In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the winner received approximately 25 million votes. The loser received approximately 28 million votes (the corrupt Electoral College. Go figure). According to numbers provided by the U.S. Census bureau, there were approximately 330 million people living in the U.S. at the time of that national election. If you deduct persons ineligible to participate in bourgeoisie elections (persons convicted of felonies, immigrants, persons not yet 18 years of age). The Census tells us there were approximately 100 million people who chose not to vote. These are people who are 18 or above who can “legally” vote, but made the decision to forfeit that act. To those people who believe 100% that voting in these bourgeoisie elections is the best vehicle we have to make change, it seems so incredibly difficult for them to believe this reality that they seldom even talk about it. Those people dismiss that 100 million as if they are an insignificant and completely ill responsible and selfish segment of the population. The only time these people talk about the 100 million with any degrees of acknowledgement to their influence is when making the point that by not participating, the 100 million are somehow to blame for all of the dysfunction operating within this society.
If you stop and think clearly about this for any period of time, the only logical conclusion can be that their analysis blaming nonvoters is about as absurd as suggesting that someone who decides to refrain from driving drunk with friends is just as guilty as the friends when they get in a driving accident. Despite the fact the friend who didn’t go tried to convince the others not to go, if you follow the logic of these bourgeoisie election predators, the one who didn’t go is to blame.
No where in this bourgeoisie society within mainstream analysis centers is this warped level of thinking ever mentioned. Just like its rarely actually mentioned that the overwhelming majority of so-called eligible people don’t vote in bourgeoisie elections. I say vote in bourgeoisie elections because the argument I’m presenting is that by not participating in these elections, that 100 million is actually casting a vote. If you listen, that 100 million is saying loud and clear that they refuse to go along with the charade. They refuse to pretend that casting a vote in a system that is rigged completely in favor of the super rich is a democratic process. And this covid 19 pandemic is providing us examples everywhere to demonstrate how correct the voiceless 100 million really are.
The president of this empire can go on national television everyday and tell clear and ill-refutable lies without flinching. He can tell you that the U.S. is testing “more than anybody” when simple arithmetic demonstrates that after having only tested 5 million people in the U.S., that means only 1.4% people here have been tested. Of all of the countries that have sustained significant covid 19 cases, the countries in Europe and the U.S. currently, the U.S. has by far the worst testing percentages. Meanwhile, the U.S. is so busy refusing to let socialist Cuba advance their Interferon Alfa 2B anti-viral drug that they are successfully treating people in over 50 countries worldwide, that no one is noticing that there is no reliable treatment drug even on the horizon here in the U.S.
Other countries with lessor resources, even technologically disadvantaged countries in Africa like Senegal, are testing better than the U.S. and those countries are providing income relief to their people. And, if they cannot provide income relief, they are ensuring that rent and other monthly expenses are being waived. While this is happening in other countries, in the richest country on earth, the U.S., 30 million people have lost their jobs due to the pandemic. Those jobs were lost because they were primarily in the service industries. The prototype jobs that pay very little with no benefits, etc. The jobs the leaders of this empire keep attempting, even with the present pandemic, to convince you were signs of such a strong economy. Most of those 30 million have not received a cent of income for over a month. Any economy that only needs one month of inactivity to bring it to its knees was never strong. Socialist Cuba has sustained 60 years of economic hardship imposed by the U.S. and their socialist economy is arguably on the best footing it has ever been on, including during the years when they received preferential trade treatment from the former Soviet Union.
Again, in this super rich country, the business infrastructure is crumbling after only one month of inactivity. Smaller business owners are angerly protesting their right to work despite clear and present health risks involved. Despite the backward and absurd political positions of many of these people, they cannot be solely blamed for their moronic behavior. If this was a government that truly and genuinely cared for the people who live here, those people, like the folks in those other countries, would be provided with compensation to offset their inability to work right now. They aren’t receiving any help and as a result, these people are scared and angry. They don’t understand that their blame should go against the capitalist system so instead they focus their anger on their traditional targets who have absolutely nothing to do with their current circumstances. In fact, the people these people have historically blamed for everything in this country, i.e. colonized people, African people, Indigenous people, etc., are in a much worse predicament. We are the people who work those low paying “essential” jobs of cleaning hospitals, offices, driving buses, carrying luggage, unloading ships, delivering packages, mail, etc. This is why we are contacting covid 19 at much higher rates than the petti bourgeoisie Europeans who are unable to operate their businesses.
The angry protesters should be directing their anger not at local level politicians within the capitalist system, but at the capitalist system itself. Their anti-communist conditioning prevents them from seeing with clear eyes what’s happening to them. J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Golden Sachs, and the usual assortment of companies that initiated from seed money from the transatlantic slave trade, are of course the primary receivers of those so-called “stimulus” monies. Those large corporations, as is always the case, received millions in free money while the best you could hope for was at most $1,200.00 that you will be taxed on as income next year (in other words, you get no free money). After the big corporations were bailed out, there wasn’t enough left for the small business owners. As a result of that scam, they find themselves being forced to decide between paying their mortgage and paying their shop rent. Thus, forcing them to believe their only course of action is to angerly resist any efforts suggesting they are risking continuing to spread the virus.
The overwhelming majority of these gun/U.S. flag waving “fight tyranny – open up now” people are folks who unconditionally support this empire president. They are those 25 million who voted for him. They have voice for their singular mission of listening and supporting everything he says and does despite unquestionable evidence that his incompetence and mismanagement are going to get a lot of them killed by this virus. The other 28 million who voted against him are offering absolutely nothing as a reasonable alternative. All they can offer up is a quieter version of an old bourgeoisie European rapist, racist, patriarch.
All of these reasons are why that 100 million quietly refuse to participate. They don’t have the collective voice of that 25 million tyranny fighting empire president supporting lot, or the 28 million neo-liberal supporting lot, but come November, that 100 million will again be heard loud and clear. They are again going to say no to all of it. And, when that absolutely happens, you other 28 million, please save us your tired old same response of blaming the 100 million because they don’t wish to be sheep like you. They aren’t the blame for this fiasco. You are, because you refuse to work for anything better than the sellout you have to offer yet again. Some people have just enough integrity that they do their best to live by James Brown’s refrain in the classic jam “Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud.” He sang “we’re people. We like the birds and the bees, but we’d rather die on our feet, then live on our knees!”
Anyone paying attention knows that capitalism isn’t working. I’m not arguing that the 100 million agree with that last statement yet. What I am saying is their unwillingness to cooperate with the bourgeoisie democracy sham called a national election is their first stop at coming to a point where they recognize that they need to keep going if they seriously desire something better for themselves and future generations.