Do we have a democracy, or an oligarchy?
There are a lot of reasons for the lopsided results Tuesday, none of them good.
Huge dark money expenditures, smearing candidates (and issues) with lies and innuendo, the terribly corrupt and pervasive gerrymandering of voting districts, young and minorities not showing up for midterm elections, a bad economy (exasperated by the party of no that thwarted any bills that might have helped), which always helps the party that’s not in the White House, and a poorly informed electorate, thanks to the corporate owned media.
Add to that toxic mix the rash of new voter ID laws in red states, which hit lower income people particularly hard, and you have an awful lot of voter disenfranchisement. Don’t let anyone kid you that these laws are needed to preserve the “integrity” of the vote.
There have been so few cases of actual voter fraud by individuals that it is virtually non-existent. Yet these laws have prevented millions of people from voting, even people who have been regular voters for years. And when you have places, like Texas, where a gun owner permit is accepted as ID, and yet a college ID card is not, it becomes very clear what the real intent is.
The real voter fraud is in the enacting of these new Jim Crow-style ID laws.
And last, but not least, were the voter purges that were carried out in many states. These purges disenfranchised tens, possibly hundreds of thousands, of legal voters. Read more about this travesty in a report by investigative reporter Greg Palast here.
These problems may seem monumental. But they are all driven by one thing: The corrupting influence of big money in politics. So, Task #1, if we want to save democracy in the good ol’ USA, is to change that. It is becoming more entrenched every year we let it go on.
We are well on our way to an oligarchy. Can we turn our country back around? Let us know what you think in the comments. Thank you.
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