Two Right Wings, No Flight— Never Forget: The Lesser Evil Is Still Evil

Are You Really Looking For Managed Decline in a Designer Suit?

Does this Chris Hedges quote make you sad? “The liberal class has become as complicit in the machinery of empire and corporate capitalism as the right-wing ideologues they once opposed.”

Sure, the Republican Party is a full-blown extremist death cult at this point— authoritarian, theocratic, racist, plutocratic and proudly at war with democracy itself. But if you're looking for salvation in the Democratic Party, you're looking in the wrong damn place.

OK, the Democrats are not banning books, torching civil rights or plotting a military dictatorship. But let’s not confuse “not fascist” with “good.” The Democrats are still the party of incrementalism in a time of crisis, of Wall Street donors and Silicon Valley overlords, of hollow gestures and always, always, always empty promises wrapped in focus-grouped buzzwords. (Pete Buttigieg is very popular among Democrats.) Oh... and how many of them support genocide in Palestine? Way, way too many are on the AIPAC or DMFI dole.

Guess which party I’m describing: They'll send out a fundraising email about protecting democracy, then confirm a dozen corporate-aligned judges. They'll talk about ending child poverty and then let the child tax credit expire. They'll tweet about climate action while greenlighting oil and gas projects. They'll warn about creeping theocracy while refusing to pack the court or rein in the Christian nationalists embedded throughout our judicial system. Yeah, you guessed  right. The Democrats won’t take us off the cliff at 90 miles an hour like the Republicans— but they’re still steering in that direction at a comfortable 45, maybe with NPR on in the background… if it still exists where you live.

How many times have Democrats had the trifecta— House, Senate, White House— and squandered it out of cowardice, corruption or sheer lack of imagination? From Clinton’s neoliberal triangulation to Obama’s fetish for bipartisanship to Biden’s zombie centrism, the pattern is clear to anyone who cares to look: The best the Democrats can offer is a slightly slower descent into oligarchy.

And don't even start with the “But what about the Supreme Court?” argument. Yes, Republicans are worse, and yes, they stole the Court. But it was Democrats who refused to fight back. Obama didn’t recess-appoint Merrick Garland. Biden wouldn’t expand the Court. Pelosi wouldn’t impeach Brett Kavanaugh. Schumer shrugs and mutters about norms. They treat Republican vandalism as weather instead of sabotage— and then ask for $27 to stop it.

It’s not just that Republicans are cartoonishly evil— it’s that Democrats keep proving they’re structurally incapable of rising to the moment. In a country sliding toward outright fascism, they are offering mild technocratic tweaks, cozy relationships with corporate donors and the soothing lie that everything will be okay if we just vote harder and contribute to the worst Members of Congress, from Jared Golden to Don Davis and Henry Cuellar in the House and to Elissa Slotkin, Ruben Gallego and Maggie Hassan in the Senate. And while you’re have your checkbook open, throw a few bucks to wretched gubernatorial candidates like Mikie Sherrill (NJ) and Abigail Spanberger (VA).

So yes, the GOP is a threat to civilization. But the Democrats? They're the reason the threat got this bad in the first place. As Noam Chomsky once pointed out, the illusion of choice is a powerful tool— keep the spectrum of debate narrow, but let the puppets yell at each other within it, and most people won’t notice they’re being fleeced. That’s exactly what our two-party system has become: a theater of distraction. Gore Vidal nailed it decades ago when he called it “the Property Party,” with two right wings— Republicans and Democrats both owned by the same corporate masters, both committed to maintaining the status quo of oligarchy and empire. Let’s not stop there. Howard Zinn reminded us, that “The really critical thing isn't who's sitting in the White House, but who is sitting in— in the streets, in the factories, in the classrooms, in the halls of government.” The real battleground isn’t between two flavors of neoliberal decay— it’s between the people and the institutions that serve the powerful. Change never trickles down from a ballot box— it erupts when ordinary people stop waiting for permission and start reclaiming their power.

So… if the illusion of choice looks more and more like a cage to you, how about a third party? Well, Quinnipiac was thinking the same thing, so they included some questions about it in their latest survey. 62% of voters disapprove of the way the congressional Republicans are handling their jobs— and 72% disapprove of the Dems. Polling analyst Tim Malloy wrote that “Roughly half of voters (49%) say they would consider joining a third party as an alternative to the Republican and Democratic parties, while 45% say they would not consider joining a third party. Close to 8 in 10 voters (77%) say they would not consider joining a third party if Elon Musk created it as an alternative to the Republican and Democratic parties, while 17% say they would consider joining it.”

Musk consulted deranged monarchist Curtis Yarvin about forming his third party