The US and British political system both consist of people telling other people what they want to hear without actually implementing those ideas. For example, in recent years, Cameron has told us we are all in this together, yet we are experiencing increased cuts in the National Health Service, cuts on state schools’ budgets, increased tuition fees, bedroom taxes etc. We also have Obama who’s slogan was “yes we can* in terms of making change and creating a brighter future for the American people. Yet has done nothing to stop the continuous police brutality of working class black people, dropped more bombs and killed more people abroad than any other President in ‘peace time’ and has only made small changes to the health care and schooling system.
We can argue with Obama there is only so much he could do against Congress, but for a man wanting change and being President of the United States he had the chance to call upon the American public, over his eight years, to help put pressure on Congress to enforce change. He now states that the American people have to stand up and fight for what they want. His time in office left America with a decision to make. Vote Hilary and be told what you want to hear while she works for the corporate elite, profits from war, pharmaceutical companies etc or take a risk and vote Trump who seems to argue he is against the corporate elite (despite being one himself) and they hope he can offer change that will enable more jobs to be based in the US rather than abroad and enable people to live a life without debt with affordable housing and living wage jobs.
Instead what the US got was a President who has hired bankers and oil and coal investors along with white supremacist maniacs. The President of the US is denying climate change and enforcing and fighting for the continual ban on Muslims from entering the country. (Apart from the ones where the US obtain oil or political advantage, or more ironically where Trump has businesses in). Claiming they a are threat to national security while he continues to drop bombs in Syria and Yemen killing thousands of innocent people. Failing to acknowledge the role in which the US has destroyed a vast number of Muslim countries for oil, political gain or economic advantage (Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya to name a few).
In the UK we have Brexit (Theresa May) and pulling out of the EU. Both governments fail to acknowledge that the reason why poverty is rising is because the banks invested money they did not have and then the tax payer’s money was used to bail them out. We now, as nations, have to borrow that money back while paying interest for borrowing our own money. Yet both governments will not raise this issue and admit it as they have shares and bonuses at stake. We are forced to witness bankers still being paid huge amounts in bonuses while we see homelessness rise, insecure employment increase and the collapse of NHS services, Yet we are supposed to blame immigration for this.
We have millions of refugees in camps all over Europe, Africa and the Middle East which the US refuse to take in and with Britain only accepting 20,000 up until 2020. Yet our governments fail to acknowledge that by starting these wars and dropping countless bombs it makes us responsible for the millions off deaths and displaced refugees around the world.
The cheek of refusing entry to these people into the UK; US etc… despite the countless threats these people face on a daily basis. We are propagandised into extreme venting towards the Muslim community, especially with the rise in organisations such as ISIS, yet we have Wikileaks and many other organisations reporting (leaking) that we are selling weapons to Saudi Arabia and Israel who are selling them on to terrorist organisations including ISIS, while we are also discovering our own governments have shares in these weapons companies. We have Theresa May who was discovered to have strong alliances with a guy set up by the US government to make fake ISIS videos. But yet they plaster the front pages with Kim Kardashian has been robbed or Beyoncé is having twins? We now have a rise in sexist, racist, homophobic and religious hate crimes amongst many others.
Yet the people who are to be criticised are those speaking out against the government, protesting and not accepting ‘democracy’ because 48% of the voters won in America. (Brexit is a lot more complicated). People who say ‘just let Donald Trump do his job he won end of’ are allowing an individual with no political background and failed business experience to run one of the most powerful countries in the world while promoting differences within society aimed at people turning on one another because it stops us focusing on who is really responsible. It puts thousands of people’s lives at risk and allows discrimination and abuse to be tolerated.
People fail to understand that being the President or Prime Minister should not enable that person to become more powerful than you or me but instead should be representing each and everyone of us and working towards a better future for all not just a selected few. So no people should just sit by and allow these people to do what they like because no one is entitled to that power. Ultimately we have to stop seeing ourselves as a race or gender or sexuality or even a political opposition such as left or right, Democrat or Republican, or whatever party we affiliate ourselves with and instead work together for a better future for all.
Sam Cridland
