Why is it that America’s Government is far worse than the American people are?
Americans aren’t even nearly as bad as its political Parties are, and this is because its political Parties are controlled by its billionaires, who are far worse than the American people are (worse than the “average” American — as will later be documented here).
The political Parties choose the candidates, which — in each of the Parties — are worse than the average American; so, Americans are selecting from a list of only pre-selected (within those Party-primaries) bad nominees. Here is how that system works, taking the current lot of Presidential primary candidates as the example:
Two polls were done in mid-June asking statistically valid samplings of Americans to rate the favorability-unfavorability of each of the politicians who either has entered or might enter the Democratic or Republican primary contests in 2024. In BOTH of the polls, RFK Jr. came out way on top as having the highest net favorability (“favorable” minus “unfavorable”) rating. One of those polls, the Harvard-Harris poll that’s run by Hillary Clinton’s former chief strategist Mark Penn, is specifically trying to find information that might help the Democratic Party to suppress the likelihood of RFK Jr.’s becoming the nominee, and so their first poll on this, in mid-May, excluded even mentioning RFK Jr. as an option though RFK Jr. had already publicly announced his candidacy a month earlier, but they did list Maryanne Williamson (the only other announced contestant against Biden) plus 11 other Democrats (including Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, Gavin Newsom, and Elizabeth Warren).
However, on May 22nd, I contacted those pollsters about RFK Jr. and asked “Why didn’t you include him at all?”; and, in their next poll, in mid June, they did include him. I headlined the results from that poll, on June 19th, “National Poll Shows RFK Jr. Tops All Other Politicians in Net Approval-Rating”, and reported that RFK Jr.’s net favorability rating, of +21%, was more than twice what the second-most-favorably-rated person’s was (+9%), and that Biden’s was negative, -11%. That pollster excluded showing the favorability-ratings according to Party (figures that are more predictive about whom the Party’s nominee will be than the overall net-favorability rating is); so there is no way to know from their report whether despite Biden’s low favorability among the general public he might actually have had an even higher net-favorability-rating among Democrats than RFK Jr. did and thus a higher probability of winning the Democratic nomination; but, a different polling organization — one that had no U.S. partisan affiliation — did sample and report all of this information, and it is the British Economist/YouGov pollsters, also in mid-June; and here is what their poll found:
Again, Biden was negative, but this time it was -7% (45% favorable minus 52% unfavorable).
However AMONG DEMOCRATIC PARTY VOTERS (the people who will vote in Democratic primaries) Biden’s net favorability (82% favorable minus 16% unfavorable) was +66%, whereas RFK Jr.’s (44% favorable minus 37% unfavorable) was +7%. That’s a steep disadvantage RFK Jr. needs to overcome in order to win the nomination. Interestingly — and this could be decisive since most of the early primaries this time will be in former Dixie states, where almost all Democratic Party voters are Blacks — Biden’s net-favorable among Black Democrats was +45%, and RFK Jr.’s was +44% — hardly any difference at all. So: If RFK Jr.’s campaign can exploit the fact of Joe Biden’s having been the leader among Senate Democrats against carrying out the Brown v. Board of Education decision of the U.S. Supreme Court which had demanded desegregating the public schools, then RFK Jr. might even win those crucial Dixiecratic primaries.
This is now crucial public information that America’s Democratic Party billionaires weren’t able to prevent being made public (by the Economist). And moreover: even the Whites who vote in Democratic primaries in Old Dixie would be turned off toward Biden if they knew that Biden had led Democrats in the Senate who were against ‘forced busing’. (Furthermore, Biden didn’t support any alternative to busing — and there ARE alternatives, but the billionaires don’t want any of them.) So: Biden’s lies, that he had been against instead of for racial segregation while he was in the Senate, are a huge vulnerability for him if RFK Jr. is really serious about winning that Party’s nomination. (Of course, as the 22 June 2023 video “Tucker Carlson Talks Robert F Kennedy Jr.” accurately notes and documents “There’s never been a candidate for President that the media hated more than Robert F. Kennedy Jr.” And THAT is true because “the media” which Carlson is referring to there are the billionaire-controlled media. So: what Carlson is attacking there is actually those billionaires. But the fact itself is the reason why Biden will likely be renominated.)
(Since readers of this article should know its writer’s position on RFK Jr.’s candidacy: He is an easy choice for me despite his unacceptable refusal to reverse falsehoods that he has repeatedly stated such as that his position regarding vaccines is in accord with the existing scientific evidence, and such as that Israel — an apartheid nation — is a democracy. Neither is true. But perfection does not exist, and on the two existential issues, to avoid a nuclear WW III and to halt global warming, he is easily the best candidate in decades. I hope that he will acknowledge publicly that he is wrong on both of the factual matters I have mentioned, and will apologize publicly for them, but I shall vote for him even if he won’t.)
And here is the social-sciences evidence that the richer and the more successful that a person becomes, the worse that person becomes. The increased wealth causes the person to become worse; it’s not so much that bad people are likelier to become rich as it is that a person’s becoming richer causes that person to become worse.
So: since all of the social-science findings are that America’s Government is controlled only by the very wealthiest Americans, both of the Parties represent only or virtually only their billionaires, NOT the American public. The only difference that the Government expresses and represents is the political difference between Republican billionaires versus Democratic billionaires. That’s what it comes down to.
By Eric Zuesse