Captain represents capitalists falsely promising to fix our problems

Broken liferaft is the false promise (i.e. voting is going to fix our problems despite genocide, imperialism, deporting illegal immigrants, hurting homeless people, fracking, etc)

Fixed liferaft is what actually will save us (i.e. food, housing, healthcare, etc)

While everyone is hyperfocused on who to vote for, the capitalists take the rest of the food/housing/healthcare and everyone else dies.