Politics

The God and Jerusalem fiasco at the DNC exposed the myth of US democracy.

"The elaborate farce surrounding the platform “debate” underscores the great distance between political actors and those in the audience, the voters, who are increasingly just observers of a process — a narrative — over which they have no control. The narrative is being written for them, as it appears on the teleprompter, and hacks like Villaraigosa just have to mouth the required phrases, all the while exercising their vaunted “prerogatives” to the hilt.
If every country gets the ruling class it deserves, as a roughly accurate reflection of the national ethos, then we are saddled with one that rivals the Bourbons in their arrogance, the Stalinists in their instincts, and the late Roman aristocracy in their decadence and hubris. That Villaraigosa moment was a close up snapshot of American “democracy,” which clearly showed the brazen effrontery of our rulers in action."

Nicely said.

Even the New York Times recognizes that Obama is using the power of the presidency to buy votes.