America’s Elections Are Rigged, But Not In The Way Trump Thinks

Trump is right to say that American elections are rigged, but they are rigged in completely different ways than he asserts. The very fact that a racist, misogynistic, lying, fascist like Trump could make it as far as he has in a supposedly democratic election lays bare the lie that there is some kind of conspiracy against him. Wall Street and the military/industrial/media complex would have no ideological problem with a Trump presidency, except for the little fact that the man is crazy enough to blow up the world.

Our elections are rigged, but the victims of this reality are not white billionaires, as abhorrent as they may be. The true victims are leftists, minorities, the poor, the middle class…well, basically 99 percent of all Americans. Elections are rigged to support the agenda of the .01 percent, the wealthiest of the wealthy. A recent study that came out of Princeton University found that policies and laws enacted by Congress overwhelming benefit the richest individuals and organizations. In the summary they conclude, “Despite seemingly strong empirical support in previous studies for theories of majoritarian democracy, our analysis suggests that majorities of the American public have little influence over the policies our government adopts.”

Unlike the vague assertions of Trump, there is plenty of concrete evidence to show that the deck is stacked against most Americans when it comes to who gets into office and who doesn’t. Here are a few examples.

Money. Money is the lifeblood of politics in America. If you have it, you get a place at the table, if you don’t have it, you don’t exist. Feeble attempts have been made in the past to try and curb the influence of money in our elections, but they have been ignored, repealed or subverted, and the buying power of the wealthiest few remains intact. Nothing has done more to corrupt the democratic process than the power wielded by the .01 percent to buy politicians and influence policies. Of course, it is a Catch 22 situation. Politicians who have benefited from the current system feel no obligation to change the status quo, despite its disastrous ramifications for democracy.

Gerrymandering: States have been gerrymandering voting districts for a very long time to favor a particular party’s chances, but things have taken a turn for the worse over the past twenty years as ultra-conservative Tea Party members have won governorships and state houses around the country. From Rick Scott in Florida to Scott Walker in Wisconsin to John Kasich in Ohio, Republican governors and state senators have been working overtime to disenfranchise minority voters who traditionally vote Democratic. Courts are now starting to fight back, but the practice continues and serves to distort the balance of power, and will of the people, around the country.

The Two-Party System: It’s no conspiracy theory to say the Republican and Democratic parties have a stranglehold on politics in America. The problems with this are obvious and numerous. As we’ve seen, third party attempts to gain legitimacy have gone down in flames time and time again. The two major parties are elaborate, firmly established machines that no upstart party can begin to compete with financially or in any other way. The result is a field of candidates who are more closely tied to party ideology and mega-donors than the American people. New voices and new ideas are discouraged and the big winner is always the status quo. Even within the two parties, there is little room for dissent, and a candidate as popular as Bernie Sanders is quickly dismissed to the sidelines by the party’s power brokers.

Electronic voting machines. This is a controversial one, but we do know a few things for sure: It has been demonstrated more than once that it is relatively easy to hack these machines and flip votes. There is also strong evidence that this has in fact happened at polling places around the country in elections since these machines were introduced. Voters have seen their votes change before their eyes and results from electronic machines have differed wildly from exit polls, most often helping Republican candidates. What many people don’t realized is that these voting machines are privately owned by corporations that keep their proprietary software secret and away from public scrutiny, so there is no way to verify the accuracy of the vote after the fact.

So yes, Donald, you’re right, America’s elections are rigged, but you are not the victim. The American people are the big losers here.

The California Primary Debacle: A Must See Documentary

If you are still under the illusion that your vote counts in an American election, I urge you to take 40 minutes out of your day and watch the short documentary "Uncounted." This doc looks at the myriad ways in which California voters were thwarted at the polls, and how (surprise!) it all seemed to benefit Hillary Clinton. It should be shocking to anyone to learn about how unprepared volunteers are at polling places to answer even the simplest questions, to see how many registered voters were given provisional ballots that weren't counted that Tuesday, to try to comprehend how confusing some of the rules were and how frustrating all of this was for voters.

And the scariest part of all this is that this scenario was probably played out in other states as well. Our system of voting in America is not merely antiquated and confusing, it is being clearly manipulated in a variety of ways, through voter suppression tactics, hacked and corrupted voting machines, and partisan players within each state's voting hierarchy. I hope "Uncounted" disturbs you, because it should. We cannot let this stand.

Anatomy of a Primary: Sanders Got Screwed

To the surprise of no one who supported Bernie Sanders during his primary run, analysis of the voting results by researchers (including a paper by Axel Geijsel of Tilburg University, The Netherlands and Rudolfo Cortes Barragan of Stanford University) show clearly that Sanders was the victim of a rigged system. From our corporate media that virtually ignored Sanders during the early months of his campaign to the Democratic National Committee’s shameless crowning of Clinton long before the votes were counted to the shady dealings of state democratic parties (such as California’s) that aggressively worked to disenfranchise Sanders voters, the deck was stacked against Bernie from the moment he made his announcement to run for the nomination.

While the press was giving the buffoon Donald Trump billions of dollars in free media exposure, it was ignoring Sanders and the huge, enthusiastic crowds he was drawing all across America. My friends, no one has to tell you that this is not how a democracy works.

Related to this is a documentary I just watched this morning called “Spin.” It was made in 1995, but the theme of how the media manipulates the message is as relevant as ever. The filmmaker who made Spin took a very interesting and revealing approach to his subject matter. I didn’t know this, and I don’t know if it’s still true today, but in 1995, you could use a satellite dish to download feeds of raw video taken during television broadcasts of breaks and downtime not edited for broadcast. For example, the Larry King Show was huge in the nineties, and there are numerous clips of Larry talking to guests during commercial breaks.

Anyway, these off-air segments are very revealing in several ways. They clearly show how our news is both overtly and subtly managed, slanted and sanitized for consumption, often not by outright propaganda, but by what’s omitted. The news we see on television is the news the networks and cable companies want us to see to be good little zombie consumers. Spin also shows how political handlers help politicians “spin” uncomfortable topics or questions as they are coached during breaks. And the documentary exposes the sycophantic relationship between television personalities and politicians. Larry King practically polished George HW Bush’s shoes during an interview.

In the twenty years since Spin was released, the news has gone from bad to worse, democracy in America has died and the possibility exists that Donald Trump could become President of the United States. Have a nice day.

I Understand the Futility of Voting in a Rigged System

So this morning I went through the motions of voting.  I say, “went through the motions” because yesterday, one of the major news services made the announcement that, based on information from the nefarious and undemocratic Superdelegates, Hillary Clinton had wrapped up the Democratic nomination for the Presidency. The announcement, timed conveniently the Monday night before the California and other primaries, is one more example of the political establishment hijacking the democratic process to essentially install their candidate as the nominee.

This Presidential campaign cycle has already shown a glaring light on our broken electoral system. Yes there’s Donald Trump, but the problems I’m talking about are systemic issues that run across party lines to rig the election in favor of America’s elites, whatever their party. This campaign season the DNC has pulled out all the stops to assure Wall Street, K Street and every street lined with multi-million dollar homes that they will have one of their own sitting in the White House come January.  The one percent can let out a sigh of relief knowing it will be business as usual for the next four years under Clinton, that greed will be rewarded and short-term profits over long-term stability will still be the order of the day.

The only hope is that the Sanders revolution will continue rolling on past the election, and that it will have energized young people to stay in the trenches and fight for progressive ideals and candidates. We need to cultivate younger candidates to run for offices at all levels of government around the country and start making inroads into the old boy’s network that has a stranglehold on our democratic institutions. Had this been a truly democratic election, Sanders would have won, but the fight can’t stop here in defeat, but must move on and grow stronger and smarter for the next battle.