A question to consider: If our leading political candidates for President refuse to challenge the culture of global, unregulated, free market corporatism, and the broken narrative used to justify it, just how much change do we think there is going to be?

Has wishful thinking deluded some voters into thinking “hope” and a silver tongue will be enough to achieve very difficult change for cheap? They are, I fear, sadly wrong. The level of change needed to honestly have a shot at mitigating global climate change, much less end poverty, provide better than average childcare to working families, or provide universal healthcare, or make our electrical system at least 3X more efficient, or manage demand across the board, will require a lot of very hard struggle with a lot of dirt, grime and sweat.

According to exit polls in New Hampshire, as per Frank Rich in today’s NY Times, 46% of the voters are looking for this level of change. They understand that incremental changes, or minor adjustments, to our current political narrative will not get the job done.

There will not be, there never has been, cheap and painless change on the scale required today. We need a new narrative that is honest with us that the change, from the old narrative to the new, is going to be painful. But we have a choice: Either we can choose the time and place of change and pain, or we can wait and let mother nature inflict it upon us. Which do you think is the wisest strategy?

Remember, in the Civil War, the Union only started to win when it chose the time, field of battle, and the high ground. Gettysburg is a prime example. Indeed, the positive and rewarding changes generated by the revolutionary war, WW I, over-coming the Great Depression, WW II, etc. have all required a great deal of sacrifice and pain. There was no pain free way to the better world these conflicts led to.

As athletes say, no pain, no gain. In politics: No pain, No change!

Too often the pursuit of power corrupts. The more power sought, the more corruption. And those who have now amassed great power and wealth will not give it up for cheap or for silver tongued hope. It is an illusion that serves their purposes to promote. It is their stubborn and determined resistance to change, at all most any cost, that makes the pain inevitable.

In the end, can our candidates tell us the truth? Are they willing to be “inconvenient” for the current failed narrative? Or must they use silver tongues, advertising, polling and politics as usual to pull the wool over the eyes and the critical thinking of the 46% of us who want a new narrative with serious and substantive change? If the old politics of the old narrative prevail, the hopes of young voters especially will be dashed. It will turn them into cynics. Not a good thing.

Note: I refuse to call global, unregulated, free market corporatism, “capitalism” because it bears so little resemblance, if any, to what Adam Smith believed in. And what Franklin, Washington et all embraced for our then new nation. Only Hamilton refused it. In hind sight, his victory in this dispute may be a real curse.

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