I wish I could have taken credit for writing an article I just read: The presidential primary scam: Why the game is rigged, and why true democracy is only a secondary factor in the nation’s rush to nominate the next president. [1] The author is Michael Scherer. Here a taste of the article:
The whole stinking process was designed by dead men in smoky parlors and refined by faceless bureaucrats in hotel conference rooms. It is a nasty brew born of those caldrons of self-interest known as political parties. At every stage, advantage is parceled out like so much magic potion.
. . . This election cycle, a top Democratic candidate shaking someone’s hand in Miami before the end of January is breaking the rules, unless that someone is handing the candidate a check at the same time. To put it another way, Democrats’ communicating with voters has been barred in Florida, but taking money from voters is OK. To put it a third way, the system is not only irrational but offensive to the nation’s most basic values. “The only way that you can hear a candidate campaign is if you are willing to pay a campaign contribution,” explains Steven Geller, Florida’s exasperated state Senate Democratic leader. “It is astounding.”
They don’t teach all of this in school, because even a fourth-grader would get up from his desk and walk out of the classroom in protest.
The devil is in the details and this article provides plenty of details.
Here a meta-aside. Have you ever seen a parent dealing with an obstreperous three-year old? A time-tested parent trick is to offer the child trivial choices, making the child believe that she is empowered with regard to the endeavor (“Would you like to clean your room before lunch or after lunch?”). The trick is that the choices function as distractions, whereas the basic outcome is fixed from the get go.
It’s the same thing with voting. By the time Election Day rolls around, all of the deal-making has already occurred, much of it according to Byzantine political party procedures detailed by this article. By the way, political parties are not even mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. Good luck voting for a candidate who doesn’t ally himself with a political party. The bottom line is that you get to vote for this corporate money corrupted candidate or that corporate money corrupted candidate. It’s your choice! That is the essence of the “freedom” to vote, that you have a choice that is not much of a choice at all.
Why isn’t it a wide open field? Because the whole process is corrupted by money [2] (And see here [3] and here [4]). And because most highly qualified people want nothing to do with politics. [5] And because even good people can be swift-boated into ignominy. [6] I recently disparaged the belief in free will. [7] The faux vote is a good example of how things feel wide open free when they are anything but (I can vote for this candidate or that one or I can throw away my vote on a write-in candidate). The political system treats adult voters like three-year-olds.
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