The Political System of the United States Is a Bird With Two Right Wings

I’m 100% grassroots and I need your support!Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offPeople often get challenged when they say that the corporate owned Democrats and the corporate owned Republicans are two wings of the same bird. That phrase, along with words like “socialism” and “woke” tend to end conversations before they even start.You’re told, “If you can’t see that there is a difference between the DNC and the GOP then talking with you is a waste of my time.”Never mind the fact that candidates for both parties share the same donors. There are even consultants like James Carville who owns a company called Gaslight which he uses to advise candidates on both sides of the aisle. Over the last few months, we’ve seen the Democrats fall over themselves to heap praise upon people like Lindsey Graham and Charlie Kirk, even as they refer to popular representatives like Zohran Mamdani as a “parasite.” It’s no secret that the Democrats are a right wing party. One of their favorite mantras is “we can’t go too far left.” That’s a mission statement that indicates their allegiance is with the right.The confusion about the “two wings” analogy is that a bird has a left wing and a right wing. Clearly that’s not the situation we have in the United States. Our country is a bird with two right wings. The result is a nation that’s perpetually trapped spinning in circles.The last two years have brought with them an astonishing transformation to our entire political landscape. We all had an understanding of the corruption inherent to our government, but too many of us have been astonished to see the true depth of the rot in our country.We’ve sat helplessly and watched as a criminal regime has committed terrible atrocities both at home and abroad. They campaigned throughout 2024 and told us exactly who they would make suffer. Yet, the Democrats failed to mount anything that resembled a competent response.I keep having to remind people that the voters gave the Democrats control of Congress and the presidency in 2020. That represents more than sufficient power to hold insurrectionists and pedophiles accountable. But what we’ve seen again and again from the Democratic version of our right-wing uniparty is that their only tactic is delay.More and more I’ve come to believe that the DNC resents figures like Stacey Abrams who worked hard in Georgia to give the DNC control of the Senate. In the past, I’ve said it in jest that her activism took away one of the DNC’s main excuses for failing to get anything done. If they’d had 49 seats instead of fifty, they could have continued with their familiar refrain of, “We didn’t have the votes.”But since they did have the votes, their lie became exposed.Another issue at play is the filibuster. One of my readers recently observed that it seems like the DNC, again, uses the filibuster as an excuse to not use their power for any realistic reform. Even when Obama had a 60 seat majority, the DNC establishment wasted time looking for bipartisan agreement on the Affordable Care Act.The party should be educated enough to recognize that you can’t garner goodwill with unscrupulous people. The GOP only wants to sabotage the government, and use the power of office to hurt us and extract wealth for themselves. Yet, the DNC has shown again and again that they’re more willing to work with the fascists on the right than the humanitarians on the left.Let’s start calling them out on their corruption.The fact is that the GOP is using taxpayer dollars to start a genocide at home. They’ve been building concentration camps. They’ve been funding secret police. They’ve been rounding up innocent people. They’ve been protecting pedophiles.Meanwhile the DNC is quite happy to fund genocide abroad. All we have to do is stop sending money and weapons to malicious nations and many genocides will end. But our elected Democratic representatives refuse to have any discussions on the matter.“If you don’t agree with me, then there’s no point in having a conversation.”Again, this is the language of MAGA and we see it among Democrats all the time.If the powers that anoint and elevate our worthless leaders hadn’t gotten so far out over their skis, maybe they would have been able to maintain their cruel status quo for the foreseeable future. But they made a mistake in elevating the criminal sex offender to the highest office of the land. He’s out of control, and the corruption is too obvious for anyone to keep their head in the sand any longer.We’ve also seen the willingness of the DNC to sell us out. The moment the insurrectionist was sworn in, the Democrats immediately started acting as if it were business as usual. Here was a candidate who had been Constitutionally prohibited from holding office due to his status as an insurrectionist. But the Democrats didn’t even bother to bring that up. Here was a convicted felon who had his sentencing dismissed because of the unchallenged election results.Keep in mind that if he’d lost, he’d have gone to jail. Yet nobody in our government or in our media every really gave serious attention to whether that constituted a motivation to cheat.My conclusion is that it does.It gets worse.The Democrats had the opportunity to shut down the government and obstruct the funding of an illegal death squad. Yet, just enough of their members defected to the other side to make sure billions of taxpayer dollars would again be used to bring pain and suffering to the citizens.Once again, that represents a betrayal from corporate Democrats who only held their position of power due to the hard work and sacrifice of the voters. We elected them to office specifically so they could oppose cruelty directed against us. But those Democrats betrayed their constituents, almost as if to punish us for not providing them with even more power.Throughout 2025, Schumer and Jeffries have repeated their commitment to supporting genocide abroad. They’ve also come up weak at every moment with regard to opposing the GOP. They’ve smirked about it, secure in their certainty that the GOP will be blamed for its transgressions against the American people.Let’s be clear. The corporate owned DNC, which voters provided with plenty of power to ensure our protection, stood aside and allowed the GOP to torture us rather than offer any organized resistance or support. Now, with the midterms approaching, they expect us all to come running into their open arms. Do they really think that we’d forget all the times they’ve had the opportunity to significantly improve our lives which they abdicated with a condescending smirk and a lecture.“If you don’t vote for us, you’ll get them!”The people aren’t having it anymore. It’s been astonishing for me to realize in these last few months that the true architects of our suffering are sitting in the center. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. warned us about this very thing. The first time I read ‘The Letter from Birmingham Jail’ his denouncement of the moderate stuck with me, but I didn’t fully understand.I understand now.MAGA is nothing more than the attack dogs of the center. They’re the criminals who get their hands dirty, but it’s the mafia mastermind that you need to oppose. We’ve been watching it again and again. MAGA trots out a new lieutenant. He commits all kinds of crimes. There’s public outcry, then he’s flushed down the toilet. We have a momentary reprieve before he’s replaced by somebody even worse.Meanwhile, the corporate DNC keeps us perpetually focused on the distraction. “Look at how bad that guy is. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”Even when they have sufficient evidence to put the ringleaders away for the rest of their natural life, they defer for the sake of “decorum.” The rest of us watch helplessly as the illnesses of our children go untreated, and unregulated paramilitary forces terrorize our communities.Are you getting it yet?In the popular television show ‘Game of Thrones’ there’s a character named Petyr Baelish. He reminds me a bit of Stephen Miller. He’s not particularly noticeable. He’s not intimidating. He doesn’t possess any particular power. But at every opportunity, he advises the significant players of his time. He gets them into horrific situations which he then exploits. Throughout the series, you’ll often see allies getting into conflict, while Petyr Baelish stands in the shadows watching the destruction he orchestrated with a smirk on his face.The corporate owned Democratic party is Petyr Baelish. This is is the faction among our representatives that are quite willing to fund genocide abroad. They are just as guilty as crimes against humanity as the domestic abusers and child rapists that have been given power among the GOP. Our political parties are two right wings of the same bird. The only difference is that the Democrats are slightly better at hiding their corruption, though these days it feels like the harsh light of day is getting into every nook and cranny and criminal file.It’s all coming out. Even the billionaires and the crime lords and the oligarchs don’t have the power to stop it now.The thing that’s happening right now that’s giving me hope is that there’s been a major shift in political momentum. Just as in ‘Game of Thrones’ where Petyr Baelish is delighting in observing a conflict from a safe distance, only to have the participants turn and make accusations against him, we’re seeing the same rejection of the DNC.The party has grown far too entitled. The simple fact of the matter is that we’ve always had a mechanism in place to remove corrupt or inept representatives.It’s called the primaries.Going all the way back to 2024, the Democrats told us all that our best strategy was to do nothing and wait for November of 2026.We didn’t listen. Of course we didn’t listen because it was our necks on the line, not theirs. Jeffries and Schumer and Pelosi are just fine with their state funded healthcare and their multi-million dollar portfolios which they built using insider information that’s only available to congress and the president. They smirked and laughed at every cruel act committed against the innocent by the GOP, sure in their delusion that we’d never blame them.They’re about to be very surprised at the number of us who perceived what was going on months ago, and put into motion a plan to replace all the representatives who refuse to use the power we give them for the sake of the greater good.Neither the GOP nor the DNC own any seats in government. Those seats belong to WE THE PEOPLE, and we’re going to fill them with women and men of integrity for a change.The old lies no longer work.It’s only been in the last few months that the corporate owned element of our political system has gone into panic mode. They didn’t think that we’d be as effective as we have been in leveraging the power of the primaries. It’s true that we’re not going to change every seat, but we’ve already defeated enough incumbents so that change is inevitable.A lot of people who think they’re powerful and untouchable are about to come face to face with the error of their entitlement. I’m here for it.We’re seeing progressives and DSA candidates running campaigns on a shoestring budget, but win their primaries because the people are fed up with supporting corporate stooges who are bought and paid for. In fact, there were signs back in April of 2025 when Susan Crawford won a Supreme Court seat the GOP tried to buy.We’re starting to see unity in communities against the idea of big money owning our representatives. The status quo has gotten too lackadaisical in their ease and luxury, and they failed to notice the cracks in the foundations of their corrupt worldview.The mechanism of our oppression is coming down. We’re fighting back legally, lawfully and peacefully. Our weapons are our organization, our voice, and our vote. A transformation is coming. It’s inevitable now. You can see it already in the way the corporate establishment is flailing. They’re out of money. Their donors recognize there’s no advantage in spending millions of dollars to prop up a candidate the voters refuse to elect.My friends, we’ve already won. Even so, there’s plenty of work left to be done. If there’s one thing that the last two years have taught us it’s that we can’t afford to be complacent in our government. We have to participate. When the forces of oppression rouse themselves and begin to lecture us with lies and hate, we have to stand firm, not give an inch, and shout them into silence.When rich people insist they’re “entitled” to lead, it’s time for us to laugh in their faces and show them the door. Our for-the-people movement is going to require a for-the-people media. When the good candidates we’ve worked so hard to elevate to power are sworn in, they’re going to face an immediate headwind of attacks from the flailing, desperate, oligarch media.That’s were we come in. For my entire life, I’ve worked to push back against the lies and propaganda of authoritarians. I’ll continue to do that going forward. Every time some loathsome right-wing pundit launches a smear campaign against a person of integrity, I’ll be there to offer a defense. Every like, comment, and share adds to this effort. Every time you gently correct somebody at home, work, or at the grocery store, you play a part.Getting good people into office isn’t enough. We have to continue the work to ensure that they succeed. We have to continue to capture the men, women, and children in our society that have been deceived. We have to educate them and show them that there’s a better way.It’s easier now because we have a better understanding of our enemies. Slowly, the people are waking up to the truth. They know it in their gut that something is wrong. We have to capitalize on this moment and transform their sense of unease to conscious knowledge.First comes a rejection of corruption.Then comes an acceptance of a new social structure.Right now, we’re between those two points. Speak the truth. Let everyone know that we deserve more than two political parties that are two right wings on the same bird. We’re tired of flying in circles. It’s time for progress. It’s time for something new. Thanks for the support!Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe