This video is one for the history books! In it, culture jamming duo The Yes Men hijack a Democratic National Committee (DNC) town hall to explain to constituents what the “Better Deal” is actually about.
For those of you who might not have noticed, the Democratic Party recently unveiled their “Better Deal” (full name “A Better Deal: Better Jobs, Better Wages, Better Future”) – an initiative which aims to show how the Party plans to counter our reality TV show president’s agenda. The sad part is that this speech alone, this YouTube video, beats virtually any promotion of the actual “Better Deal.”
This is because The Yes Men’s “Better Deal” includes demands that corporate Democrats won’t even acknowledge through their social media posts (I live in Virginia and I can assure you that my representatives won’t touch “medicare for all” with a ten foot pole).
The performance makes us question what politicians would sound like if they actually embraced a progressive agenda supported by majority of Americans.
From the video’s description:
"Until the recent banning of corporate donations to the DNC, the DNC was unable to support such positions because of the outsize influence of key donors, as detailed in transcript below. These positions include Medicare for all (desired by a strong majority of voters overall, and even by 41% of Republicans), free college tuition (desired by 62% of all voters), stronger unions (by an ever growing majority), and public campaign financing and the elimination of corporate lobbying (large majorities of Americans feel corporations, the wealthy, and lobbyists have far too much influence in politics)."
Unfortunately, there was no “recent banning” of corporate donations – quite the opposite – DNC members voted down the corporate money ban, keeping their key donors happy. And, as I mentioned, pseudo-progressive Democrats are experts at tiptoeing around issues that have popular support, but are not beneficial to their donors.
The Yes Men followed the money to expose why so many people are questioning the DNC‘s empty promises. Their performance does what comedy does best – it turns the corporate narrative on its head and lets us imagine what it would look like if politicians actually represented our demands.
Originally published on postmillennial - postmillennial.org/the-yes-men-destroy-dnc-better-deal-talking-points/