The idea of operating within the law has been the hallmark of civilized societies for some time and has certainly been the hallmark of what modern democracy has come to mean. The idea is to build societies based on laws and not the personal whims of leaders. We have always been told to look down on societies based on the cult of personality as less civilized.
In modern-day America, we find ourselves confronted with a dual conundrum. One presidential candidate who thumbs his nose at all social mores and domestic laws and another who flaunts international law (and some would say, domestic laws) in what appears to be a single-minded mission to support an ally, Israel, regardless of international law or humanitarian consequences.
Law
It is hard to comprehend a definition of law that has morphed into something that can be applied only to those who are out of favor with those in power, or those who have limited power, or those with no power at all, while those in powers see themselves as above those laws, as exceptional. If that is the case, then we ordinary people who clearly have either limited power or no power of any consequence are the only ones who must remain law-abiding while those in power continue to make the rules and laws to favor themselves while using law to provide a way of justifying their control of everyone else.
And what is that power? In our modern world power often ultimately translates into wealth, although social, political or military status often enters into the equation.
In the face of such power, the pretense of a modern civilization based on any real concern for human rights or even democracy is exposed. In the US such abuses of power make it abundantly clear that the supposed power and responsibility of citizenship is only an illusion.
And just as Donald Trump has pretty much ignored the law for much of his life, including his presidency, with very little accountability or consequence, in fact, perhaps reshaping the laws to his desires, we now find Joe Biden currently operating in a similar fashion in regard to international law, in his support and protection of Benjamin Netanyahu and what Netanyahu is doing to an entrapped Palestinian population in Gaza.
Political Risks
At risk is the future of this nation as a democracy. For any system of governance to work effectively, it must have the willing support of the dominant economic system. If the economic system begins to take priority, the system of governance becomes a device to support that economic system, and the governance becomes subservient as a tool to be used by the economic system. In the US, democracy is the system of governance, to be supported by the economic system, currently, capitalism. In such a system, capitalism must be secondary to a robust democracy. But in reality, capitalism, in this nation, has taken precedence over democracy over the last several decades to the point that now the politics of our so-called democracy is dominated by money and has been corrupted by that money, with true democracy struggling to survive. The best example of this is the current extreme income inequality.
I might add that of the three modern economic systems, communism, socialism and capitalism, all but capitalism are premised on democracy as a form of governance. I might also add that any system can devolve into a dictatorship if not carefully protected and preserved.
In current times, we as a nation, have taken this skewed definition of democracy into the world. We have conflated democracy and capitalism as though they are synonymous, so that when we say it is our desire to spread democracy in the world, we are really supporting the spread of free market capitalism, which supports the economically powerful of the world and holds little promise for the ordinary people.
The 2024 Presidential Election
Joe Biden is willingly risking losing the 2024 presidential election in service to Benjamin Netanyahu. The strange consequence of such a loss is that the winner would be Donald Trump, the preferred US president for Netanyahu. That is the Donald Trump who has clearly stated that he would dismantle much of the structure of what remains of US democracy should he win the election.
This is an echo of the 2016 presidential election in which Hillary Clinton and the Democrats bet the farm on stopping the popular candidacy of Bernie Sanders who might have begun to put some controls on the primacy of free market capitalism, to make it more supportive of the goals of a democracy again. With this shift the election became a choice between two candidates, both of whom support the dominant structure of governance by free-market capitalism. The Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton chose the flag of the corporate democrats and in the process lost, not only the support of many former democrats, but also the presidency to Donald Trump. Furthermore, that fateful choice meant that she did not even have any coattails, losing the entire nation to what had been a nearly defunct Republican Party.
Thus, the slide toward running the nation as a corporation began with Trump as the CEO and profit and power being the goal, free market capitalism on steroids.
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