Trying to remember if the alarmism about Drumpf & the rise of fascism is rivaled in past presidential elections. It’s tempting to consider it political hysteria but it’s really a profound conservatism, naivety, & inability to see how the US government is really run–by whom & in whose interest. Perhaps there’s also a large measure of manipulation involved.

The president is not a free agent. The oligarchs do not put the fate of their system & their class fortunes in the hands of inferior agents like the Bushes, Obama, Drumpf, the Clintons. They surround them with think tanks, special advisers (like Kissinger), Pentagon generals, national security operatives, CIA functionaries, bankers, corporations. Policies & differences over how to implement them are hammered out behind closed doors & not in the Oval Office.

People who believe the president or prime minister of any country runs the show according to his/her own ideas hold the credulous view of history taught in US schools that goes: there was a very good king & happiness reigned in the kingdom. Then his wicked son inherited the throne & blood rolled in the streets–& the cycle proceeds ad infinitum.

The only losers in all this charade are democracy & the American people–which is why for decades a majority opt out of the the process & don’t bother to register to vote. We need to start discussing options because to move forward humanity needs democracy.