Sorry to take a break from the headlines of the day, but let’s look at this for a moment.
The theory of our system is, everyone gets one vote, preventing the few most powerful from ruling, and the people choose the policies they want by voting for a representative.
That representative has the word represent in the job name, and is supposed to listen to their constituents and represent them.
Sounded good in 1789 and they voted for it.
But what do we have today?
A system in which powerful interests gain billions of dollars by policies being allowed that are against the public interest.
They get to spend a tiny fraction of the profits they’ll make on politics, and provide the mast majority of the funding to winning candidates.
Leaders say things in a campaign. If they just say what gets votes and win, and then do different things, there is no penalty before the next election.
If they ARE voted out, there are lobbying jobs from those interests waiting for them to get a big pay raise.
So, they don’t listen to the voters, and serve the special interests until all the money stops winning them election, and they’re replace by the next person who does the same thing.
With voters SO influenced by fame, media, and advertising, how is the system going to be anything but terribly corrupt, far from the idea of picking a good representative?
Can you name any national leaders who did not fit the above — who did not have large fame, or large money, or large media? Probably not, if you can let me know but you had to think?
I don’t think there’s any other organization in society setup anywhere nearly as crazily, designed not to work.
To look for an analogy I have to make one up — imagine if our criminal trials were changed to where the defendant hired whoever he wanted, paying them any amount, to be the judge.
It could be sold as ‘reducing taxpayer cost’. It could still say the judge should decide based on the facts.
But as a practical matter, it would be a DISASTER, utterly corrupt, where the rich were immune and the poor were screwed, where everyone could see the system did not do what it’s supposed to.
Sound familiar? That could be said of our political system with blah blah represent the people ya right, where the money and the facts of how it operates ensure it’s so non-representative that a study found the non-donating voters have not 90%, not 50%, not 25%, but effectively zero influence on the votes.
And that’s the system we’re working with trying to get better people elected in.
It is simply crazy and guaranteed to be a disaster. But no one likes to talk about that — you’d have to question your country, your system, there’s no clear alternative or fix on the horizon.
So, ignore it, and repeat the description about how it’s supposed to function as representative.
What we have instead is a system where the need for votes has it make just enough sense to vote for SOME things where no powerful interest minds that can appeal to voters.
Seriously, when is the last time our democracy stood up to:
- The military industry — budget still exploding 25 years after the cold war
- Big Pharma — Medicare Part D, ACA both increasing its profits
- Wall Street — and don’t say the minimal Dodd-Frank now being repealed
- The broad corporate interests — instead ALEC gives lawmakers the bills to pass
Clearly I could go on. To answer my own question, the military industry last in the 1950’s, Big Pharma never, Wall Street in the 1930’d, and broad corporate interests in the 1930’s.
Shocking, then, that inequality is at record levels, trillions redistributed from the middle class to the rich, Republicans just yesterday again voting to move hundreds of billions from healthcare to the 1%.
I think it’s good to just point out how crazy it is.