Killing Democracy

If you've read my posts recently, you know that in all of recorded human history the powerful have one aim, and that is to stay in power. That's why conservatism is always inextricably linked to those in power, and progressivism to those without power. In other words: when you're in power, you want things to stay the same and fight back against any threat of change.

The way we see this age old struggle against the heralds of change play out today is unprecedented in modern history. Elizabeth Warren and others openly said about the 2016 primary elections that they were rigged against Bernie Sanders; now, in 2020, we don't need anyone to say it, as the establishment openly sets aside everything else, even the future of their own party, to stop Bernie Sanders from becoming the Democratic nominee. And it's not just the Democratic establishment; healthcare stocks surging after Joe Biden's victory on Super Tuesday is a clear indication that ALL establishments want to stop Bernie. They all want to stop real change, as they've been successful in doing for decades now. There's no such thing as "trickle-down change" just like there's no such thing as "trickle-down economy"; money and power tend to stick at the top of the social pyramid. If you feel like your vote hasn't made a difference in recent decades, you're right, and I've just sketched why.

The Republicans are the conservatives; they are traditionally and in the voters' minds the party of the powers that be, a Grand Old Party for Grand Old (white) Men, so to speak. No one is surprised that they are keen on keeping things the way they are, and that's why the suppression of democracy is traditionally linked to that party. But is that fair? What have Democrats done to fight back against the suppression of democracy? The answer is: nothing. With all their lamenting about Russian bots and leaked emails costing Hillary Clinton the 2016 elections, they are suspiciously silent when it comes to domestic voter suppression and vote rigging. In fact, voter suppression might be part of the explanation why Joe Biden won so convincingly on Super Tuesday; in California and, more seriously and importantly, Texas there were waiting times of up to 7 hours to be able to cast a ballot. Seven hours. At some polling stations extra voting machines were brought in due to the long waiting times.

What's interesting, but shouldn't surprise you if you're aware of the dynamics of power throughout human history, is that voter suppression is aimed specifically against the poor and marginalized minorities, exactly the constituencies that want change to better their lifes, and not coincidentally also the constituencies that support this primary election's only change candidate, Bernie Sanders. In 2020 the ongoing fight against the democratic threat of change has become the fight against Sanders. Here's what happened in Texas:

Across Texas, 750 polling stations had closed since 2012, meaning that voters have to travel farther to vote. Some polling stations were expected to serve more than 10,000 people. And a Guardian analysis found that the vast majority of the state’s poll site closures were in districts where the black and Latinx population is growing the most.

In particular, the 50 counties that gained the most Black and Latinx residents between 2012 and 2018 closed 542 polling sites, the analysis found. This is compared to just 34 closures in the 50 counties that have gained the fewest black and Latinx residents.The former saw a total population increase of 2.5 million people, compared to the latter's decrease in population by more than 13,000.
_{source: The Hill}

This is yet another way that the odds are stacked against Sanders and, by extension, against democracy and the will of the people. Closing polling stations to make it difficult to vote for targeted constituencies is just one strategy in the war against change; there are many more. For example: 1 in 5 votes is cast on an electronic voting machine. We know from previous elections how utterly hackable those are, but that's not even the main problem. The problem is that there's simply no way for voters to be sure that their vote is counted, and for the right candidate. Some of the machines provide voters with a paper printout of their vote with their choices written on the paper, but that written name is not what's processed. The machine also prints a PROPRIETARY QR code or bar-code and those are counted, not the written names, and there's no way to check if your choice is encoded correctly; watch the linked videos for more on that. Then there's many ways that provisional ballots are mixed up with real ballots, having to scroll down to even see all the candidates when not everybody is aware that this is a possibility and many more "soft" strategies to diminish the people's power to have a say in the way the country is governed. When we look close at these elections, it's amazing that America, as a nation, still proudly calls itself THE best democracy on Earth, that they think they can tell other nations what democracy is and how it should be implemented.

If you feel that Biden's victory on Super Tuesday was suspiciously overwhelming, I'm with you. It was too big of a win and too much of an overnight change; after Sanders' crushing victory, friends and foes alike named him the presumptive front runner. Especially after Biden's complete failure to impress on the debate stage or in the early primaries. The unification of the party establishment around Biden came very late, at the last possible moment because none of them trusted him to be able to win against Trump. But if losing the elections means they can have four more years of no change, they'd rather risk losing the elections. And they will stop at nothing to reach that singular unchanging goal of hanging on to power. The Democratic party is unworthy of the word Democracy in their title; at this very moment they are in the process of changing the debate rules for the upcoming debate between Sanders and Biden on March 15, to benefit Biden of course. In 2016 they gave Hillary Clinton the questions she had to answer before the debate, giving her an unfair advantage; what will they come up with now?

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