There are two reasons why Republicans, even with their increasing extremist base, continue to win local elections: biased money infusion, and state laws that selectively impact voter turnout. Both of those MUST be undone by 2016 or a type of critical mass of laws and money might very well make it impossible to get the traction needed to reverse the momentum.
The more small (local) elections one party wins, the more laws they pass locally that help guarantee they win national elections. The Republican Party has successfully and legally manipulated the American political system. There’s a small time window to undo that damage before there is too much money and too many laws in place that will guarantee one-party control of the United States.
Democrats and Independents: with organization the likes of which never accomplished before, you need to undo those two major problems with how American Democracy now functions. If they don’t, it’s going to be ugly for a very long time.
It’s time to start planning ahead. This is not just an anti-republican part rant. This is an anti-single party rant. It would be just as bad if the Democratic Party manipulated the system this much. We cannot allow more laws and more money to create the one-party system that the republicans are trying to create.
If you actually believe in Democracy (with a capital D), even republicans should be fighting against what’s happening as well – everyone should. Democracy is not about rigging the system, which is exactly what’s been systematically happening.
While it’s still somewhat hard to tell, unless the Mitt Romney campaign performs a few miracles, coupled with the Obama campaign messing things up royally, by November 6th, Obama / Biden will have the White House for a second term. However, what’s happening in Congress, the Senate, and the states are either up for debate, or on a scary note, the Democratic Party basically concedes that they cannot rebalance the power in most of the states because of the polarization that exists between between the culture taught in the red vs. blue states.
Being part of a political party has become more a part of one’s cultural identity than it is an activity in one’s community. People take proud ownership of being a “red state” or “blue state” resident. If you’re born inside red or blue… that’s what you’re taught just as much as local dialects or local community history. As such, red will always be red, and blue will always be blue (without more education, more forced travelling, and less cable news, anyway).
Given the cultural-political gridlock, red states pass laws that benefit their party nationally, and blue states, to their credit, have mostly still embraced the idea that everyone should vote even if they don’t agree with them (how novel). Citizens United opened the flood gates or biased money to run political campaigns, and everyone is now off to the races to get as much control as possible, because once you have all the power, it is VERY difficult to lose it.
The challenge is, of course, how do we as a country undo these things? Many aspects are laws that can be repealed, or in the case of Citizens United (as I understand it), by passing a new law or amending the constitution. On the campaign finance reform topic, we as a citizens should be astonished by our total lack of action on that one. No one I have ever met (besides one person who is wealthier than Mitt Romney is), *virtually* no one thinks that allowing companies… including foreign companies to control 90% of the dialog in an election because they are giving 90% of the money is a good idea. Everyone would prefer that our campaigns weren’t flooded with special interest money… but no one does a damn thing about it. Politicians can’t because they’re already indebted to that money. Regular people have to do it.
Hell, if every American on Facebook told Congress to fix the Citizens United problem, say, once a week… that might be all it would take. Imagine a couple hundred million messages posted every week… at least it might get their attention and then SOMETHING would be done.
State laws are also a vital part of this equation. Money is not quite as much of a factor, but I might likely be wrong in that when we look at Wisconsin and all the outside money that came into the Scott recall campaign. What matters locally is getting lazy American’s off their asses and voting every time there is an election. If you’re too lazy, get a mail-in ballot, then sit down, read the issues and vote with at least two hour’s worth of self-education on the issues under your belt. That’s a start. Repealing all of the “voter fraud” fraudulent laws needs to happen as well, aggressively. This is not because I’m shouting that it disproportionally impacts minorities who tend to vote for democrats (which it does), but more so because a party passing laws that restrict peoples’ right to vote is just about the worst thing a political party can do as an organized endeavor. It’s clearly to stay in control, we’ve already heard many republicans admit it. Study after study prove that there is NOT a voter fraud problem. It’s cheating, basically, is what it is. Republican voter ID laws are like putting money in the Cayman Islands to avoid taxes: technically it’s legal, but it’s sour, selfish, and soulless.
Time to plan ahead: if you don’t want to live in a country that is controlled by one party: get the money out, and undo all the voter restriction laws by 2016.
