Both Parties Are Selling You Out and Counting on You Being Too Dumb to Notice

The Sticker People and the Machine That Loves Them

Every election day I see them. The sticker people. Proudly displaying their little “I Voted” badge like they just solved climate change. And politicians on both sides absolutely love them. Because the sticker people, by and large, have no idea what they actually voted for.

I have been saying this since 2010. I wrote a piece called “Thank You for Not Voting,” and people lost their minds. Good. Because the truth is uncomfortable.

Alvin Green Was Not an Accident

In 2010, Alvin Green won the South Carolina Democratic Senate primary without spending a single dollar. No website. No rallies. No job. Living in his father’s basement with a felony obscenity charge hanging over him. His opponent was the well-known Jim DeMint.

Green won on name recognition alone.

The Democratic establishment did not congratulate him. James Clyburn called it a possible Republican trick. Even Chris Matthews on MSNBC could not believe what had happened.

But here is what nobody wanted to say out loud: the system produced that result. Not a glitch. Not a trick. The system, running exactly as designed when voters are uninformed, produced Alvin Green.

Lenin and Hitler Both Knew This Trick

I am going to quote Thomas Sowell because he said it better than I ever could:

• Hitler deliberately built his movement by activating people who did not normally pay attention to politics
• Those people were valuable precisely because they were susceptible to rhetoric and could not question assumptions
• Lenin called the same type of supporter “useful idiots”
• Sowell concluded that democracy requires informed citizens to survive, full stop

That is not hyperbole. That is history. And the same playbook is running today, by both parties, every single cycle.

This Is How They Rob You

I want to connect this directly to your money, because that is what I do.

• Low-information voters elect politicians who pass financial legislation they do not understand, written by lobbyists who absolutely do understand it
• Those same politicians appoint Federal Reserve governors who drive monetary policy that inflates away your savings
• Corrupt legislators on both sides protect the Wall Street fee machine because that machine funds their campaigns
• The result is a system where everyday Americans get squeezed on both ends, by bad policy and by the financial industry that benefits from it

This is not an accident. This is a business model.

Both Parties Are Running the Con

I get pushback on this constantly. People want me to pick a side. I refuse. Because both sides are running variations of the same hustle.

• Republicans promise fiscal conservatism and then spend like drunk sailors when they hold power
• Democrats promise to fight for the working class while taking Wall Street money with both hands
• Both parties use emotional manipulation instead of policy substance to drive turnout
• Both parties benefit from an electorate that reacts rather than thinks

The Eddie Murphy movie *The Distinguished Gentleman* came out in 1992. A con man wins a congressional seat by running on name recognition alone. It was supposed to be comedy. It is now a training manual.

The Only Way to Fight Back

You fight back by being the voter they fear most. The one who actually did the reading.

• Know who funds the candidates you support
• Understand what legislation actually does versus what it is called
• Reject voter registration drives that treat participation as the goal rather than informed participation
• Hold both parties to the same standard, because the moment you give one side a pass, you become the useful idiot the machine is counting on

The Watchdog exists because someone has to call this out without fear of which party gets offended. I am not here to make you comfortable. I am here to keep you from getting played.