So far in President Obama’s second term, the president has been placed on the spot for a seemingly endless array of missteps within the executive branch — including the expanding revelations of the National Security Agency’s involvement on the non-terrorism-related electronic surveillance of American citizens, and most recently, disclosure that in 2011, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruled that the NSA monitoring of emails from 2008 to 2011 was unconstitutional.
This has been met by an expansion of the unmanned drone program, which resulted in the targeting and killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, and his 16-year old son. In addition, there are allegations that “extraordinary renditions” — or the kidnapping and detaining of terrorist suspects abroad — have continued under Obama and expanded to include the participation of 54 foreign governments and the capture of 136 known victims since 2001, despite assurances that the CIA’s network of “black site” prisons would close. And finally, there have been two major intelligence leaks and allegations of political targeting by the IRS.
Combined with the Justice Department’s alleged bugging of Associated Press and FOX News reporters’ phones and continuing questions on the administration’s position on government transparency, many have developed deep concerns about the president’s track record and about the motives of this administration.
But, some feel that should Mitt Romney have won the presidency in 2012 the same things would have happened. In 2012, former representative and former presidential candidate Ron Paul (R – Texas) too explained to CNBC’s Futures Now why he would not endorse Romney: «There is essentially no difference between one administration and another, no matter what the platform,» Paul said.
“I think the first thing that we have to do is recognize that we don’t have a two party system,” Paul said in a Reddit session recently. “I sort of kid about this by saying that we have a one party system, and someday I’m hoping for a second party! Because my experience in Washington has showed me that the 2 parties are much more closely aligned than the people realize. Both of them support our foreign policy of wars overseas (which is wrong), both parties support the Federal Reserve System and the banking cartel, both parties have endlessly supported deficit financing, and both parties unfortunately have supported the attacks on our personal civil liberties.”
“Now the problem is, if we don’t have a process whereby you disagree with the two parties, you don’t have anyplace to go because it is very difficult to get on the ballot, it’s difficult to get in the debates unless you participate in the «so-called» two-party system we have today, and ultimately the changes come about not by tinkering with either political party — it only comes through education and getting people to understand the wisdom of non-intervention in foreign policy, non-intervention in personal liberties, and non-intervention in the economy,” Paul concluded.
One party rule
Among many, the notion that despite the Republicans and Democrats being vastly differently conceptually, there is in practice only one party in Washington, not two.
There is an overwhelming impression that due to the influence of money in politics, true political ideology has been replaced with the corporate interests of wealthy benefactors.
Take, for example, labor. Traditionally, the Democrats are pro-labor, with unions as a major party constituent and supporter. However, since the Clinton administration, the Democrats have been pro-international trade. The North American Free Trade Agreement, which was signed by Bill Clinton, removed penalties for American countries that moved their production to Mexico, where labor is cheaper. Since then, the Democrats have had a difficult relationship with labor: the Democratic leadership is reluctant to be labeled pro-labor — but can’t afford to lose the unions’ support — and the unions have felt neglected and taken for granted.
“Union leaders frequently complain that they have second-class status in the party compared with other groups such as environmentalists or suburban voters,” CNN reported prior to the 2012 Wisconsin gubernatorial recall election. “During the battle over public employee unions in Wisconsin, most national Democrats were noticeably absent from the debate. Before the Wisconsin gubernatorial election that followed the recall, President Obama was willing to tweet his support for Gov. Scott Walker’s opponent, Tom Barrett, but unwilling to actually visit.”
Another example is American military engagement abroad. When Barack Obama campaigned to become president, he made ending the War on Terror an administration goal. While American forces have withdrawn from Iraq and de-escalation in Afghanistan continues, the Obama administration has actually expanded the War on Terror through the increased use of armed drones, via continued use of Bush-era tactics such as “extraordinary rendition” and electronic surveillance, and through the continued use of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay and the holding of terrorism suspects without due process.
While some would argue that the compromises made by each party that led them outside of their party ideologies is germane to the political process, others would argue that Washington’s actions reflect a new allegiance. Following the mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School at Newtown, Conn., 92 percent of all Americans — including 91 percent of all gun owners — supported the establishment of universal background checks for gun purchases, according to a February 2013 Quinnipiac University poll. The poll echoed numbers in other polls, including a January CBS News/New York Times poll.
«There is no significant voter opposition to requiring background checks for gun buyers,» said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, in a statement. «And there is support for banning high volume ammunition clips and assault weapons, with the issue pretty much falling along party lines.”
Despite this historic consensus among ideological lines, universal background checks failed to pass the Congress. Ultimately, the vote failed for the same reason many other votes failed: the Republicans were afraid that their vote would be used against them in a primary fight against a moneyed challenger. In 2010 and 2012, Tea Party and National Rifle Association-backed candidates knocked Republican mainstream incumbents out of contention in the primaries.
During the universal background check debate, the NRA announced it would be scoring the vote on its scorecard, which grades lawmakers on whether they support gun rights. That threat alone was enough to make the Manchin-Toomey amendment fail to get the 60 votes needed to avoid the automatic filibuster.
America as a plutocracy?
If it is to be argued that America is a plutocracy — or a government ruled by wealth — then such considerations made by the senators during the universal background check debate are justified. In a plutocracy, the consideration of the wealth-holders — the corporations, the wealthy and the lobbyists — must take primary focus in the legislator’s view. It is those that underwrite his/her campaign and those that offer support to keep the legislator in power that must, in all reason, have the attention of the politician.
Based on this logic, it can be argued that those elected into this plutocratic system — regardless of their announced affiliation — would ultimately align to the plutocracy it serves. While there would be idealistic legislators that hold on to their core principles, many would simply adapt in a way that encourages their own political survival.
While it is unfair to say that the system is plutocratic, it is influenced by unseen money. In the aftermath of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission — in which the Supreme Court ruled that money can be construed as political free speech — the amount of money, disclosed or otherwise, that has flooded into the political campaigns has precluded the notion that at least in some small sense a politician is not influenced by motives other than the welfare of the people.
Thomas Jefferson once wrote that “The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.” The question is not so much if there is but one party in Washington today, but whom exactly does Washington serve?