The Two Big Business Political Parties

[* From the Popular Resistance newsletter]

The political revolt inside the Democratic Party by Senator Bernie Sanders has shown the contradictions between Democratic Party voters and the establishment leaders of the party plus their Wall Street funders. There are numerous examples, such as Sanders’ call for improved Medicare for all, a single payer system supported by 80% of Democratic voters that treats healthcare as a public good and human right, contrasted with Hillary Clinton’s call for an insurance-market based system that protects Wall Street investor-based healthcare. The fundamental platform of the Sanders campaign is to break up the big banks, create a fair economy and tax the wealthy and corporations in a much more progressive tax system. While Hillary Clinton is the ultimate Wall Street candidate who has been made personally wealthy by brief speeches to investors and big business interests, speeches she keeps secret; whose family foundation has received massive donations of more than $200 million in each of the last three years; and whose campaign is funded by the wealthiest Americans associated with Wall Street and big business, taking the establishment side with some rhetorical veils to hide her true positions.

In the other big business party, the Republican Party, the revolt against the establishment has been even stronger. Donald Trump will be the nominee of the party now that his final opponents have dropped out. He has run as a party outsider. His divisive populist rhetoric is effective because it resonates with the fears of the financially-insecure working class. The billionaire has criticized the party for giving people in the US a bad deal for too long. He’s taken a strong stand against the corporate trade agreements that have served transnational corporate interests but have not served workers or communities we The political revolt inside the Democratic Party by Senator Bernie Sanders has shown the contradictions between Democratic Party voters and the establishment leaders of the party with their Wall Street funders and big business supporters.

There are numerous examples, such as Sanders’ call for improved Medicare for all, a single payer system supported by 80% of Democratic voters that treats healthcare as a public good and human right, contrasted with Hillary Clinton’s call for an insurance-market based system that protects Wall Street investor-based healthcare.

The fundamental platform of the Sanders campaign is to break up the big banks, create a fair economy and tax the wealthy and corporations in a much more progressive tax system. While Hillary Clinton is the ultimate Wall Street candidate who has been made personally wealthy by brief speeches to investors and big business interests, speeches she keeps secret; whose family foundation has received massive donations of more than $200 million in each of the last three years; and whose campaign is funded by the wealthiest Americans associated with Wall Street and big business and taking the establishment side with some rhetorical veils to hide her true positions.

In the other big business party, the Republican Party, the revolt against the establishment has been even stronger. Donald Trump will be the nominee of the party now that his final opponents have dropped out. He has run as a party outsider. His divisive populist rhetoric is effective because it resonates with the fears of the financially-insecure working class. The billionaire has criticized the party for giving people in the US a bad deal for too long. He’s taken a strong stand against the corporate trade agreements that have served transnational corporate interests but have not served workers or communities well.

Opposition to these agreements has also been an issue Sanders has highlighted. This has forced Hillary Clinton, a former cheerleader for “free” trade to oppose the TPP, despite supporting it while Secretary of State. And with Trump as her General Election opponent, she must remain opposed. This week she told the Washington Post that she opposed the TPP “before and after the election.” If there’s one concrete positive result from the primary season — with high working-class voter turnouts for both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump — it’s been widespread popular revulsion against the cancer of global "free trade" agreements.

While the US is in the midst of the primaries of the two big business parties, it is important to remember how few people these parties represent and how few party members vote in those parties. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that 50 percent of Americans consider themselves independent and fewer than 30 percent align with either major party. Indeed, only 21 percent identified as Republicans and 29% as Democrats. An earlier 2015 Gallup poll similarly found “a record high number of Americans — 43 percent — consider themselves independents.” The rejection of the two parties has been growing quickly since 2008 as more people recognize they are out of step with traditional US politics. In the 2016 primaries, we are seeing the die-hards, a minority of US voters who feel the strongest attachment to the two parties, and even inside those parties there is a massive revolt.

In the end the primaries have produced the two most unpopular candidates in US history. As Five Thirty Eight reports: “No major party nominee before Clinton or Trump had a double-digit net negative ‘strong favorability’ rating. Clinton’s would be the lowest ever, except for Trump.” Trump is disliked by half of his party, the last two presidential nominees and the last two Republican presidents will not be attending the convention. Even though Clinton is winning the nomination, only half of Democrats support her. Among the plurality group of voters, independents, the evidence from the primaries indicates they support the outsiders, especially Bernie Sanders. Some describe the election process as rigged.

This election year is heightening the crisis in democracy, and highlighting the illegitimacy of a government that is out of step with its people.