This election year in the US has been crazy. It featured a primary season with top candidates from both parties calling out unfair practices by their own parties and an election season featuring two of the least popular figures to run for president of all time. Our options are essentially the least liked ever. No wonder people are still trying to figure this thing out.
The dirty secret that is out of the bag this year is that the Republican and Democratic parties are not public institutions, they are private businesses. Their product is politicians and their goal is to have more than the other party. That’s it. Neither party has a goal of improving governance or passing particular legislation or fighting for any public interests. Like never before they are proving the only thing that matters is having more politicians elected to the highest offices possible with no regard for quality or voters. They know that we have no choices other than the two of them so they don’t need to worry about us, they just fight against each other.
Journalists have been ducking around this story all season without really getting into it. Why in the world have we allowed literally 99% of our government to be run by two private businesses? Politicians owe their allegiance to party first and country second because without the party they won’t get another term or a cushy job after they are voted out. If you think Trump will be different than this you are wrong. If he doesn’t play party ball with the Republicans he’ll quickly find no one in Congress pushing his bills through.
Privatization is also the biggest driving force behind partisanship. Both parties have realized in the past 20 years that anger drives people to more strongly associate with their party brand of choice. The more they can show that “the other side” is, not just wrong, but morally repugnant the more deeply they get people to believe in them as the savior. Why do you think that nuance has entirely abandoned all campaigns? Nuance is the biggest clue as to whether someone can really effectively govern but it is also the least likely to inspire strong emotion.
So now we have essentially the 2016 Pepsi vs. Coke presidential election. Coke has been around the longest, is considered the traditional candidate that deserves to win. Pepsi is cool and bucks the hip trends while offering an answer to those that don’t want to be like everyone else. Sure Dr. Pepper is running as well and there are people that really like him but he’ll never get enough votes to really win which is sad because he might be the best of the bunch.
It’s business vs. business but everyone in the US and beyond is treating it like it is something more than that. Treating this as if either party isn’t a private business is misleading.