing it. Likewise, the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) of 2001 gave President George W. Bush the power to wage war in any country and take any steps necessary to halt the actions of terrorists, and none of this was done with an official declaration of war against any of the countries on the receiving end of bombs or drone strikes. Presidents Barrack Obama and Donald Trump continued using the AUMF, and President Biden has kept the undeclared war concept going by arming Ukraine and sending troops to the battlefield of Europe.
Even if the executive branch has abused its authority and expanded its power, at least Congress passed the laws. Maybe some of the laws have been stretched to cover emergencies or unintended situations, but Congress still has the ultimate say, right? It would appear that this is the case when one is watching the debates in the news, but consider that many bills are hundreds or thousands of pages of items that are passed together in groups. The rare congressman or legislator in a statehouse who actually reads the full bills may be able to comprehend a portion of the issues in them, but in reality, there is little likelihood that he or she will be able to give each topic the attention that is needed to legislate on behalf of the American people. In many cases, legislators will delegate the work to staff members so that they can go campaigning or participating in other profitable endeavors, and when the vote comes to the floor, they simply cast a ballot along their party affiliation or because of a coalition that they formed with others. Or, they get pressure to pass a bad law because if they do not, their reputation, and thus their power, will be thrown away. For example, if you did not vote for the Patriot Act, you were unpatriotic. If you did not vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, you did not care about Americans dealing with high costs. If you did not vote for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, you did not care about Americans having better healthcare. The names of the bills are often a way to guilt politicians into voting in the affirmative, without consideration for the specific details, and this works to the advantage of those trying to push through agendas (particularly corporate lobbyists).
Meanwhile, hidden in the bills are thousands of unrelated items that get passed without question. The mentality of congressmen is to pass the bill and then see what is in it (just ask Nancy Pelosi). The bills are just frameworks and ideas full of blank checks of authority delegated to the bureaucracy to handle. The bureaucratic agencies are the real legislators, as they get to determine the policies that affect Americans. They make the rules and regulations that govern our everyday lives, and they have broad authority to legislate on all matters, provided that such policies fit within the loose wording of thousand-page bills or are related to the mandate of their respective jurisdiction. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency was given life in 1970, and it can essentially legislate on all matters related to protecting the environment, without the need for Congress to create new policies each time. It just needs to cite some type of law that was passed by Congress somewhere down the line, and then it can manipulate that law into some enforceable policy. So, you can start to see that just like presidents use emergencies to their advantage to create laws on their own authority, the unelected bureaucrats take similar actions during normal times (are there even normal times anymore?). The American people never really get to determine the policies that affect them, nor do they have a say in anything that the bureaucracy does, as elected officials just delegate legislative power to the executive branch.
It is the executive branch that rules over us, and this is enforced by armed agents of the FBI, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), National Security Agency (NSA), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), CIA, and others. For example, the Biden Administration has censored social media posts and accounts by using the FBI (see the Twitter Files), and the DHS has issued memorandums declaring those who opposed the Covid-19 narrative and denied the 2020 election results as potential terrorists. The IRS is arming itself ahead of increased tax audits on Americans, and all of this is being done under the surveillance state that can monitor our every move (but conveniently allows some events to take place). With the case of January 6th, 2021 and the Michigan governor kidnapping plot, we see that the FBI was involved in orchestrating events for the purpose of entrapping individuals who could later be scapegoated, thus allowing for more funding and prestige to the bureau (and promotions for some). Even the CIA had a hand in the attacks on September 11, 2001 and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The drug war locked up individuals for victimless crimes, and military raids were conducted. All of this was done without the consent of the American people, and when our so-called elected officials hand off their authority to the bureaucracy, the citizens become the victims of an out-of-control government and are made into criminals for no apparent reason other than to promote authoritarianism (shut up and obey).
At the end of the day, is it actually the executive branch that has the ultimate say in our politics? As I have shown, it is the true legislative body in this country, but what about the revolving door? People who work for the federal government often later find themselves employed by large corporations, and employees or high-ranking members of companies often end up in key government positions. For example, Vice President Dick Cheney was the CEO of Haliburton, our current Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was on the board of directors at Raytheon, and current Pfizer board member, Scott Gottlieb, was the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). If the government is forming partnerships with these large corporations and individuals are moving freely between them, it is safe to say that policies made on behalf of Americans are influenced by these arrangements. Since profit is the primary concern of corporations, government-connected companies are able to exploit their relationships and push through agendas that other companies cannot.
For example, Haliburton made a handsome profit on the Iraq War (really Iraq War II), Raytheon is making a killing on the American-funded Russo-Ukrainian War, and Pfizer made its most profitable product (the government-funded Covid-19 vaccine) when mandates and narratives were pushed on the public. Likewise, the FDA was lenient in its approval of the vaccine, being that many of the people allowing the drug onto the market were the same people who would eventually go to work for Pfizer. And again, since the elected legislators just delegate authority to the executive branch, the American people have no say whatsoever in what is happening. And when the executive branch policies lead us toward World War III or financial collapse, there is absolutely nothing we can do to stop it, except put on our patriotic hats and go off and die in foreign lands and have full faith in the centralized currency system that the Federal Reserve will soon force upon us.
The federal government hands out subsidies to its favored corporations, and those corporations lobby on behalf of their profits. The private Federal Reserve banking system (with a public role) creates money out of thin air, largely through quantitative easing, and gives it to government-connected banks, thus creating higher costs for Americans whose wages remain the same. The bankers can then lend the money out to large corporations that go on to shape the public and private sectors. The executive branch also gets to appropriate funds and increase spending, after blank checks come from Congress, thus devaluing the currency. None of this is being done with our approval, and yet, most Americans think that who they vote for will actually make a difference. The corporations are in bed with both parties, and regardless of who is in control, the results never change.
If government-corporate partnerships are controlling us through a pseudo-fascist economic and governance system, who controls the corporations? We know that roughly 90% of all media we consume, whether it is Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, or The Wall Street Journal, is owned by five or six corporations; but in reality, BlackRock and the Vanguard Group (and State Street Corporation and Berkshire Hathaway to a lesser extent) have majority shares in all of them. Then, if you trace these two mega corporations into other markets, you will see that they control the shares of Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, American Airlines, Delta Airlines, Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Exxon Mobile, Chevron Texaco, Haliburton, Raytheon, and Lockheed Martin. This means that two powerful investment firms can exercise power over almost every product and service that we consume on a daily basis. They can enforce BlackRock’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) scores in order to push through social and political agendas on all of their subservient corporations. In addition to the revolving door concept of partnerships between the federal government and BlackRock-controlled corporations, BlackRock partners with the Federal Reserve, particularly with exchange-traded fund (ETF) policies.
With all of this being said, it begs the question: do Larry Fink, central bankers, and corporate leaders really determine policy and legislation? Do they run the country? Is there an elite class of people that uses the politicians as a front to push through whatever agendas are desired? We know that Congress and the state legislatures are derelict in their duties and delegate policy creation to the executive branches, which then use their authority to benefit corporations. It is an interconnected system of corporate power and oligarchies. Although it is not as simple as saying a few people run the country from the top down, and there are still some checks and balances remaining and flawed procedures that prevent elites from having their perfect power (as well as conflict between the elites), it should be clear to anyone who analyzes our current system that our country is not a democracy or republic. It is ultimately the rich and powerful who control society (as has been the case throughout history), and while that is being done, we have the illusion that we are free to choose the best policymakers and enact real change. In reality, the United States is a plutocracy, and we the serfs must fork over a portion of the fruits of our labor to keep this system going, if we decide to keep playing the game.
Thank you for reading, and please check out my book, The Global Bully, and website.