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Whoever we elect president, the illusion of democracy is just that: an illusion.
We are getting what we deserve for having the attention spans of gnats and being unwilling to learn even the basics of history or follow current events beyond the TV headlines. Half of us won't even bother to vote and the choices made by most of the rest will be based on long-term prejudice or TV headlines. Elections are bought, not fought and I doubt we shall ever again be offered a serious candidate who hasn't been bought and paid for long before most of us ever heard his name.
What real difference does it make? The promises are simply distractions: we won't have better education, nor better health care. Urban decay will spread further. Jobs will continue to go abroad. No-one is going to do a damn thing about pollution. And so on ad nauseam.
The other thing that will not change is that the same tiny handful of people will have their snouts firmly in the national trough while the rest of us kid ourselves that being allowed to pick up their crumbs is a fulfillment of the American Dream. We will go on buying into any old crap, rather than face the reality that the only difference between 90% of the people in this country is how well or poorly padded are the treadmills they spend their lives on.
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