The Republic of Nicaragua recently celebrated 45 years of its revolutionary government. The U.S. labels it and other nations that demand self-determination and sovereignty as “undemocratic." However, the U.S. oligarchic class prevented Biden from running for re-election four years after rigging the process to put him in office. The United States is no democracy.
“And what do the US presidents represent? They are nothing more than functionaries, from either Party, serving the Military Industry. Such that the more wars there are, then the more business there is for the Military Industry! Serving the great US companies. That is, not even serving the US people, but rather enriching the wealthiest people in the United States.”
Daniel Ortega, President of Nicaragua
There is probably no group of people more isolated from the rest of humanity than residents of the United States. Far from being the “leader of the free world” and a robust democracy where the exchange of ideas is respected, the United States is under the thumb of billionaire oligarchs who restrict what we see and hear. The corporate media play the role of servant and keep the people simultaneously uninformed and misinformed. Knowledge of the rest of the world is extremely limited and only those who are sufficiently self-motivated will venture outside of the bubble. Yet doing so is imperative.
This columnist was again fortunate to participate in a delegation visiting the nation of Nicaragua during the commemoration of the 45th anniversary of the victory of the Sandinista revolution. On July 19, 1979, Sandinista forces triumphed over the U.S.-backed Somoza regime after years of armed struggle.
If one does a cursory internet search of the words Nicaragua or the name of its president Daniel Ortega there will be references to words like dictatorship or authoritarianism or to failed socialism. It is unlikely that there would be references to a president elected by his people or to the Contra War waged by the Ronald Reagan administration. The U.S. government-funded, and the CIA trained the “contras,” a counterrevolutionary force that attempted to overthrow Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. One has to diligently search in order to find that in 1986 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered the U.S. to pay reparations to Nicaragua for training, arming, and equipping Contra fighters, attacking Nicaragua’s infrastructure, mining Nicaragua’s harbors, imposing an embargo, and directing the Contras to violate international human rights law. Nearly 40 years later, the U.S. still refuses to pay as ordered by the ICJ, the world’s court charged with upholding international law.
Reagan was not the last U.S. president to attack that country. In 2018 the Donald Trump administration waged a hybrid war against Nicaragua including a violent coup attempt that disrupted the country for months and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people. After Ortega was re-elected in 2021, Joe Biden immediately claimed that the vote was fraudulent and ordered more sanctions through the RENACER Act.
Anyone relying on corporate media for news about Nicaragua knows nothing about the popular “vigilias” that are held on the evening of July 18. Vigilias are community rallies where the public gather to remember their successful struggle against U.S. imperialism. Like the U.S. independence day holiday, families gather with music, food, and patriotic speeches, but unlike in this country, the celebration is a righteous one. People who lived through the struggle for liberation gather together to remember and to build their country as they see fit.
This year the revolution anniversary coincided with a crisis in U.S. politics. In 2020 Joe Biden was maneuvered into the presidency by wealthy party donors and their functionaries. In 2024 he was struggling with months of low approval ratings and a disastrous debate performance. His subsequent efforts at damage control were no better. In one interview he referred to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin as “the Black man” when he couldn’t remember his name. Oblivious to the fact that his campaign floundered in large part because he gave Israel a blank check of money, weapons, and impunity in the killing of some 186,000 people in Gaza, he claimed, “I’m the guy who did more for the Palestinian community than anybody.”
Two days after the anniversary of Sandinista victory, the oligarchs successfully completed their plan that had been in progress for some time and Biden announced his withdrawal from the race and his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. Almost immediately every sector of the Democratic Party declared loyalty to Harris and proclaimed that she was the best possible choice for president.
The democracy that is allegedly lacking in Nicaragua is in fact missing from the U.S. Biden was put in office by rich donors in 2020 but they took him out in 2024. He was their choice because they feared that liberal reformer Bernie Sanders might again emerge as a favorite among progressive voters. They lied about Biden’s health for four years and hoped that Trump would be hobbled by his conviction for fraud and upcoming court cases charging election interference and an “insurrection” on January 6, 2021.
The Democratic Party is facing a crisis because of its very undemocratic nature. Instead of presenting new faces to their voters, they relied on the damaged goods they were lucky to win with in 2020. They pushed Biden through again but all their luck had run out. Democratic voters were never given a real choice and are now being harangued into supporting the Kamala Harris anointing.
Nicaragua has not aided and abetted a genocide in Gaza. Nor has it killed thousands of Ukrainians in a proxy war. It is committed to providing free health care and free university education. Both of these policies are declared to be impossibilities in the United States and are dismissed out of hand by democrats and republicans alike. Anyone advocating for these and other measures that would benefit the people is also dismissed and sent into political exile by both wings of the duopoly.
What is democracy? The dictionary definitions usually reference “government by the people” or similar language. The U.S. is full of legislatures at the local, state, and federal levels. They are governed by the people only when there is mass mobilization and ongoing organization by democratic forces. Otherwise, they are captives of the monied classes who decide what the people will and will not have.
Ortega is quite correct. Presidents in this country are functionaries who do just what the ruling class commands them to do. They have no standing to condemn other nations. The people of the U.S. can learn from Nicaraguans and others about the necessity of struggling for a real democracy
Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. You can support her work on Patreon and also find it on the Twitter, Bluesky, and Telegram platforms. She can be reached via email at [email protected].
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