Dear Mr/Mme President, Speaker of the House, Vice President.
I am writing to you today because the country has a problem. I am able (by some enlightened sense) to see the problem with some clarity, and the solutions. Why, or how I am able to do this, I don’t know, but in as much as our government, seems to have had some trouble understanding these issues, I shall share with you my wisdom. You’ll be amazed at how really simple it all is.
To whit:
The biggest elephant in the room today is literally, the Elephant.
As you must have noticed, the lumbering pachyderm symbol that has represented the Republican Party since 1860 is no longer content with winning office every few years, depleting the treasury, enriching their donors, and crashing the economy. The beast has grown teeth and horns, and has decided that power is a wonderful thing to have, and, to keep. Forever. Forever power, being so much better for business. Yes….they want power forever. And they will do everything they can to achieve it, literally cheat, steal, and lie ..unless democracy stops them.
How did this happen, and do we stop them?
I’ll boil it down to four main things.
- Money out of politics.
It’s not “lobbying”. Elected officials must spend most of their time fund raising, instead of serving their constituents. You can see how this might get out of hand. There are some politicians who are in office to serve…themselves. Get money out of politics. It’s not lobbying, it’s bribery, graft, corruption. I’m an ordinary, not wealthy US citizen, who’s my lobbyist? Federally fund elections. Outlaw “lobbying”.
2a. Elections oversight.
We know that there is corruption certain states and the way they conduct elections. Voter purging, reducing the number of voting locations, and other ways of undermining voting in Democratic districts must stop.
It’s not 1799. We are not so many small, autonomous states, but a huge, unified country. If there is not universal fairness in voting, depending on what party is counting the votes, then it’s time to federally regulate elections. Eliminating the Electoral College would solve this problem, which leads to…
2b. End the Electoral College. Make federally elections decided by popular vote.
Four Presidents have been elected by Electoral College vote, but losing the popular vote. ALL REPUBLICANS. It’s no surprise they want to preserve that antiquated system.
As we all know, Republicans benefit from low voter turnout, while Democrats benefit from HIGH voter turnout. That is all we need to know about the political makeup of the country.
A popular vote election would streamline the election process, results would be decided faster, and would make election fraud impossible.
3. Media. The media (especially broadcast media) is a monopoly (or trust, if you will) run by six corporations, with conservative/billionaire serving agendas. This is where the lies, misinformation, disinformation, and talking points are spawned, and disseminated. Behold the propaganda cycle:
1.A ”News” network tells a lie,
2.The lie becomes chatter on social media, in lunch rooms, and happy hours.
3.That same “news” network then, after a day or two, airs a segment on “what people are chatting about”.
4. When called out on the lie, the “news” channel makes a retraction, but it doesn’t matter, the original lie is dispersed, and readily consumed by the sycophant audience.
We used to call this propaganda.
The Progressive/Democratic message must fight a headwind of propaganda and disinformation. For many people the lie will be more exciting than the truth. Indeed, to them it IS the truth. It’s a world turned upside down, they no longer can distinguish truth from lies.
Break up the media monopolies. Reinstate the Fairness Doctrine that Reagan removed.
Create a BBC style news channel where trusted, fact based news is broadcast without commentary, and freely on all media platforms.
4. Education I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that public schools are in decline in this country. REPUBLICANS BENEFIT FROM AN UNDER EDUCATED POPULATION. It’s no wonder that while Republicans in Congress may agree with this assessment, their solution (or agenda) Is privatized education. On the surface this sounds fine enough, until you realize that it would precludes a large chunk of our children from an education, if their families cannot afford it. Worse, privately run schools are free to have curriculums that favor a political, or religious ideology. Republicans know what they’re doing when they decry the fails of public education, then offer up private schools as the solution. They are overtly WEAKENING PUBLIC EDUCATION TO FURTHER THEIR RIGHT WING INDOCTRINATION AGENDA.
Public funding for public, and higher education will strengthen democracy, and insure a free thinking, informed, and more curious population.
There are more, but the likelihood of even having those first four issues addressed, is…not likely.
But Americans have to decide, before it’s too late….what kind of society are we? Are we going to be a theocracy, neofascist (corporate profit over people), or an equal, and fair democracy?
If we can not trust the voting, or if everybody is not allowed to vote, or if our representatives serve billionaires more readily than their constituents, we will not have a democracy today, and for our children.
I’m finished.
Thank you.
Rick Illes