By Brad Pector
If 2016, the year of Corrupt Warmonger vs. Hate-Fueled TV Bigot, has taught us anything, it should be that U.S. politics is in shambles — left and right. At a time when our country is filled with systemic hate and perpetual hurt, we need to be able to see clearly. We need to be able to separate our Democratic and Republican candidates into singular issues, ridding ourselves of the never-ending blame game that is the two-party system.
It can be hard to hear over mass media’s aimless TV pundits, who are bent on creating inflammatory headlines and generating revenue for doing so. Thanks to corporate media, Donald Trump is all that anyone is still thinking or talking about. It took me a while to see how pointless an anti-Trump campaign is — the lack of focus amounts to no actual change. But the media narrative has taken hold. And right now, Trump is the only threat activist organizations such as NextGen Climate seem to be able to visualize.
Currently, NextGen (along with other organizations) is planning rallies against Trump around the country. But anyone can stick a middle finger to Trump; it’s easier than dealing with internal conflict. The real issues NextGen could organize around directly oppose its founder’s motives. Billionaire Tom Steyer has helped raise millions for Hillary Clinton, but she has been, and still is, a global proponent of fracking.
It’s ironic — the states in which the environment is getting torn apart the most have been left out of NextGen’s nationwide day of action. States such as Colorado have been hit hard by the oil and natural-gas industry.
It’s not easy to organize campaigns around fracking (especially when federal agents monitor anti-fracking movements [The Intercept]), but we have an obligation to highlight fracking’s horrific environmental ramifications, including where the revenue from fracking goes. Singular actions against Trump won’t help here.
And just like fracking, we need to focus on politicians with a nonpartisan microscope. While Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is being publicly bashed for his blocking of Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland and many of his other views, people forget how important some of his work has been.
Grassley, the same Grassley who is anti-abortion, wrote the “Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989,” which protected many FBI whistleblowers from legal ramifications (President Obama won’t even think about pardoning Edward Snowden).
Grassley also led a program to assess possible tax evasion of six different ministries, attempting to make sure public funds were being used wisely. For a conservative, Grassley is curiously skeptical about the U.S. establishment, and although his overall political stance warrants criticism, these specific accomplishments go without public notice or credit.
The business of the two-party system in the U.S. has obfuscated real problems with millions of dollars, ultimately used to attack each others’ candidates on surface-level issues instead of focusing on collaborative efforts. Many people in the U.S. realize there is something wrong with our established political system, and they have the right to be angry. But to be of any use, this anger must be focused constructively.
U.S. citizens have been lulled into a deep neoliberal/neoconservative sleep by our media’s profitable red herrings; it’s time we delve into our nation’s complicated to-do list with fewer TV personalities in our heads and some actual research in our hands.