A The idea of a president as a champion of society is a self-perpetuating myth that keeps us trapped in this oppressive political system.
Americans are acutely aware of how ‘shady’ our politicians are, yet we continually throw our support behind whichever candidates the rusty White House machine sputters out at us.
- Donald Trump has an entire wiki page dedicated to lies he told during his presidency.
- Joe Biden is cast as our meek, level-headed savior, yet he has already increased our grossly bloated military budget and retracted all or most of his campaign promises.
- During his presidency, Obama authorized thousands of drone strikes in foreign lands, many of which killed civilians…. even children. He assured us that such technology was safe for use.
- George W. Bush’s presidential campaign was largely funded by Enron — the same company that dissolved as a result of one of the biggest corporate finance scandals in history.
- Ronald Reagan flat out said that if an individual doesn’t want to sell property to black people, they ‘reserve the right to do so’.
My goal here is not to merely list random transgressions by our past and current leaders, but to illuminate us to what is, and always has been, going on. Our presidents are flawed people participating in an extremely flawed system.
This country wasn’t founded to be a racial, sexual, technological utopia. America as we know it today was violently carved out through land dispossession, fervent religious conditioning, centuries of oppressive racial politics, and the extensive use of slave labor. And our society will always reflect that awful history until we collectively reconcile with it.
Historically, an overwhelming majority of elections in America have been the result of backlash. People saw Joe Biden’s inauguration as the ‘end of a hateful era’- but why? Trump supporters and racists did not all vanish from the country. In fact, they are all still around us, feeling more enraged than ever and ready to enact political retribution on us again when the time is right. Joe Biden cannot change society, and no president ever has, for that matter. He was voted in as a matter of revenge, just like any other. And given the track record of past presidents, why should we assume this one to be different as his term progresses? America is a stubborn and petulant child that refuses to learn any lessons. Our government constantly seems weak and ineffective because it has never worked for us to begin with. Yet we refuse to accept the truth. Like whiny adolescents who can’t accept a divorce, Americans will not part ways with their idealized version of this country and its leaders.
In this rigged political system, one side has to suffer through 4 or 8 years of what they see as unacceptable, and as retaliation, they channel enough rage among their electorate to turn the table at the next election. And the cycle repeats. During the presidency (this goes for any president), a president will typically choose a few core values or culture war topics for us to fight over, and the U.S. media landscape will nod in agreement and churn out content to feed our ravenous desire for disagreement. The system is designed to be this way.
Just 6 companies control a disgustingly huge majority of the media we consume, and each of those companies is rife with political affiliations, loads of money, and their own agendas. The president’s relationship with the media is almost intrinsic — the two could hardly survive without one another. Which is why it benefits both entities to have us constantly arguing and propping up a barely-functioning political system.
The relationship that Americans have with their politicians, specifically the president, is toxic. Presidents are actors- they are the personified will of the political machine. Each side, the Right and the Left, are camps. These camps train these actors day-in and day-out, and they mold them to fit the ideological tides of the time. Then, those actors are neatly packaged up, tied with a bow, and presented to us as presidential candidates. Now perfect and polished, these actors assure us that they totally understand us, our plights, and our lives. This ‘act’ that presidents put on is a surface-level façade that serves to do nothing more than keep the public occupied while the true political cogs of power continue to run in the background, unabated.
I did not participate in the previous presidential election. And I cannot see myself participating in any future ones unless our core values as Americans shift in a major way. I don’t feel the need to ‘stick it’ to any particular group of people with my vote. Both parties have proven themselves fundamentally rotten. Unfortunately, the type of change we need begins at home. And it’s painfully slow. It’s slow, and everything around us is designed to stop us from questioning it to begin with. Real change begins with consistently challenging the power structures that command, coddle, and reprimand us.
Question why you’re told to proceed on a life path that society and the economy doesn’t support. Question why almost 400 million people have to be separated into just two political categories. Question why the cost of housing has risen at an unprecedented rate despite wages remaining stagnant. Question why some neighborhoods are more segregated than they were 50 years ago. Question why our pledge of ‘allegiance’ has the word ‘God’ in it and why we’re all forced to recite it as children. (side note: No one else thinks it’s weird that we cram a bunch of young children from different religious backgrounds into the same room and tell them to swear their undying loyalty to a piece of fabric? .. under the name of a supreme figure? Every morning? Or risk being punished? Just me? Oh, okay.)
Think about who benefits from holding these structures rigidly in place. American culture is fucking weird and oppressive, and we need to treat it as such. This nation has been putting on a show for centuries now, but the act is becoming tired. We have seen the routine time and time again. Participating in this flawed system is not a viable solution for societal change. Laws cannot change peoples’ feelings, they can only change how people express them. We are looking to the wrong places for the change that our society so desperately needs. As Americans, we should make it our mission to start thinking outside of the boxes we were all forced into. When you look around at the state of things, the heartwarming origin story we’re told about this country falls apart in an instant.
Below are just some examples of social issues that I’m personally familiar with from research (links provided):
- Black American women are being murdered at a staggering rate (every 10 hours), usually by their partners.
- Terribly impoverished white populations continue to vote conservatively and elect political officials that harm their communities.
- Human trafficking is an epidemic, and the United States remains one of the top hubs for trafficked individuals to be sold into slavery.
- Children who are seeking asylum -fleeing destitute conditions in war-stricken countries- are routinely denied entry into the U.S. and are sometimes even kept in cages rather than housed.
- Wealth inequality continues to grow, schools are more racially segregated than they were in the past, and bullying, single motherhood and homelessness are rampant.
- Children of single mothers and those who experience homelessness are much more likely to experience trauma in their lives, which contributes to this nation’s growing mental health crisis (which is centered in deep red states such as Florida).
In America, serious social issues are merely a stone’s throw away. They’re everywhere — and they’re the result of an evil culture that demonizes accountability and critical thinking and praises idealized versions of reality. I do not know when we began to look towards political leaders, especially presidents, as champions of justice, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The expectation that a singular force can ‘heal’ anything is nothing more than wishful thinking. The issues that plague America are too numerous and too virulent for one person to possibly fight alone. We’ve got to look within ourselves — not to a President.
Presidents come from the same society that we do. They are not mythical figures. If our politicians our consistently rotten, our society must be too. Presidents work for parties, not people.
