No matter which side of the political spectrum you fall, one thing is clear: politicians lie.
On November 14, 2020, supporters of Donald J. Trump assembled in Washington D.C. in what was pegged as the Million MAGA March to protest the election results. At 11:16 AM, Kayleigh McEnany, the White House Press Secretary tweeted that “more than one MILLION marchers” showed up — even though most news outlets, including Fox News, reported there were “tens of thousands.”
So, why do politicians and their employees lie with such reckless abandon? And who are they lying for? These are the questions that transcend political leanings.
Billionaires on both sides of the aisle may appear to be heavily invested in Trump or Biden. But the reality paints a very different picture. The ruling classes, whether Democrat or Republican, have shown us time and time again that they are only interested in maintaining the current economic and social system, which has allowed them to hoard vast amounts of wealth and land at the great expense of their fellow citizens.
In fact, since the beginning of the pandemic, while tens of millions of U.S. citizens have lost their jobs, a small group of billionaires have increased their wealth “by half a trillion dollars.”
They have increased their riches, while the people at large are being manipulated into hating each other instead of directing that hate where it belongs — to those at the top.
The only real threat to the ruling class in the United States is if the most exploited people in the country come together to claim hoarded resources and stolen land for themselves.
How is this threat neutralized?
Divide and Conquer
In the United States, separating the most oppressed people through lies, hate, and geography is nothing new. Those in power have always feared that the most oppressed people might unite and realize their collective power. So, politicians and news pundits, on both sides, focus viewers’ attention on polarizing issues like race, abortion, and socialism, playing on deeply entrenched beliefs rooted in war and religion.
As Bill Bigelow wrote for the Zinn Education Project: “The social elites of early America sought to manufacture racial divisions. Men of property and privilege were in the minority; they needed mechanisms to divide people who, in concert, might threaten the status quo.”
As we know, the key to indoctrinating hate is to start early. No child is born racist. These are learned behaviors, typically from a parental figure. And where do these parental figures learn to hate?
They learn it from their conditioning through ruling class propaganda; the media they consume, the lessons they are taught in school, and the fear mongering of politicians they are forced to endure.
In “Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights and Taxes on American Politics,” Thomas and Mary Edsall write that: “Just as race was used, between 1880 and 1964, by the planter-textile-banking elite of the South to rupture class solidarity at the bottom of the income ladder, and to maintain control of the region’s economic and political systems, race as a national issue over the past twenty-five years has broken the Democratic New Deal ‘bottom-up’ coalition — a coalition dependent on substantial support from all voters, white and black, at or below the median income.”
The ruling class does not really care who is in office as long as the people are divided. If the people are united, their power will be lost. And so they lie.
They lie about election results. They lie about race. They lie about socialism and they lie about money. The stock market does not care if Biden or Trump is in office as long as the lobbyists hired by the corporations continue to dictate policy.
Until the people being screwed over by the ruling class stop fighting each other and unite, the status quo will continue. When the people come to see that both Democrats and Republicans lie in service of the same master, however, and make the decision to no longer consent to those lies, their rule will come to an end.
(written by Mordecai Lyon)
Boycott Photography