The first televised debate among the candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, held Tue
The first televised debate among the candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, held Tuesday night in Las Vegas, Nevada and broadcast by CNN, demonstrated the increasing nervousness of the American ruling elite over mounting social anger among working people.
All of the candidates adopted a pose of sympathy for the plight of working people, invariably referring to them as the “middle class” rather than the working class in order to blur as much as possible the actual class contradictions in American society.
In the division of labor within the capitalist two-party system, the Republicans use right-wing populist demagogy, appealing to religious bigotry, racism and anti-immigrant prejudice, as a screen for policies that express the unvarnished profit lust of the financial elite: elimination of social welfare programs, deregulation of business, tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.
The Democrats offer populist demagogy of a more “left” character, making a pretense of sympathy and concern over the economic plight of working people for the purpose of diverting mass anger into harmless channels. They serve Wall Street by defusing any threat from below. At the same time, the Democrats, no less than the Republicans, uphold the power of the military-intelligence apparatus and the worldwide interests of American imperialism.
Read more: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/10/14/deba-o14.html
Cross-posted in the General Discussion: Primaries forum.
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