I think Donald Trump has stumbled on to something. His current heartburn is that, according to him, he's getting screwed out of his rightful Republican presidential nomination. Practically speaking, he's right. Technically speaking, he just got snookered.
The Donald is pissed because he has won the popular vote hands down, yet because of the way each state Republican Party writes their rules...and they are all different...they can award him fewer convention delegates than his popular vote count would suggest he should receive.
Ted Cruz, evil as I believe him to be, is NOT stupid. He knows how to play the game to get what he wants. And it's this corrupt game that Donald Trump has exposed.
Us common folks have naively believed until now that the majority ruled, that our elections were based on "one man, one vote". But now we find out that party nominating processes are not "elections" in the proper, legal sense, but are just a game a bunch of powerful, rich (mostly white) guys play to further feather their nests. They can legally do this because they say the state primaries/caucuses/conventions are NOT elections. The rules of fair play only apply to the official election on the second Tuesday in November. Donald Trump obviously didn't read that memo.
They will NOT give us a candidate we want*, but only the one they want us to have. Trump has exposed how the Republicans operate, but the Democrats no doubt have things rigged, too. (Do "Super Delegates" sound fair to you? It's just their way of denying The People's Candidate if they feel they can't control him/her.)
So why can't we just tell both parties to go f--k themselves and then nominate someone as a third party candidate who will truly represent us? Because again, they have rigged the system and made it virtually impossible for a third party candidate to get their name on the ballot in all 50 states. They have a monopoly, and they intend to keep it that way. All the hoops a third party candidate would have to jump through, with each state (controlled by one or the other of the established parties) setting their own rules, is by their design impossibly Byzantine.
The parties only want to nominate candidates they feel are "one of them". But this year, thanks to Donald Trump and to a lesser extent Bernie Sanders, outsiders are threatening their privileged positions, and both parties are out of desperation exposing their sly little built-in "fail safes".
Our Founding Fathers are no doubt looking down on us and thinking all their brilliant work is now officially down the drain. And they would be right!
S
* Hypothetically speaking. I am in no way intending to endorse Donald Trump.
I try not to comment on politics, though it is difficult.*
ReplyDelete*I am in no way intending to endorse Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton or Ted Cruz.
Fair enough.
DeleteAmerican politics often resembles professional wrestling. We know the fix is in, but we still root for our favorites. Occasionally, a bad guy turns good or a good guy turns bad, just to keep the suckers swerved.
ReplyDeleteWow. I'm pretty cynical today.
Actually, this political process reflects the concern our founding fathers had over the intelligence of voters. We have a representative democracy and an electoral college because the founding fathers were worried about people like Trump and Cruz and their ability to manipulate the public with promises that can't possibly be kept.
ReplyDeleteBut we didn't have entrenched political parties back in our Founding Father's day. In fact, George Washington warned against them.
DeleteIt's the same thing with the Democrats. Bernie won Wyoming but still got outscored in delegates 11-7. The whole "superdelegate" thing is nonsense. It has needed to be dealt with a long time ago but most of the time it doesn't matter because no one's suicidal enough to go against the wishes of the people. But this year might be different as both parties are looking for a "safe" candidate.
ReplyDeleteAnd here you thought Democrats and Republicans couldn't agree or work together on ANYTHING!
ReplyDeleteIf we had a strong third party, the vote would probably be divided about in three. Then your winner would get elected with only a third of the votes cast. You can't believe that would be better than what we have now.
ReplyDeleteBill Clinton vs Bush and Perot had about a third of the popular votes, and he didn't do so bad. I think I'd take my chances.
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