As U.S. Elections Near, Charles Pierce Notes: "Every twist and turn in every campaign is wrought by the money power"

Sun parakeet in cage, photo uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by High Contrast

As Perry Bacon Jr. notes, the reason U.S. elections are so close is that the nation is so polarized, with ideological camps that are more or less equally balanced, at least when it comes to those who actually vote.

A surprising number of Americans are moved by rhetoric about a man named Donald Trump as the second coming of Christ, the savior of a mythic America imagined as "Christian" (and definitely white-dominated). This instrumental adaptation of "religion" to political life places the U.S. on the political-cultural level of nations in the southern hemisphere and eastern Europe. It is simply absent from the political-cultural life of western Europe or Canada.

Why are we Americans this way? Charles Pierce puts his finger on a big part of the answer: "Every twist and turn in every campaign is wrought by the money power."

What is Elon Musk about, ultimately, if he's not about the attempt of big money to place further strangleholds on the free flow of information, real information, actual information, to benefit itself?

Through it all, Steven Beschloss maintains hope.

As for me, the feathered thing in the cage trying to sing feels the restrictions of the cage bars a bit too much to sing freely now — and dreads what's coming.

Too many of us do not want to learn — even when so much hangs in the balance, for the entire world, as Americans refuse to learn.