“...the owners of this country know the truth; it's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it” -George Carlin.

Allow me to ask you a question. What is the best form of government? That is, what is the best route for a people to decide who their leader is? Most people, at least in modern, pluralistic society, would say democracy: to elect leaders based off of the most popular opinion. However, is this really the best option? Allow me to elaborate.

The other alternatives are, generally speaking, monarchy and oligarchy. Monarchy is to choose a leader, historically because of religionㅡ because said leader is “chosen by God”ㅡ and oligarchy is a broad term to describe any government in which the power of a civilization rests with a single small group or individual, either because of democracy, religion or some other reason and has stayed permanently. Throughout history, these two have typically been the only leaders that have ruled over the peasantry. The peasantry, the working class, the surfsㅡ the proletariat if you will have never before had any say beyond what can be chosen through insurrection and that first proceeding election.

Democracy, despite seeing its conception as we know it far into the past in Athens, would not arise again until after the Renaissance. The Enlightenment era in Europe gave birth to many values that are still commonplace in the West today such as equal rights, civilian-led government and, of course, democracy among other ideals: in other words, pluralism. America would be the largest society to run off of a completely democratically elected government (except the judicial branch in the Supreme Court’s case) at the time and still is in many respects. However, the rise of democracy also brought the rise of a brand new threat to the plebeian below.

You see, many people, especially now, like to draw divisions and distinctions between varying groups based off of race, religion, sex, culture or nationality and pretend that the real differences stem from these things. However, this is wrong: incorrect. The one and only division there ever was is that which lies between the upper, ruling class and the lower class. Frankly, that is just how society evolved to work. Just like our ape cousins roaming the jungle, we too have, on a much larger scale, the eternal class war between those we deem more worthy, the upper class, the patrician, the bourgeois, the nobility and the lower class, and sometimes, yes, the lines are drawn arbitrarily along divisions I mentioned before such as race, religion, et cetera. So the history of the “civilized” man is the history of a chimp who fights to be the alpha: everyone seeks power because everyone wants to sit on the very tippy top of the dump-heap. This drive for power, along with other forces such as tribalism, the hatred of anything different, has been the root of each and every single war, conflict, and insurrection since the dawn of man.

While the plebs work to find a way to become a patrician, the patricians have to find a way to stay on top so they can continue to be patricians. In the past this was easy: in the past, all the patricians had to do was dupe the foolish and ignorant mass population into believing they were sent by God or some other nonsense then protect themselves from being usurped by other societies patricians by throwing plebs at them until they go away. Now, however, the average patrician must seize power by one of two ways: through politics and government or money. Disregarding the fact that the real power is in the money, which I may write on at a later date, let us now focus on the government.

If someone wants power through the government, they get to it by lying straight through their great big, polished teeth. A perfect American politician embodies everything that America looks for in a leader, which is what’s most revealing, and most terrifying, about modern American politics. Let’s look at Clinton as she is almost the ultimate, contemporary American politician. Clinton is well-dressed and looks more presentable than an average American woman: her hair is always nice and her makeup is flawless. She appears to give off a dignified and knowing air about her. She smiles at funny stories, kisses babies and stands up straight. She doesn’t sweat or stutter on stage, she is generally articulate and put together and she isn’t far overweight. She embodies the appearance of what America is looking for in a leader because she has this calm, collected and well-kempt air about her. Of course, she is not so popular among most Americans. Some don’t like her because of her platform or because she’s a patent and obvious liar and yes these are both valid criticisms. She is not the ultimate candidate because she has been compromised; she is a liar and everyone knows it. She projects emotion like a robot in an 80’s movie. Trust you me, if anyone actually believed a word she said and she was at all believable, then she could get any position in America she wanted. Let me tell you why.

The grandest folly, the inherent rival of democracy is apathy. People never bother to learn or investigate anything about politics. Even if they do, they merely go online, see that they agree with Trump or Clinton and leave it at that without bothering to investigate the other very pertinent aspects of who to elect to run the country. To vote for the best candidate for you, you have to research and decide on each and every single issue, decide which issues are even likely to be addressed in the next election cycle, then find out which candidate most embodies these values, and that doesn’t mean go to their website to find out because here’s the thing: politicians lie. I know I just dropped the mother of all nuclear bombs and shattered your world, but it’s the truth: politicians often lie and it’s up to you to sift through these lies and find the little kernels of truth peppered throughout or under.

Back to Clinton, because she embodies American politics, she embodies everything that is wrong with American politics and thus everything that is wrong with the democratic process when left unchecked. She is a complete fabrication; Hillary Clinton is no longer a person, but a mask and a suit. Much like Batman, if the real Hillary Clinton died, her daughter could certainly wear her clothes and makeup and pass for her herself. She has artificially changed her positions to conveniently fit the majority opinion of the demographic she appeals to: Democrats. Just as Trump is willing to pose and to lie to appeal to the demographic of alt-conservative Republicans, Clinton is willing to do the same to appeal to the demographic of liberal Democrats. That’s all politicians do anymore; they’re not leaders: they’re followers. They are whoever you want them to be. They recognize the only two parties with any traction anymore, they choose one and they lie and lie and lie to gain the favor of that party so they can go on to the general election, so they can rush to the middle of the political spectrum to appeal to independents.

Are you beginning to see the folly of American politics? Are you beginning to see the inborn error of democracy? It takes a special kind of self-hatred to punish oneself by delving this far into politics, but it’s important to know this and for that, I thank you.

Now you know that these people do the same thing to get into office, you ought to also be aware that they not only do the same things because that’s the only way to do it, but, ultimately, because they are the same people. Trump is right-wing: he favors big business, lower taxes, war-hawkish foreign policy, and other corporatist ideals and stances, but how exactly is Clinton any different? Clinton is blatantly and provably bought-and-paid-for by large banks and soulless corporations: she’s going to bail out Wall Street criminalsㅡ who are the real culprits for our downed economyㅡ both financially and legally, she’s going to do the bidding of the patrician class, so they can line her pockets because she herself is a patrician! Don’t you see? Do you see it yet? Do you see the ultimate lack of choice of contemporary American politics?

What’s the solution? That’s just the thing: the solution is to go with a third-party candidate, someone who doesn’t bother to try to bull their way into the favor of a popular party, so you know they’re honest, or at least more honest than Trump or Clinton. However, no one votes for third parties even though far more people agree with them then they know because of herd mentality: no one wants to “throw their vote away” by voting for someone for someone who won’t get elected, who won’t get elected because no one wants to throw their vote away voting for someone who won’t get elected!

That’s just it isn’t it? We’ve dug ourselves into an inescapable hole and there’s no way out. Democracy, a government in which every citizen has an equal share in how it’s run, is a failure because people are too lazy to put in the effort involved in contributing to their share, so they just vote for who their parents did, it’s also a failure because anyone who controls the media controls what the people hear about a candidate and what people hear about an issue which ultimately controls what they think about the issue and what they think about the candidate.

So time goes on and the machine keeps churning. The patrician does what he always did: he controls the pleb, but this time around it’s just gotten a little bit more difficult, a little bit more convoluted. Instead of telling everyone he’s a demigod, he just has to line a few pockets, pay off a few judges here and there and boom; no one’s the wiser. They know thoughㅡ they know that it’s not hard to take one good, long look at society from an external vantage point and realize what’s happening, even from the lowly perspective of a plebeian like me and probably like you. That’s why they fed us the American Dream. The belief that one day, you too can go from plebeian to patrician. In a modern, capitalist society like ours, it’s definitely not impossible, but in order to make it to the top, the very tippy top of the heap, you gotta be willing to float your soul down the river and, at that point, are you really you anymore? Think about it.

“...the owners of this country know the truth; it's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it” -George Carlin.