The Supreme Court's recent decisions dealt citizens of the United States two foul balls. One declares corporations as persons, entitled to First Amendment protection. The second foul ball allows Super PACs big pools of unregulated and non traceable funds, to sully the election process by buying media advertising that paints an opposition candidate with lies and distortions. Thus the right leaning court has corrupted the political landscape to a point unimaginable years past. Two billion dollars were spent (mostly coming from Super PACs supporting the right), making this election the most expensive and divisive in US history.
These two outrageous high court opinions have enabled many ultra-right media demagogues (Rush Limbaugh and Anne Coulter) to insinuate that left wing voters are socialists and un-American. Throw into the mix Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's request on the eve of the 2009 election, that every Republican pledge never to support a single piece of legislation the president proposes for fear it would boast his credibility.
Thanks to Mitch and the "tea baggers," the elected legislators on the right have been turned into stone statues. They have put ideology above doing the nations business, as was evident these past years.
Along with unaccountable big money and secret Super PACs, we must live with the Electoral College. In the 2000 election, Al Gore beat George Bush by 500,000 in the popular vote, but he lost the election to Bush in the Electoral College.
Marc Schulman, of History Central, wrote: "The Electoral College was created for two reasons. The first purpose was to create a buffer between population and the selection of a President (Why the buffer?). The second reason for the Electoral College is it is to create a structure of government that gave power to the smaller states. This second reason for the Electoral College was to affect a compromise made at the original Constitutional Convention to satisfy small states." This election arrangement resulted today in handing voters in small states leverage almost equivalent to voter influence in large or medium states. Today, there is a movement among citizens to do away with the Electoral College. It is obsolete and past serving any fairness purpose. It is a discussion worth having.
The Founding Fathers faced the following reality:
a. The thirteen states were of different sizes each jealous of their own rights and powers and suspicious of any central government.
b. The population was a paltry 4,000,000 people spread out over four thousand miles along the Atlantic seaboard with barely any means of communication.
c. Political parties were suspect as being mischievous and down right evil (oh yea).
d. The founders believed a politician should not publicly seek office but should be called to office by the people (Obama and Romney spent two billion dollars).
The political realities today couldn't be more different that 1776.
Here's the best part of this Electoral College story. The model for the Electoral College for choosing a president was taken from the Catholic Church's College of Cardinals, where selecting a Pope fell to the wise men, called Cardinals, on the basis they have the wisdom to know who should lead the church. So too with the Electoral College, where wise men and women, called state electors, can choose who leads the country based on their states vote tally. Be mindful, these wise men and women can and do engage in electoral mischief behind closed doors and invent tricky vote counting schemes. (Hanging chads anyone?)
Politics today has become a blood sport that fractures the population of 300+ million citizens into sub-sets of voters. Each sub-set has their own self interests in mind when they vote. Which, I suppose, is nothing new? Taken as a whole, however we can understand why the political process looks broken.
We are a heterogeneous society made up of many cultures from every coroner of the globe. On the other hand, we are all Americans who seek leaders who are wise. Powerful money influence in this election sought to buy special treatment via their candidate in order to benefit — who knows? They wasted their money (yeah).
In my opinion America has become a corpocracy (a nation run by corporations). In this recent election, big bucks lost, which offers hope that voters (individually) can take back the country. Now all we need are leaders who can govern an enlightened and well-educated people.
