A major study from the Princeton and Northwestern universities shows exactly how preferable the treatment given to the wealthy by US politicians has become. In what is supposed to be a democracy, the wishes of the majority actually don't matter at all. Only the wishes of the wealthy donating class actually influence how the US Congress votes.
Since both parties knows who it is that butters their bread, they've become quite good at keeping out candidates who are offensive to their big donors. After Republican anti-party establishment candidate, Barry Goldwater, and Democratic anti-party establishment candidate, George McGovern, won their party's nomination and then lost the election in '64 and '72 respectively, both parties changed their rules. This made it very hard for candidates they worried couldn't win general elections to ever win primaries again , even if this meant making their party nominations less democratic. The main determining factor of their electability was ability to gain the support of the status quo and to raise funds.
Arguing from this position that there is not a huge amount of difference between the agendas of the very wealthy and the politicians of either of the two parties, it becomes clear that the two parties aren't very different on any economic matters that the wealthy actually care about. This means more policies that benefit the rich and increase the inequality gap. Considering that in the US, the top 0.1% owns basically the same wealth as the bottom 90%, this is an issue. Inequality begets policies that increase in equality.
So back to the original topic. I would vote for Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump if Sanders doesn't get his nomination. If neither got nominated then I would vote for the Greens over Hillary Clinton or any of the other Republicans.
This is for the simple fact that there is not much difference on many of the most important economic questions between Clinton and most of the Republicans. Cruz is also a Republican outsider like Trump but is an authoritarian Evangelical who will drop out after the Bible Belt primaries so let's ignore him.
But how could I support both Trump or Sanders, you ask breathlessly? Because they are both outsiders and aren't required to kowtow to the wealthy party donors. Sanders' is bringing in millions with an average donation of $27 sent in from normal people. Trump, on the oth er hand, is funding himself and taking advantage of the free media publicity gained from saying outrageous stuff and being entertaining.
Of course they are different on many things like rhetoric, entitlements, scapegoating, military interventionism, etc. More interesting is where they are the same.
Obamacare wound up being a very profitable gift to the politically-powerful health-insurance industry since it forced everyone into the ranks of their customers and made the government and other people subsidize those who couldn't afford coverage. It was certainly not much benefit for the majority of people and would not have been the system the US would have wound up with if a labour party actually got its way.
Now, we all know Sanders is in favour of universal healthcare but more interesting is Trump's take on healthcare from his 2000 campaign:
"We must have universal health care I'm a conservative on most issues but a liberal on this one. The Canadian plan also helps Canadians live longer and healthier than Americans. There are fewer medical lawsuits, less loss of labor to sickness, and lower costs to companies paying for the medical care of their employees. If the program were in place in Massachusetts in 1999, it would have reduced administrative costs by $2.5 million. We need, as a nation, to reexamine the single-payer plan, as many individual states are doing."
-Trump
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