Our presidents have always been scumbags, a President Trump would hardly be unique

We are all getting a kick out of watching the ridiculous soap opera packaged by the mainstream media as a “presidential election,” with the usual ignoring of issues important to the American people.

Corporate media are telling us we should only be concerned about whether the new president has groped the ladies.

This allows the mainstream press to completely ignore the fact that both The Donald and Hillary have made warmonger statements and neither pledges to shut down the wars, as opinion polls show would the American public, an issue which screams out for attention.

The Donald says he will solve problems in the Middle East by bombing more, as if his predecessors had not thought of that and hadn’t resorted to it 24/7 for decades. Madam Hillary will create a no-fly zone in Syria, affectively telling the Russians they can’t fly out of their own bases, thereby instigating World War III.

It’s hard to imagine that two more unpopular people could become the major candidates for the highest office in the land. Of course, it is because these two have received over ninety percent of mass media coverage on television, where most Americans get their news.

The coverage goes back for years, before either The Donald or Hillary announced their candidacy. I told friends over two years ago that Hillary would be the next president, a prediction based on media coverage she was getting long before she announced. Corporate media always back the candidate they feel is most likely to sell out the American people on behalf of the investments of media owners, media board members and media advertisers.

In recent months, major media recognized that Donald Trump might be a disaster for the plutocrats and oligarchs who run the Land of the Free like a private plantation. They must have also recognized that it was their own shameful media coverage which elevated The Donald into the Republican nomination, but we don’t hear them admit to that blunder.

So we are getting a steady drumbeat from corporate media of Trump being too tarnished by that which his libido has spawned, to be allowed to enter the previously unstained Oval Office.

They know they can rely on Hillary to sell out the American public, based on her entire life’s work in that regard, from the time she was a Goldwater Girl to taking a leadership position in the Democratic Leadership Council, the corporate-funded group dedicated to making a Republican clone of the Democratic Party.

A history of scumbags

Is a woman-groping President Trump the worst thing in the world, as corporate media are blasting 24/7 (watch CNN, any time you turn it on this is their “news”)? I can think of dozens of reasons The Donald should not be acceptable, based on what he will do, but then, Hillary would do the same things and these things are all overlooked by the mainstream press because they support the plutocratic oligarchy.

In fact, previous presidents make Trump appear as a Boy Scout by comparison.

Slavery

Several US presidents were slave owners, including our first president. The hypocrisy reeks. When Patrick Henry, packaged to our children in their history books as an heroic Founding Father, said “Give me liberty or give me death,” he owned slaves.

Genocide

Several US presidents directed genocide against the Native Americans. Democratic Party founder Andrew Jackson recommended that troops systematically kill Indian women and children after massacres in order to complete the extermination.

Pedophilia

When 14 year old Sally Hemings went to Paris to be with her slave owner, Thomas Jefferson, “There is strong evidence to suggest that during this time, Jefferson and Hemings began a sexual relationship.” Of course, being fourteen and a slave didn’t offer Sally a lot of bargaining power.

Rape and sexual abuse

Several women have charged that Bill Clinton raped them, groped them, or otherwise was involved in sexual abuse. Hillary Clinton attacked them. For Hillary to make comments about Trump being sexist is the height of hypocrisy. Her history of enabling hubby’s behavior disqualifies her as one who should be slinging mud.

Summary

Hillary Clinton, the choice of the oligarchs and plutocrats, will be our next president. Corporate media tell us we should choose her ostensibly because she is less likely to grope women.

The other major accusation by corporate media against Trump is that he will not show his tax forms. This is obviously because he pays no taxes, as billionaire Leona Helmsley so succinctly explained to us, “Only the little people pay taxes.” Anybody living in the Land of the Free with their eyes open knows this. The Gates Foundation exists so that Bill Gates doesn’t have to pay taxes, however there are so many loopholes for billionaires that such a foundation is not necessary (Trump also has such a foundation).

I do agree with Trump that the election is rigged. It is rigged by media control, by funding that should be called bribery, by a crooked primary system, by a deceptive electoral college, by rigged debates and more. An honest system would exclude the likes of him and Madam Hillary.

I do not lose sleep over the fact that one of our celebrity billionaires gropes women, nor do I agree that should be the primary reason to reject Trump. All billionaires are assholes who could save the millions of children who die of hunger-related problems each year, but instead acquire more wealth than they could ever logically need.

We’ve had worse than Trump, and until the American people get away from reacting to what they’re fed by corporate media, we will continue to get scumbag presidents to run the nation for The Owners.

Jack Balkwill has been published from the little read Rectangle, magazine of the English Honor Society, to the (then) millions of readers USA Today and many progressive publications/web sites such as Z Magazine, In These Times, Counterpunch, This Can’t Be Happening, Intrepid Report, and Dissident Voice. He is author of “An Attack on the National Security State,” about peace activists in prison.