Friday, November 18, 2016

Resisting the Despot

I'm no fan of the Clinton dynasty or its dismal neoliberal politics. But something needs to be said not just today, but re-said every single day for the next four years.

The American people voted by a margin of 1.4 million (http://cookpolitical.com/story/10174) for Clinton and not the Despot. (Note this margin is going to increase, since votes are still being counted.)

The margin of the Clinton victory is now around 1.1% of the vote.

More than a million Americans have been disenfranchised by an 18th century electoral system designed to safeguard the rule of slave-owners.

When you vote for your mayor or governor, is your vote thrown out because you just happen to live in a specific neighborhood? Of course not.

What's shameful is that this is the second time this has happened in 16 years. George W. Bush became President in 2000, despite losing the popular vote.

Now it's happened again.

In the year 2016, suffrage -- THE RIGHT TO VOTE -- has become a radical political demand.

But wait, there's more. The awfulness of the Electoral College is just the tip of the iceberg.
 The American political system is completely and utterly broken.

Our Senate elections are horribly undemocratic, because California's 38.8 million citizens get two senators, while Wyoming's 0.6 million citizens also get two Senators. That's right, the residents of Wyoming have 64 times the senatorial influence as Californians.

Our elections for Congressional Representatives are deeply undemocratic, due to the sleazy gerrymandering of districts (they're carved up to benefit each party) as well as a first-past-the-post system of elections which makes third, fourth and fifth parties impossible.

And the entire process is dominated by $6.4 billion in campaign spending by plutocrats, a river of cash spent on giant media monopolies whose business model is selling ads instead of telling the truth.

If you ever wondered why the Despot (because he didn't win the election) hates Mexicans so much and wants to build a giant wall, it's not really about race. It's because Mexico, like nearly all other modern democracies, has a reasonably sane system of electoral votes and proportional representation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_the_Union).

It's not a wall to keep out people. It's a wall to keep out the very idea of democracy.

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