All Men (Voters) Are Created Equal, NOT

The Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and US Constitution, define our system of government and are among the pillars upon which our government was founded.  The goals and ambitions outlined within these documents over 240 years ago were laudable.  The Declaration of Independence states, “…all men are created equal…” and this idea is embodied within our case law by a legal philosophy known as declarationism.

Declaration of Independence

It is a common misconception that the United States is a democracy.  We are, in fact, a constitution based Federal republic with certain democratic policies and traditions.  “We The People” don’t vote and create laws directly but have electors who are responsible for making decisions and creating laws.  All that being said, it was the intent of the founding fathers that all men, and later women, would have the ability to select their representatives.  It was also their intent to allow “The People” to select individuals to represent them who would make decisions in their best interests and/or the interests of the country as a whole.  The authors of our founding documents had just recently declared their freedom from a Monarchial system and wanted to insure that the will of the people would prevail.

What our founding fathers failed to anticipate was a financial take-over of our Republic.  While the handwriting has been on the wall for many administrations, Democratic and Republican, our most recent presidential incarnation has managed to throw caution to the wind and to test the legality of what we thought we knew to be fact.  We now realize that some things were just tradition, common sense, or morally sensible guidelines, but not explicitly written into law.  President Trump has now tested the waters and has decided to make waves.  Moreover, these are not to be little waves, these will be Big League waves (or Bigly if you prefer).

President Trump didn’t create this mess; he merely took advantage of our corrupt system.  Our congressional leaders have been complicit for decades in creating an environment where a man of Donald Trump’s demeanor could use his spinning moral compass to steer our country into turmoil.  Perhaps we owe President Trump a vote of thanks for pointing out the frailties of our system of government, perhaps not.  In any case, the devil is in the details, as well as the White House.

For decades, our elected officials had followed one “Prime Directive” to use a Star Trek reference, and that is that their main goal in office is to get re-elected.  In order to get re-elected they need to raise money, lots of money.  When “lots of money” flows to a politician, that money buys influence, access, and allows the donors to get laws written that favor them as individuals or corporations.  Prior to the Citizens United, v. Federal Election Commission ruling of 2010, the amount of money and hence influence, was restricted.  There were limits set that, even allowing for a few loopholes, kept gross corruption in check.  Now, money rules the day.  Money doesn’t just talk; money yells and screams with a bullhorn that is not to be ignored.

You would think that our system of elections would allow us to just vote out of office any individual who, through their legislative actions or misdeeds, didn’t mirror the will of the people.  In theory, this would be true.  However, when large quantities of cash and other items of value are involved, elections and politicians can be easily corrupted.

Money buys gerrymandered voting districts where the voting influence of large groups of voters is minimized or muted.  Money buys election laws that keep specific people or groups of people from voting.  Money buys media access to influence those who do vote.  In essence, money is used to buy legislation that favors individuals/corporations with the money.  The legislation enacted in exchange for money makes these donor individuals and corporations even wealthier.  It is a self-perpetuating process.

We can follow your moral compass as long as
it doesn't interfere with my financial GPS

As part of our concept of state’s rights, election laws vary rather widely.  This may be somewhat acceptable when selecting a state Senator, state Representative, or when voting on a statewide initiative or referendum.  On the other hand, national elections, i.e., presidential elections, should have a singular national standard.

Our presidential election process should be uniform in concept and execution across the nation.  It should not be a “state’s right” to decide who, how, when, and under what circumstances an individual can vote at the presidential level and how those votes are calculated and used in the process.  The Electoral College should be abolished as its original purpose and intent has long been negated.  As a practical matter the abolition of the Electoral College would be extremely difficult.

The first reason given for the existence of the Electoral College is that the voting public can't be trusted to always make informed critical decisions.  While it is conceivable that voters in the 18^th century might not have had access to the information that would let them avoid the election of a manipulative tyrant, one might argue that this very process is today, partly responsible for accomplishing that same feared outcome.

The second reason for the Electoral College’s existence was to provide smaller states with more influence in the election outcome than they would have if one person equaled one vote.  By way of example, [note, numbers are not current], Wyoming has 3 electoral votes for only 210,000 voters (1 electoral vote per 70,000) and California has 54 electoral votes for 9,700,000 voters (1 electoral vote per 180,000).  This means that each Wyoming voter is worth over two times as much, in the election of our president, than a voter in California is.  The principal of one-person one vote is thus negated.  To further complicate matters, the “winner takes all” concept of the Electoral College, which is a 19^th century invention, makes it easy for an individual to win the presidency without receiving the majority of votes.  Currently Maine and Nebraska are the only two states who do not use a “winner takes all” process.

Democrats won the popular vote six of last seven elections
but the presidency only four of those times

Currently ten states and the District of Columbia have signed the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact where they would abolish the “winner takes all” concept.  Their respective electoral representatives would be required to vote for whomever wins the popular vote in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. This group currently (2017) represents 165 electoral votes.  They need to reach 270 electoral votes before the Pact would change the system.

Inequality in America is further exacerbated by education, or a lack thereof.  While a good quality education should be a right of all people (along with healthcare), the rich get better educations than do poor people.  As we have seen more recently, the wealthy class in America has also managed to rob the monies we currently spend for education in the public sector and have diverted it to private schools.

The old adage that was designed to keep women under the control of men referenced “keeping them barefoot and pregnant.”  The new desire of the wealthy to wield financial power over their perceived lessors seems to be, “keep them poor and ignorant.”

The need for keeping a large sector ignorant or under-educated helps the rich get richer.  How else could you sell a tax plan where you give poor (and many not so poor) people a small temporary break in their taxes while giving yourselves a massive tax break through both personal income and corporate revisions which are mostly permanent.  You are doing all of this while raising the national debt and putting the financial burden for these breaks on future generations.  The uninformed poor myopically see a current small reduction in their taxes.  They fail to see the possible offsetting losses in the form of other taxes, fees and expenses (like healthcare), not to mention the future burden of the national debt.  They also fail to see that the very wealthy will get the biggest break of all, at their expense.

Without a certain constituent base that is poorly educated how can you, with a straight face, promise the return of jobs that are never to return?  (Trump speech Nevada, Feb 24, 2016, “...I love the poorly educated.”)  Coal is dead.  Small retail is dead.  Large retail is dying.  Mundane manufacturing jobs are being automated.  This is not Fake News.  Educated people know this.

Our mutual goals as a “want-to-be Democracy” should be to:

• ·        Eliminate the Electoral College or at least the “winner takes all” process.
• ·        Institute term limits for all members of congress
• ·        Establish official sites and sources for validated election information
• ·        Eliminate gerrymandering of voting districts
• ·        Vote independently for both the President and Vice-presidential positions
• ·        Establish uniform election laws for presidential elections
• ·        Demand annual full financial disclosure for all political positions on the national stage

The fact that Russia interfered with our last election and managed to have at least some perhaps never to be determined impact, is not disputed by reasonable observers.  It will be difficult to lessen this impact in future elections but we should at least strive to keep the process as clean and fair as possible.

Russian "Wedgie"

If you are among those who support the Republican Party, I would think that nothing proposed in the bullets above would be contrary to anything in your party’s declared platform.  If you are a Democrat, I would think these changes would be welcome.  If you are dissatisfied with the current administration, nothing here will change the situation.  You may however take some solace in the knowledge that, with his penchant for Big Macs, fries, strawberry shakes, diet Cokes, and buckets of KFC fried chicken, President Trump may not be long for this world.  

Be careful what you wish for however, Vice President Pence is a “whole other bucket of worms.”