The simple answer is a resounding yes, it is time for a political revolution. The why is quite simple, we know longer have a Republic that works. Our government no longer represents we the people.

What we now have is a plutocracy run by oligarchs. A Plutocracy is a country or society governed by the wealthy. Our government is the worst government that money has bought. Our government is run by an elite that derives its power from its wealth.

Not everyone has been bought, but the vast majority of those who claim to represent we the people, don’t. They are there as a part of government for their own benefit and not for the benefit of the people. The Senate of the United States is the Millionaires Club. If you doubt the statement just check out how our Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell has increased his wealth while being a Senator on a salary that should not have made anyone a multi-millionaire many times over while feeding at the public trough. Members are allowed to feed their pocket books on the inside knowledge they acquire. We the people are not allowed to benefit by insider information in our Stock Market but they are.

The major cancer on our system of government is not some foreign threat but rather it is that our elected members of Congress have been paid for and bought for favors, especially financial benefits to and for the major corporations of our country.

The idea of term limits being a reform is nothing but a joke unless we reform our electoral process by taking money, the corrupting influence of money out of politics. If you had term limits all you would accomplish would be to have a quicker turn over with the same results.

We have a political party that unabashedly does the bidding of the wealthy, the Republican Party. Each of the major candidates for President has their own billionaires funding their campaign or in Donald Trump’s case he is our own, very own, first time billionaire or admittedly billionaire candidate. Even now when the angry white vote is quite in evidence, each of the top tier Republican candidates for the nomination promises to give Corporate America more tax breaks.

We must have a political revolution and take money out of politics if we are to ever have a chance to take back our Republic from the oligarchs and end our plutocracy. It is in our power, with the power of our vote to take back our country and to once again have a Republic.

Thomas Jefferson aptly described Parliament during his day in the following quote that fittingly describes what we have today. ” The purpose of establishing different houses of legislation is to introduce the influence of different interests or different principles. In Great Britain it is said their constitution relies on the house of commons for honesty, and the lords for wisdom; which would be a rational reliance, if honesty were to be bought with money, and if wisdom were hereditary.”

Nothing has changed, you do not get honesty if you are bought with money and wisdom from heredity.

Today, our election has 2 candidates who clearly offer the public, revolutionary changes, Senator Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Their revolutions come from two starkly different points of view. Senator Sanders wants to remove the power from the oligarchs and Donald Trump wants to have the authority to order things to happen. Sanders ideas represent a return of the power to the people and Trump’s ideas represent the power of the autocrat to make things happen by force or by force of will.

Donald Trump in a very un-Republican way offers a delicious offering of being great again, by encouraging a return to economic nationalism. He has hit a nerve, in that Americans are quite weary of buying goods from China. It is getting harder and harder to find things which have the label made in America. But as long as we demand as consumers the opportunity to buy items with the lowest price tag, a return to the bygone days is a lost hope, until or unless our wages go down or when and if the wages of Chinese workers goes up. You have heard Trump say in a debate that American wages are too high, but his poll numbers remain high. Hmmmn!!!  And here we thought that it was Republican dogma that free trade was the ideal. Trump may be in actuality be offering a return to the days when we had protective tariffs, but of course to make it a popular idea again, we will have to call it by another name. Trump gets boisterous support when he bashes immigrants, illegal immigrants for taking jobs that Americans would do. Really, where is the proof. In point of fact people from Mexico are leaving more than they are arriving. He may very well take credit for that, he takes credit for everything. And the idea that Mexico will pay for a wall is just plain hog wash. He makes solutions seem so simple. If only reality did not say otherwise.

Senator Bernie Sanders represents a return to the day when fairness was the rule of the day. He offers to make things right by no longer having banks too big to fail or when he offers to end corporate welfare. When the choice is whether to end income inequality or to maintain our plutocracy the choice would seem easy enough. The corporate media keeps him from being heard as much as he should be. But in spite of the attempt to not have him be heard Sanders has huge crowds attend his political appearances. It is honestly hard to find anything he says to not be true. Will his voice of reason be heard enough to do more than just shake up the establishment? We shall see!

The powers that be, seem to be only willing to grant incremental change, when they realize that their greed has gone over the line.

Hillary Clinton sounds like she is a true believer in change, realizing that if we are to have long term prosperity and a return to the day when the Middle Class is stronger wages must increase. She may very well carry the day and be able to bring about the changes we so desperately need. She actually has a relationship with Wall Street, that may enable her to make change happen, partially because she knows how to communicate with those who need to be part of the solution.

It is often quite true that the revolutionary never wins but his or her ideas carry the day. This election will be key to whether we move forward or go backwards into the darkness of our ever deepening plutocracy.

The question should not be whether or not we need a revolution but rather who will be the one to carry out the will of the people. Remember to vote in this coming election. Let your voice be heard. You have the power to return our country to be the Republic, Mr. Franklin said we had, if only we can keep it. We have lost it for a historic moment, let us see if we can regain our Republic.