(This turned into an unexpectedly long posting; my perfunctory apologies.)
There is no election happening this year. What do I mean? I mean that it’s not a campaign to select the best qualified with the best agenda to move the country forward in the best way. Nope… it’s a campaign of lies, anger, BS, illiteracy, anti-intellectualism, over-competitiveness and mostly heavily loaded disinformation, designed to coerce (mostly unconsciously) you into electing their candidate.
He’s certainly not my candidate, who ever he/she/it/them is, since none of the parties give the voters the chance to pick the party’s candidate. I get to vote for whom ever I dislike the least, from among what the parties finally offer, (Yeah yeah; there’s the primary process which is supposed to address that, but… well, that’s another article, some time.) Very often the candidate I was actually in favor of doesn’t “get the nomination.”
But the torrential storm of disinformation, lies, propaganda (partially pushed by Russia and China, and who knows how many other government-financed operations around the world, now that the technique’s been demonstrated as highly effective — and why isn’t/wasn’t that regarded as an Act of War? Why weren’t both parties utterly incensed by Putin’s manipulations of the voting process? Why weren’t you?) … all this turns it not into an election, but a titanic chaos with voters reacting instead of responding, because, frankly, there’s nothing to respond to; one can only react to such Noise.
All that disinformation… it’s like “partially hydrogenated vegetable protein” on a food ingredients label: you have no idea what that means. It might mean MSG, it might be something else. It can mean almost anything, in fact. Same here. All the rhetoric, all the commercials, all the mud-slinging… all the promises might mean something and might not, but we can’t tell. We have no way to know, because there’s no requirement to Speak Only Truth in a campaign. Who wants to elect a liar to High Office? Gadzooks!
How you react to all this (not respond) is the only choice you have: rotten candidate A, rotten candidate B, all the unknown candidates from the 23 other parties who get no air time because the two Big Parties in this country don’t allow the others to actually play (which is illegal, if you think on it). That’s not a choice; that’s a Power Block.
Wouldn’t it be nice it voting ballots had a “none of the above” option on them? I think it would force the parties to quit goofing around and actually get back to work for the People. Or it might end up making the parties obsolete, and wouldn’t that be nice?
Without a “none of the above” I don’t get to voice my utter and total disgust with the candidates. I mean, what if none of the candidates, in my opinion (which is what the voting thing is all about, right?) are qualified? What if it’s my opinion that none of them should be allowed anywhere near that office?
I don’t get to say so… that’s a serious hole in the system. Don’t you think?
Further, the presidential election takes attention away from all those Local Races that are actually far more important to you personally than the Presidency could ever be. How many of you even know your city, county, state and federal representatives? They matter to your actual, daily life. The Presidency almost never does, not any more, because of the dead-lock between the two power blocks. The problem with a two party system is that eventually is ends up in a stalemate [zero sum game, it’s called], as it has. No way out of it.
My suggestion on this swampy conundrum? Vote the person. Do your own research on each candidate. Don’t listen to the major news channels on “election coverage” as they are running their own agendas and making their own mistakes around all that. Try to find articles from reputable services about the people, their backgrounds, their job histories… those are the things that matter more and are more indicative of what they’re likely to do when they get into office.
The only solution is for YOU to participate. By participate I do not mean join a party, or go door-to-door or get all Missionary about your favorite candidate (though it might mean those things; that’s your choice). I am no longer a fan of political parties, and “coercion” is not “convincing” and leads only to disaster. The party ends up serving itself, not the voters it derives its power from. I mean do your own thinking. Do your own research (that does NOT mean listening to any of the predigested news outlets), and find the candidate likely to do the best job in your opinion, or likely to do the least harm. In between, write letters (letters, not emails; they get higher priority attention — emails are too easy to write), pay attention to the bills and laws being proposed and look into your Right to Recall your representatives when they are no longer representing you. That also can break up power blocks, by the way.
Don’t vote the way your spouse orders you to, nor your Minister suggests (what’s he doing discussing politics in the first place?), nor your brother, nor your… anybody. Vote your own way. Don’t vote the way Johnny Depp or Annette Benning vote [just examples; not picking on them in anyway]. None of them are political professionals and have probably have no more data than you do, and may have less! Vote your own way. It means: vote for the person you want in office, even if that’s a write-in candidate.
Too much work? Well… that’s the price of Freedom, whether it’s called Democracy or a Constitutional Republic or something else; your participation is required. Give that up, and you get… well, take a look around you. That’s what you get when you don’t participate.
It’s not too late to fix it. But I’ll tell you what: if it isn’t fixed soon, it will get replaced. The forces of History are like that. You may not like what it gets replaced with. History tends to be like that, too. I think we’re right on the edge; I also think it’s not too late to bring it back, fixed and working better than ever.
Your choice.