By Raúl Antonio Capote on October 17, 2020
Illustration: Pinterest
During the U.S. political process, money runs and runs in torrents from the coffers of the powerful: from the military- industrial complex and the financial and media conglomerates who periodically buy people to serve them. It doesn’t matter whether they are red or blue, Democrats or Republicans; they represent only one party, the party of the super-rich.
The multi-party system of the U.S. is a swindle, a lie built up through the years to deceive the people of the U.S. and cheat them out of their basic rights. For decades the influence of third parties has been diminishing, and the possibility of being elected to posts with any real power, especially at the federal level, is limited to two parties – the Democrats and Republicans.
Candidates for the U.S. presidency need to have the ability to withstand a contest where everything is considered fair game – low blows, tricks, personal attacks, attacks based on race and gender, lies, nastiness, deceit, and traps. Candidates’ private lives are scrutinized without any ethical concerns whatsoever, and the exploitation of sexual scandals of a rival is usual and habitual in the history of U.S. politics.
In 1984 Ronald Reagan, age 73, was able to dodge the jabs that his rival Walter Mondale made about his age. Bob Dole, a Republican candidate in 1996 who was the same age as Bush, was also attacked repeatedly on the basis of age.
Perhaps because of this, Bush wanted to use other tactics to gain ground on Bill Clinton – the favorite – who had confessed to trying marijuana in his youth (although “without inhaling”) by suggesting that Clinton was responsible for the increase in drug use among adolescents. In a spot ad, the Republicans asked “Did he inhale?”
John McCain learned from the tricks of his fellow Republican George W. Bush in the 2000 Republican primary. Voters in South Carolina got a strange call in which they were asked their opinion: “What would you think if you knew that Senator McCain had an illegitimate child with a Black prostitute?” McCain, whose “illegitimate child” was in fact his adopted daughter from Bangladesh, was soon knocked out of the race for the White House.
So How Much Does it Cost to Become President?
According to estimates from the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), an NGO that tracks the effects of money and lobbying on elections and public policy, the U.S. presidential campaign of 2016 cost about 6.9 billion dollars. In the 2016 presidential campaign, 100 wealthy donors contributed 1.5 billion dollars via super-PACs, which is roughly the same as the amounts donated by 4.7 million individual donors. The CRP states that the presidential race in which Obama was elected cost 2.6 billion dollars.
It is estimated that the current race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden will cost over 3 billion dollars. Private donations are essential to carry a candidate to power, and to maintain the system. How, then, is it possible to legislate against the interests of large industries, organizations, and powerful groups that have donated millions of dollars to the campaign of a candidate?
These are the kind of elections that José Martí was referring to when he wrote in 1881 that, “these political tricksters spoil and poison all the banners of the spirit; they are public criminals; they are slanderers by trade.”
Source: Granma, translation Resumen Lationamericano, North America bureau