pollsb.com
By Arlen Grossman/ The Big Picture Report
On November 6, we will choose a Moderate Republican–Barack Obama–or a Radical Right Republican–Mitt Romney–to be President of the United States.
Yes, I know that there will be a “Democrat” listed on the ballot, the incumbent president Barack Obama. But the Democratic Party I’ve always known has disappeared. It is no longer the party of the working class, minorities, the elderly and the poor. That Democratic Party began slipping away about forty years ago and has been replaced by a party beholden to powerful corporate interests.
The political pendulum has swung far to the right. The Radical Right Republican (RRR) Party makes little secret of the fact it is owned and supported by wealthy business interests. Everything they do or legislation they propose is designed to benefit the One Percent. The Moderate Republican (AKA the Democratic Party) is just slightly better. It’s loyalty is to wealthy business interests, too, but most Moderate Republican politicians try to temper it with some minor concessions to the middle class.
President Obama may be running as a “Democrat.” But his views and policies are in line with those of the traditional Republican Party of a generation or two ago. He is pro-corporate, pro-military and pro-security state. His views are more in line with former GOP presidents Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and George H. W. Bush than Democratic presidents Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson.
Mitt Romney (though he changes day to day) has mostly acquiesced to the extreme views of the Tea Party, the neocons, the Religious Right and the Grover Norquist supply-siders. What is the accepted belief of today’s RRR’s was considered John Birch Society- extremism just a generation or two ago.
Unfortunately, it’s not just on the presidential level. Every politician in Washington, and on the state and local level, relies on money to get elected. Especially now that campaign contributions no longer have limits, thanks to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, money has become more important than ever. And those with the most of it have significant influence over our elected representatives. Government, now more than ever, is conducted by legalized bribery. The likelihood of legislation being passed is in near direct proportion to the size of campaign contributions.
usnews.com
Would you like our wars and foreign entanglements to end? Sorry, both the Moderate and Radical Right Republican parties don’t. Would you like to see single-payer universal health care? Sorry, both Republican parties don’t. Would you like the civil liberties back that you lost after 9/11? Sorry, both Republican parties don’t. Would you like business to be penalized for shipping American jobs overseas. Sorry, both Republican parties don’t. Most Americans support these positions, but not the two major Republican parties. If you’re looking for democracy, browse in an American history book.
The Moderate Republicans (Democrats) are better than the RR Republicans, but in the final analysis, they are de facto Republicans. No matter which Republican candidate wins, the ultimate winner will be multinational corporations, the military-industrial-security complex, and the One Percent. There is a case to voting your conscience and giving your vote to a third-party candidate. It will make a statement, but as you know, the system is set up so your candidate has no realistic chance of winning.
The President elected November 6 will be a Moderate or a Radical Right Republican. So will virtually every other elected official throughout the country.
Heads they win, tails we lose.
thebigpicturereport ™ 
Arlen Grossman, I had favored Rick Santorum during the 2012 presidential election. My only areas of disagreement with him were his stance on foreign policy, his stance on same-sex marriage and his stance on the drug war. What does it matter if someone wants to marry a member of the same biological sex?
I agree. As I have said before, Ragnar, I like the libertarian position on social issues and foreign policy.
I agree with you there.
Arlen Grossman, I honestly favored Rick Santorum. However, not for the reasons one might think.
Arlen Grossman, The Barack Obama presidency saw 93, 000, 000 people out of the workforce. His presidency was an abysmal failure.
Let’s be fair, Jeffrey. Obama inherited a bad recession from George W. Bush and turned the economy around. I have my issues with Obama, but his presidency was in no way an abysmal failure. Especially compared to the idiot we have now. By the way I checked on your statistic and this is what I found https://www.factcheck.org/2016/02/trump-wildly-inflates-unemployment/ I’m disappointed you didn’t fact check your statement.
Arlen Grossman, if Bill Clinton had kept his dick in his pants, acted upon the opportunities he was given to take Osama Bin Laden into custody after the first World Trade Center attack, the subsequent World Trade Center attack probably would not have happened. As far as your link is concerned, this is just revisionist history being perpetuated by the Left.
Interesting, Jeffrey. What you call “revisionist history,” I call facts. And as Steven Colbert said, “reality has a liberal bias.” I know, you don’t agree.
Arlen Grossman, these “facts” are easily dismissed because of the statistic I mentioned. If you can give me more reliable information, I will be glad to look into it.
Ditto to what Arlen Grossman said….
I completely agree. I think pretty much everything Obama had accomplished had been started or proposed by the original Republican party. But I’d still take these moderate Republicans almost anytime over the radical ones.
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Reblogged this on DailyDisgust and commented:
Arlen Grossman with The Big Picture Report has a great piece here about the choice that we will make in November. Please click through, it’s well worth the read.
Thank you for writing this. My wife and I (both teenagers when Clinton was elected) have been talking about how much we now get what an older friend meant when he used to refer to Bill Clinton as the most successful Republican president in recent memory. There is a lot that I am happy with the President for–but the list of disappointments continues to grow. That said, I appreciate your pointing out that the other guys are that much further right at this point. It’s still a better choice to vote for the donkeys, but certainly it’s not the best choice.
I understand your frustration, Dan. I want Obama to win because a Romney win would be catastrophic. But I have no illusions that Obama will make much of a difference in halting the downward trajectory of this country. Once again, we are stuck with voting for the lesser of two evils, and we both know what we get when we do that.
Arlen Grossman, the people who faced no damage from an economic standpoint would be the 1%. The rest of us were screwed over.