Concord Monitor
The Concord Monitor is a Pulitzer Prize winning daily newspaper and website located in the capital city of New Hampshire. The Concord Monitor is Central NH's dominant media with more than 70 percent household penetration. The Monitor is a key source of news and information for Concord, NH.
Sign up for the Concord Monitor’s morning newsletter for essential news each day, and our contests and promotions list for special offers and giveaways.
Whether John E. Sununu or Chris Pappas wins, we lose. As the DNC and RNC battle for the seat, awash with millions for pay-to-play politics, I’d like to appropriate a sentiment Henry Kissinger had on the Iran-Iraq war: it’s a pity they both can’t lose.
We’re told who our saviors are. They anoint themselves with blessings from the party, propped up and put on stage to perform, pretending to be guided in the interest of the public. All we generally see is the messaging around these figures, the insane amounts of cash used in promoting the candidate.
It costs so much money to keep the party machinery competitive and operating. Who could the parties thank for returning the favor, passing legislation that will provide bountiful returns. I don’t know what grotesque meetings were had that Sununu decided to run with Trump and company backing him; but, we do know that in good party fashion, the DNC picked Pappas well before he announced his campaign. Like a loyalty oath, you are judged by your support for him. Get in line comrade. Is it for the greater good, no?
The parties are some of the most malevolent organizations I can think of, operating in an environment in which they are flushed with millions of dollars to support horrendous policies at home, provide impunity for their officials who enact inhumane and violent foreign policy, have the infrastructure to gleefully propagandize their base, operate in secrecy, refuse to hold corporations accountable for the evil they perpetuate, and never cease to find issues to use as political footballs, keeping the base engaged. It couldn’t be clearer that its always party over people. Some folks have learned that recently in these primaries, but you wouldn’t learn it until you cross a party line and find yourself on the out.
There are certainly differences between the candidates and the parties. In some sense Pappas’s policies may be more favorable. But it’s a sense in which he kicks the can further down the road, continues to funnel money into defense contractors and ever-expanding war budgets, enjoys super-PAC funding, ignores the issues of corruption and term limits, abdicates responsibility for supporting ICE or the ongoing wars, and continues to give cover for genocide.
Award-winning coverage on breaking news and today’s top stories in and around the Capital Region. From Arts and Life to Sports and Opinion you’ll have unlimited access to the Concord Monitor’s content.
Both candidates are self-promoting, climbing up to whatever rung on the ladder they wish to obtain. To do so they will continue to stomp on the public interest and serve those who awash them in wealth. These are values I expect from the humbling life of a civil servant on an honest wage.
So for this election, vote who you wish. Whether Sununu or Pappas wins, we will lose. We’ll get justifications for war and austerity. Costs will continue to rise. Wage, job creation, employee safeguards will languish. Federal social programs will continue to be inadequately funded — all the while funneling endless money into building weapons platforms to murder people abroad.
I don’t have hope for this election. I have hope for a day when enough of us give up our loyalty to the parties and refuse their voter shaming, lesser “evilism” and fearmongering. A day they so thoroughly debase themselves, enough of us to lose confidence and want something outside their control. Then we would learn they were always blocking the way to any reform, any progress benefiting us — because it suits them. That is the day I hope for.
Jesse Gillis is a veteran who resides in Merrimack.
Customer Service
603-224-4287
customerservice@cmonitor.com
Help support your local news source!
Sign up for the Concord Monitor’s morning newsletter for daily news, and opt in to our contests and promotions list for giveaways and special offers.
