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Donald Trump's wife, Melania Trump, made headlines at the Republican National Convention for giving a speech that copied the words of a past address from Michelle Obama in 2012. Corporate social media and news outlets have discussed the topic nonstop ever since. Melania Trump's debacle has given new life to the Democratic Party's bourgeois liberal supporters. In typical fashion, the corporate media has trapped the political conversation of the event into a virtual dead end. The Melania Trump incident once again emphasizes that US presidential elections do not center on policy or the problems ordinary people face. They instead legitimize corporate rule in a selection competition for the best possible candidate to serve the ruling class.

The content of the Melania Trump’s speech itself possessed zero value to struggling people in the US and around the world. Melania Trump merely regurgitated the predictable neo-liberal, American Dream dogma that is so pervasive in this stage of US capitalist rule. Nor has the debate around Melania Trump's plagiarism acknowledged that every politician in both Parties have their speeches pre-packaged by speechwriters. Michelle Obama has possessed the same speechwriter throughout her political career. It is only fitting then that a speechwriter would make the mistake to plagiarize from its employer’s so-called opposition party. When comes to the substantive politics and policies of the Democratic and Republican parties, the differences are negligible.

This is what Melania Trump's mishap at the RNC should have revealed to the many millions of people who still support either the Democratic or Republican Parties. Liberals have avoided how disgraceful it is that Melania Trump could steal from Michelle Obama in the first place. Trump supporters have lashed back at criticism by spreading a video of when President Obama plagiarized from former MA Governor Deval Patrick. The plagiarism debate has kept politics within the neat little box of two-party corporate rule. It has is provided the opportunity for each party to perfect its brand to voters, with the Democratic Party on the offensive and the Republican Party on the defensive.

The Democratic Party establishment has given the moral high ground to Michelle Obama in the plagiarism scandal. However, there are no "good guys" when it comes to the US electoral charade. The Democratic Party has successfully transformed itself into the truest expression of the ruling class under the Obama Administration. President Obama and his partner in crime Michelle Obama have been able to enforce policies that a Republican Presidency could never implement without scrutiny or mass protest. Melania Trump's speech debacle has unintentionally exposed the Obama Administration as the most effective evil of US corporate rule.

Melania Trump may have copied words from a speech, but Michelle Obama has co-run the affairs of US capitalism for two terms. Over the course of these terms, the Obama Administration has launched more drones, prosecuted more whistle blowers, and closed more public schools than any President in history. The Obama Administration has increased investment in NATO in Eastern Europe, backing enormous military operations such as the Anaconda project last June. Poverty has increased in every year of Obama's reign. His two-term rule facilitated the largest wealth transfer in US history to the one percent oligarchs that brought about the 2008 financial crisis.

Michelle Obama has played a significant role in her husband's policies. Because Washington is a patriarchal arrangement, male Presidents wage the wars, bailout the banks, and pass the laws that fleece the working class. First Ladies play a less direct role in policy, but an important one nonetheless. It is the job of the First Lady to rule with "soft power." Michelle Obama has wielded “soft power” by helping imperialism devise a philanthropic face.

Michelle Obama has built her strongest “philanthropic” relationship with Walmart. In her "Let's Move" initiative, Michelle Obama has collaborated with Walmart to supposedly promote healthy eating in "urban communities." Walmart is one of the largest global monopolies based in the US. It controls a quarter of the US grocery market. Its low-wage, no-benefit model of employment has forced many of its workers to rely on food stamps and other public subsidies just to survive. Yet Michelle Obama has not condemned her corporate partner for its parasitic treatment of poor and working class people, even as the corporation expands into Black cities such as Chicago.

Michelle Obama has conducted similar campaigns in the realm of war andprivatization.The First Lady garnered much attention for her involvementin the #BringBackOurGirls campaign following the Boko Haram kidnapping of Nigerian girls in 2014. This campaign gave further cover to the Obama Administration's policy of militarization on the African continent. In her "Reach Higher" initiative, Michelle Obama has collaborated with corporate high stakes testing monopolies such as Pearson to give the privatization of educationa public relations boost.So while the Republican Party has plagiarized speechesand blown the horn of racism, the Democratic Party under the Obama Administration has carried out US capitalism's policy objectives in real time.

The Democratic Party brand as the "lesser of two evils" must be fought on all fronts. The Republican Party is indeed evil, but the Democratic Party has proven to be the far more effective evil.Both parties work for the same monopoly capitalist system that dominates politics in the US. Those who waste precious time on plagiarism distract from the real problem before us. Melania Trump's speech debacle keeps the consciousness of workers and oppressed people neatly in the milieu of the two-party corporate electoral system. Laughter or condemnation of the idiocy of the Trump tandem is ultimately fruitless if it leaves out completely the fight against state oppression in its totality.