Lend me an ear brothers and sisters. On this mid-summer Friday afternoon, I’m going to delve into the playbook of our political system and how both parties play us for suckers. I only got hip to this when I saw the impoverished masses on all sides who got gamed by the system and then got ignored as statistics—I woke up by way of hard kicks and privation. More and more are waking up to this duopoly and seeing that the two political parties are actually nothing more than factions working for the same corporate interest.
At the root of our politics resides a most brilliant form of subterfuge. The elites a long time ago figured out that the best way to oppress the masses was to give them a facade of freedom only to shackle them with the bondage of debt and consumption. Our Democracy has become nothing more than a Matrix; a false choice between two equally malignant political factions tricks us into thinking we are eating steak when we are really ingesting arsenic. It’s a slight of hand that makes us think that we are in charge; cyclical change in politics gives the perception of transition when in reality policies never change.
Now pay attention for I’m about to unpack the way these pernicious politicians partake in mass deception. The trick is for each side to cater only to their base and to consequently enrage the other side. By the by, do you know how insulting it is for people to be called “the base” of a party—as in the foundation and stepping stones of the elites. But I digress, let me get back to the point. The history books mention how Nixon pivoted hard right to court the once constituents of the Dixiecrats as the Democrats started to embrace minorities.
The liberal elites love to recount this development from a one dimensional perspective. I fell for the hoodwink as the Democrats convinced me that they made a courageous decision to be about inclusion and to stand up for the little people. Bullshit! They did not such thing; there was a tacit agreement between Republicans and Democrats where conservatives would cull the resentment of “whites” and liberals would harvest the grievance of minorities. Both of them fleece their respective base only to turn around and blame the “other side” for the ways their side is being pillaged.
The malicious brilliance of this duplicitous system is the way politicians use strategic silence and tactical indignation to sow dissension in the public and trick their loyalists into thinking that they care for them. Let me break it down. Remember when Obama was in the White House and a “black” guy would get killed by a cop. Obama would take to the microphone to pretend like he is enraged at the injustice of it all and would get on social media to vent his frustration as if he was a hapless observer. But when a “white woman” gets killed by a Mexican immigrant, Obama would go on radio silence and refuse to utter a word of condolence.
This would have the effect of enraging the Republican base and the people on the right. They saw his silence as a form of compliance and would then get driven into a tizzy. In some instances, the people on the right would get so enraged at Obama’s lack of empathy for “their side” that they would revert to hate-filled and incendiary language to insult “the first black president”. Obama’s silence worked! It enraged the “other side” to lash out using hateful rhetoric which would then beget a lash back from Obama’s base. This is why conservatives said that Obama was the most divisive president in the history of America; Obama was intentionally being divisive in ways that was so manipulative that it evaded detection. Obama was able to solidify his base and Republicans likewise solidified their base—both parties win as both bases get shafted.
If you love rhetoric about equality that never get implemented, democrat party is for you. If you love scriptural values that are negated by tax policies that only favor the wealthy, republican party is for you.
Stop listening to their bullshit, pay attention to their policies::
— Teodrose Fikre ✒ (@TeodroseFikre) July 14, 2018
Of course those who identified with Obama’s brand thought the claim that Obama was divisive to be outrageous. Obama was the victim of conservative racism they would say. Notice now how it’s the left saying that Trump is the most divisive president ever while the herd on the right dismiss this claim as ludicrous. As we debate who is more of an asshole, Obama, Trump, the Republican and Democrat establishment laugh their asses off as they mock us while playing golf and sipping their Chablis. Throughout Obama’s administration, both Democrats and Republicans turned to this trick of strategic silence and tactical indignation continually in order to gin up resentment and grievance to their respective side. What need is there for a police state to oppress people when you can just get people to oppress themselves by manipulating them emotionally as if they are Pavlov’s dog.
Guess what, Trump just used this same trick of strategic silence and tactical indignation on all of us just this week! Last weekend, as a bunch of neo-Nazis and bigots decided to turn UVA into Wilhelm Humboldt University, Trump said not a peep. When a madman mowed down our fellow Americans, again our carnival barker president held his tongue. But when there was a terror attack in Spain, because the attacker was Muslim and the attacked were “white”, the orange ogre immediately took to Twitter in order to feign indignation and outrage.
Trump’s silence on the horrors unleashed in Charlottesville was intended. It was his way of riling up the anger of the “left” the same way Obama’s silence when an immigrant killed Kathryn Steinle was meant to outrage the right. The whole thing is nothing but a coordinated campaign to continually have us distracted by rage. You see, as long as we are acting out of emotion, the powerful can pillage all of us with their cold-calculated logic. The crabs thus end up clawing at each other instead of clawing at the barrels that oppress all.
Don’t you see what they are doing to all of us? They are toying with our emotions as Democrats pretend to be outraged by Trump’s excesses after they were mum during eight years of Obama feeding us to the wolves on Wall Street and bombing Syria, Libya and Yemen back to the Stone Ages. Just observe the way both parties react to various tragedies from now on, for the most part each side will reserve outrage only when their base is harmed and will be indifferent when the “other side” gets injured—they are using human tragedy as a political football! Obama never cared about Trayvon Martin and Trump does not care an iota about the suffering masses in the Appalachians. Both sides are using the pains of people to advance their interests and to con the masses. Click To Tweet
It’s not only the president, Senators and Congressmen perpetrating this farce upon us. The entire political class from politicians, pundits, think-tanks, and opinion leaders are in on this fraudulence. You can spot the frauds immediately; if they keep presenting injustice through the lens of politics, ideology or identity instead of speaking for universal justice, that means they are either willful scoundrels who are intentionally treading on the suffering of people or gullible sheep who bleat and repeat the dogma they hear and think they are Imhotep reincarnated. All of them, except the “base” who gladly offer their backs to let others step on them, are in on this left/right shell game.
These politicians and politicos are cancerous; they don’t care about about us in the very least. They have perfected the art of acting indignant in order to make it seem like they are for us . There are no sides when it comes to these two parties, we are all being fleeced irrespective of the identities and ideologies we ascribe to. Until we loosen ourselves from the viruses these two parties are, we will continue getting the government we deserve.
Let me end it with this. Unless you are sitting at the policy table or you are getting paid by one of the political parties, you are neither a Democrat or a Republican—you are just a fan paying (voting) to get screwed. If you found yourself getting offended because I talked ill about either party (faction) or because I dared to speak against Obama or Trump, you need to really assess why you are idolizing the very people who are stepping on your neck. Neither party cares about us; both parties and the cottage industry of politics as a whole depend on injustice in order to cut their checks. Think about that the next time a politician on either side of the isle turns to the playbook of strategic silence and tactical indignation.
The poor labor by their hand and languish; the rich succeed by cunning and flourish. The hand grows weary, the cunning should be leery::
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Teodrose Fikre
Originally from Ethiopia with roots to Atse Tewodros II, Teodrose is a former community organizer whose writing was incorporated into Barack Obama's South Carolina primary victory speech in 2008. He pivoted away from politics and decided to stand for collective justice after experiencing the reality of the forgotten masses. His writing defies conventional wisdom and challenges readers to look outside the constraints of labels and ideologies that serve to splinter the people. Teodrose uses his pen to give a voice to the voiceless and to speak truth to power.
