“I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn’t do my job.” George W. Bush (Cited in Brubaker, 2004)
The history of the American Revolution is often told as a struggle over ideals: the divine right of kings vs. the will of the people (Wood, 2002). American colonists began their political journey by requesting status equal to that of British commoners, i.e., no taxation without representation, but King George III refused (Gaines, 2001). Ultimately, American colonists repudiated the notion of aristocratic rule: “We hold these truths to be self evident. All men are created equal, and all men have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (Declaration of Independence, 1776).
While the Revolution stands out as a dazzling moment of political ascendancy (i.e., American rebels symbolically lopping off the king’s head), the political journey from an elite-centered aristocracy to a democratic plurality has been more tortuous. Indeed, some have argued that no such transformation ever took place; despite the rebels’ rhetoric, democracy in America has been more illusion than reality (Chomsky, 1996; Mills, 1956).
Maintaining an illusion of democracy in an elite-dominated society is a daunting undertaking. Lacking the intellect and subtlety of most politicians, George W. Bush has assumed the project of elite governance with naïve audacity, e.g., democratic leaders are supposed to serve the will of the people, whereas leaders who claim the privilege of being god’s mouthpiece (Brubaker, 2004) tend to ignore commoners in their pursuit of “divine” ambitions. Indeed, George W. Bush promotes elite interests so brazenly that, I argue, his presence in the White House heralds a new era in US politics: The Return of the King.
As the story goes, European immigrants colonized the New World in order to escape Old World persecution (Gaustad and Schmidt, 2002). Life was tough in the New World, there was deprivation, danger, illness and insecurity. However, colonists stuck out the difficulties in eager pursuit of the New World’s boundless prospects (Phillips, 2002).
Despite ideological differences, colonists remained content with European-based aristocratic rule for some time. It was not until colonists grew wealthy and privileged that they grumbled for change. One of the more irksome features of colonial subjugation was the colonists’ degraded political status. British commoners occupied a distant and lowly rank compared to the snooty aristocracy. However, even Britain’s second-class commoners had recourse to Parliament. Despite vigorous protest, King George III denied American colonists that cherished privilege (Gaines, 2001). In the absence of Parliamentary representation, King George III could gouge Americans mercilessly. While outraged howls decrying taxation without representation faded on the ocean winds, his majesty laughed all the way to the bank.
When it became evident that King George III would not stoop to elevate their status, the colonists hatched a novel political ploy: they made an ideological end run by proclaiming that the king merited a demotion (Lloyd, 2002). Since it is an empirical fact that all humans are biologically similar, the colonists rebutted the king’s claim to divine fabrication by asserting the equality of all humankind, i.e., “all men are created equal.” In the New World, men could claim birthright to nothing save equality.
By demoting the king, the colonists scorned the notion that aristocrats were somehow embodied of finer stuff than commoners (Lloyd, 2002). Indeed, democracy promised to invert the old aristocratic power pyramid: “the people” would retain the most honored social position, whereas political leaders would descend to the more manageable rank of public servants. No king could countenance such license. However, being preoccupied with the French, King George III could spare only a token military force to quell the rebellion (Fortescue and Shy, 2001). After a long and weary battle, the colonists managed to secure independence from England and set course for a new political horizon.
The egalitarian principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence served admirably as a motivating force in the war for independence. However, the process of transforming those revolutionary ideals into a workable polity created a fresh set of difficulties. Indeed, the first attempt at nationhood under the Articles of Confederation (1781) failed after only a few short years. Ultimately, the Constitution (1789) laid the groundwork for a lasting union. However, these more enduring guidelines sacrificed a number of core democratic principles (Fehrenbacher and McAfee, 2001).
One need look no further than Article 1, Section Two of the Constitution to discover a deeply troubling irony. While the Declaration of Independence augured a principled pursuit of democratic ideals, the Constitution incorporated unambiguous limits on human rights.
Article. I. Section. 2. Clause 3: Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. (Constitution of the United States, 1789)
In the calculation of valid constituencies, the numbers of people who would “count” were clearly restricted. Non-free persons would, at best, qualify for fractional representation, three fifths. In truth, under this clause African slaves could hope for no real representation. Instead, the genuine purpose of counting slaves was to augment the number of representatives working on behalf of slaveholders, not slaves (McPherson, 1995). Clearly, such official fractionation attests to a profound departure from America’s “universal” democratic principles. In the fledgling United States, some would be more equal than others (Orwell, 1946).
Additionally, in Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3, Native Peoples are not numbered among those who “count” because they are excluded as taxpayers. This, I believe, crystallizes the similarities between Natives and the formerly disenfranchised colonists better than any other passage in the Constitution . The colonists revolted against King George III because he had expropriated their property while denying access to official channels of representation (i.e., Parliament). Yet, in spite of American outrage over the king’s injustices, the United States absconded with the property of Native Peoples without granting Natives formal access to the political system. Thus, the injustices imposed on colonists in the name of aristocracy were, in turn, visited on American Natives, but in the second instance, in the name of democracy (Churchill, 1997).
In a polity propounding the notion that “all men are created equal” such duplicity is difficult to fathom. However, the key to solving this mystery lies in reading the above phrase with emphasis on the second term rather than the first, i.e., “all MEN are created equal.” Quite simply, political reality in the United States has always been based on a qualified interpretation of democratic ideals. Democratic rights for some have implied marginality and misery for many others (Baraka, 2002; Churchill, 1997; Diamond, 1997; hooks, 1994).
In a context wherein democratic principles are interpreted to mean that all MEN are equal, one can also impute the corollary that all “non-men” are presumed inferior. In one sense, such twin assumptions are sensible and necessary. For example, democratic principles in the United States apply to the Homo sapiens residing within its geographical confines, while other species are largely exempt: except in rare cases (Abbot, 2002), atrocities against non-human species, such as bugs, plants or bacteria, do not result in criminal prosecution. Human political systems are intended to privilege human beings, while discriminating against non-humans. Of course, the process of distinguishing humans from non-humans can sometimes be grossly distorted (Gould, 1996).
Just as non-humans are often considered less praiseworthy than humans, rationales have been concocted to assert that various human groups merit differing degrees of regard (Herrnstein and Murray, 1994). Despite the illogic and injustice of prejudice, many inhabitants of the United States have been labeled sub-human and, as a result, have experienced horrific abuse (Baraka, 2002; Churchill, 1997; Diamond, 1997).
Thus, the Constitution denigrated and marginalized enormous numbers of people because, as inferiors, they were not worthy of membership in a democratic society. After all, democracy was for men. It certainly wasn’t for women, who were treated as little more than pieces of property until the passage of the 19 th Amendment in 1920. Nor was democracy intended for “merciless Indian Savages” (Declaration of Independence, 1776) who, being deemed sub-human adversaries of American democracy, were fit for nothing other than extermination . Finally, the authors of the Constitution went so far as to quantify the official abasement of Africans (e.g., “three fifths”).
The benefits of sanctioning limited membership in the democracy were enormous. By embracing the time-honored elision of women, males eliminated half the competition for valuable opportunities. Also, US member-citizens harnessed Africans to the backbreaking task of harvesting profit from land (ironically) confiscated under the auspices of democratizing the New World (Zinn, 1999).
Profitable as these policies were, such forthright dehumanization should have been anathema in the US. That is, the ideology of divine right had been sustained on the logic of rank-based merit. In their prolonged struggle with King George III, the colonists demonstrated highly attuned sensitivities to the vile injustices of prejudice and property theft (Lloyd, 2002). Yet, although Americans had waged war to repudiate the pretensions of European aristocracy, they remained content to exploit their own categorical social privileges. While idealists might struggle with such barefaced hypocrisy, political realists would not quibble. Indeed, some arguments suggest that, despite the rhetoric, the American Revolution was neither a battle among idealists, nor for ideals (Chomsky, 1996; Churchill, 1997; Mills, 1956). As is the case with most wars, the American Revolution was a winner-take-all power contest (Philips, 2002).
One of the more cynical interpretations of the American Revolution is that of an aspiring middle class capriciously employing the rhetoric of democracy for the purposes of class ascendancy (McGuire, 2003). That is, a very specific group of people (i.e., propertied, educated, Christian, heterosexual, European men) orchestrated the American Revolution to get the British aristocracy off their backs. With the aristocracy out of the way, democracy prevailed, but only for the distinguished minority who qualified as full-fledged citizens, i.e., those who stood ready to ascend into the social class vacuum created by the enforced departure of European Aristocrats.
As one might expect, the leaders of post-colonial America devised the polity to serve the interests of its “members.” However, because membership in the new democracy was severely restricted, a relatively small clique accrued substantial benefits at the expense of the vast majority—and, in spite of centuries of social change, legacies of those foundational inequalities endure to this day (Armas, 2003; Baraka, 2002; Barrett, 1999; Chomsky, 1996; Churchill, 1997; Diamond, 1997; hooks, 1994).
Notwithstanding the official exclusion of the majority population, elite member-citizens could claim that by protecting the integrity of the Constitution they were “fighting for democracy.” Certainly, for those who have been denied member-citizen status, such claims are transparent fibs. However, for beneficiaries, the phrase “fighting for democracy” incorporates an invaluable double entendre, i.e., fighting for the interests of a political system that is labeled “democratic,” but, crucially, a political system in which universal democratic ideals take a back seat to the preservation of members’ interests. Thus, as long as its member-citizens’ interests are served in the “fight for democracy,” the US can cloak the most destructive social policies (e.g., slavery, genocidal extermination of Native Americans, marginalization of women, super-exploitation of international migrant laborers, slaughtering Iraq’s innocent inhabitants for the purposes of installing a US-friendly regime [Krugman, 2003] , etc.) with a mantle of democratic virtue (Bush, 2003). While the rhetoric of fighting for democracy permits the US to claim the moral high ground in the underhanded realm of real politick (Machiavelli, 1996), it also serves to legitimize US ascendancy as the world’s only superpower (McGettigan, 2001).
In aristocratic regimes, monarchs personify the apex of power and prestige. While this may do wonders for the ego, such preeminent visibility can also produce grave public relations problems. Revered as monarchs may be, they represent unequivocal reminders of where the buck stops. As a result of their stature, in good times monarchs reap all the glory, however during dark days they embody a focus for dissent. Heightened visibility has lead to violent regime change for more than one luckless monarch (Hibbert, 1981). Indeed, it was just such discontent that led to the termination of King George III’s dominion in America.
While the publicly stated goal of regime change in the US was to implement a government of, by, and for the people, the USA’s restricted version of democracy reconsolidated power among a privileged minority. Nonetheless, having constituted itself on a refutation of aristocratic self-interest, any official recognition of biased, limited, or elite (Domhoff, 2002) political control could well create the pretext for another popular uprising.
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government (Declaration of Independence, 1776)
Thus, the trick to consolidating enormous power within a political system esteeming democratic principles is to maintain a low profile. In the US, class distinctions are often characterized as either non-existent or irrelevant ( Kingston, 2000) largely because the upper class strategically eschews visible markers of distinction, i.e., titles, crowns, and other aristocratic pomp, (Domhoff, 2002).
Consequently, it becomes the task of politicians—and a compliant media (Bagdikian, 1992)—to cultivate an illusion of populist democracy while bowing to the will of the “grand bazaar” (Greider, 1992). Politicians tend to stretch credulity so often that they are commonly viewed as professional fibbers. Indeed, even in situations wherein voters repudiate politicians for breaking memorable campaign promises—such as the antipathy inspired by George H. W. Bush’s broken “read my lips” pledge (Ostrander, 2000)—they are rewarded with the ascendancy of upstarts equally keen to breach their promises.
While democratic rhetoric capably shrouds the elite US power structure, it has occasionally been commandeered to pursue populist goals. Against very long odds, more than one group of activists has utilized democratic principles to defy American inequality (Barrett, 1999; Branch, 1989). The fact that these struggles have been so arduous indicates that democracy can never be taken for granted: anti-elitist social movements are the exception rather than the rule. Indeed, the rule tends to be the consolidation of power among a privileged elite—and nowhere has this been better illustrated than during the unfortunate reign of King George XLIII.
Bill Clinton took advantage of public antipathy to NAFTA in the 1992 presidential campaign by blasting George H. W. Bush for his sponsorship of the trade pact. However, shortly after his election, Clinton waged a ferocious 11 th hour battle to secure passage of the yet unpopular NAFTA deal .
In 2001, subsequent to George W. Bush’s occupation of the White House, major media sources conducted a statewide recount of the Florida presidential vote and, irrespective of headlines indicating the contrary, reported that Al Gore had garnered a greater number of Florida’s votes (Keating and Balz, 2001). Having lost the popular vote and the Electoral College, an ethical politician might have conceded the election. Not so with George W. Bush. As in times past, the dimwitted sons of aristocrats ascend to power not through their own mettle, nor at the will of the majority, but as a regrettable consequence of patrilineal inheritance. Being the son of an American aristocrat, George W. Bush flouted standard democratic electoral procedures and bulldozed his way into office. Subsequently, George W. Bush has done everything in his power to bring about the bankruptcy of democracy.
To begin with, George W. Bush’s tax cuts have brought about the quickest reversal of fortune in US history (Ivins and Dubose, 2003). Whereas, the Clinton administration succeeded in paying down the national debt for the first time in decades (CNN, 1999), immediately after assuming office, George W. Bush adopted policies that, practically over night, decimated the prosperity of the 1990s—essentially treating the US treasury as if it were a piggy bank to be smashed open for his rich friends (Phillips, 2002).
In addition to orchestrating the fiscal bankruptcy of democracy, George W. Bush has also taken steps to undermine fundamental political freedoms. Capitalizing on fear propagated by heightened terrorist threats, George W. Bush spearheaded passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, a voluminous piece of legislation that conferred enormous power on the United States government at the expense of citizens’ civil liberties ( Glasner, 2003). The fact that the George W. Bush had ample evidence of pre-9/11 terrorist activities and, thus, should have prevented the disaster (Griffin, 2004), did not weigh negatively in the public’s perception of their new lord and master. Indeed, George W. Bush capitalized on his 9/11 popularity to spearhead a new twist in the war on terrorism that, true to form, only further undermined global peace and security (Clarke, 2004).
Shortly after embarking on a bombing campaign in Afghanistan, the Bush Administration began preparing for a second war in Iraq. While great antagonism existed between the US and Iraq, there were no obvious linkages between the 9/11 attacks and Saddam Hussein—what’s more, new evidence indicates that all apparent linkages were fabrications of the Bush Administration (Froomkin, 2005). Nevertheless, George W. Bush trumpeted a call to arms against Iraq by insisting that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (Woodward, 2004).
To the displeasure of many, both at home and abroad, George W. Bush proceeded with his plan to clear up an unresolved piece of family business, and topple Saddam Hussein. Although the Bush Administration has never been able to locate weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (Rampton and Stauber, 2003), powerful interests close to the White House have benefited handsomely from their newfound access to Iraq’s riches (Beelman, 2003). Time and again, George W. Bush has manipulated the will of the majority in order to serve his own interests and those of his fellow aristocrats (Vidal, 2003). After all, what use is government, if not to succor the fancies of its upper class?
In the 2000 presidential election, George W. Bush obtained only 47.87% of the popular vote, or a grand total of 50, 456, 002 votes (Federal Election Commission, 2001). The leading vote-getter, Al Gore, finished only slightly better, netting 48.38%, or 50,999, 897 votes. Despite acquiring fewer votes, George W. Bush managed to finagle victory in the Electoral College. Subsequent to George W. Bush’s occupation of the White House, major media sources conducted a statewide recount of the Florida presidential vote and, irrespective of headlines indicating the contrary, reported that Al Gore had garnered a greater number of Florida’s votes (Keating and Balz, 2001). Thus, according to the standard rules of democratic politics, Al Gore should have received Florida’s electoral votes and been elected president.
Indeed, Paul O’Neill reports that the Bush Administration had plans to conjure a pretext for war against Iraq as early as January, 2001 (Suskind, 2004).
Richard Clarke (2004) reports that prosecuting the war in Iraq actually dealt a setback to the war on terrorism: 1. By focusing on an entity that had nothing to do with 9/11, the US permitted anti-American agents and organizations breathing space to retrench; 2. By toppling a government that may have been unfriendly to the US, but that had no demonstrable connection to 9/11, the US has inspired increased levels of antipathy among both our allies and enemies.
American colonists fought the Revolution to give old King George III the boot. At the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, a clandestine group developed a scheme to extend a kingship to George Washington (Sidis, 1982). Fortunately, Washington recognized the monumental irony in such an arrangement and rebuffed the offer. While Washington may have been willing to lead the American political system, he refused to do so as King George IV.
Democracy in the US was born of a desire to throw off the onerous constraints of European aristocracy. While, to Washington’s credit, he was unwilling to become the first homegrown American King, he and the other founders of US democracy laid the frameworks for political domination by an ascendant merchant class (Domhoff, 2002). As is well illustrated throughout American history, elite attacks on democracy tend to be both routine and audacious (Baraka, 2002; Chomsky, 1996). None more so than King George XLIII’s usurpation of a “mandate” from a minority of voters, and then using every tool at his disposal to further bankrupt democracy (Pickler, 2004) .
King George XLIII’s unfortunate reign implies that, whenever Americans relax their vigilance, the machinery of democracy tends to be ruthlessly commandeered by aristocrats. Fortunately, in spite of all democracy’s shortcomings, people retain the capacity to determine and fight for their own truths (McGettigan, 1999, 2002)—lovers of democracy despair not!
Once upon a time, democratic ideals supplied the essential impetus to liberate America from King George III’s odious clutches. Though often abused, those selfsame ideals could be employed to the same effect—and perhaps for better reason—on King George XLIII. Democratic freedoms that have been dearly won are often discounted with astonishing cynicism (Lane, 2003). That is precisely why Jefferson asserted that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty . Democracy exists in name only, now more than ever, in the absence of revolutionary campaigns to liberate the truth from ignorant, self-interested aristocrats.
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