MAKING POLITICAL CHOICES

I am worried about the outcome of this election. The very fact that a conservative might win is supported by the empirical fact that they often win. Look at George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. On face value, this is illogical. There will always be more followers then there are leaders, there will always be more bosses then there are workers, there will always be solders than there are generals, etc. There will always be more Democrats than there are Republicans. This is a social given found in all cultures. In game theory, there will always be more doves than there are hawks. If there were more hawks than there were doves, the Hawks would starve. Conservatives, the individualist among us, are the hawks while the Democrats are the doves. Thus, we established a social equilibrium of sorts by logical means. The doves must out number the hawks; doves must produce many more doves for fewer hawks to eat. As and aside, a clever biologist could establish a precise number of doves it would take to support a given population of hawks.

George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan phenomenon seem counter to this premise. More and more people group themselves in political parties and political parties are becoming more and more defined along the lines of altruism verses conservatism. This is what I refer to as maturing political philosophy. If all of this is true, there should have been no George W. Bush or Ronald Reagan presidency but there was just as there might be a Romney presidency, which a majority of people agree will damage our democracy by creating a plutocracy (hawks) and hurting the middle class (doves) even more then it has been hurt by conservative policies in the past. Why? Why? Why?  Why did (will) the middle class vote them in to office?

I believe there are multiple factors. Not necessarily in the order of importance, the first is election manipulation, which is the easiest to understand. The manipulation is done openly and consists of things like various means of voter suppressing, demolishing funding base while expanding the conservative base (SCOTUS Citizens United Decision), and electoral district gerrymandering. These are techniques used almost exclusively by conservatives. For example, have you ever heard of a democratic move to suppress votes?

The next technique is minority rule. Look at the rules of the senate. The rules of the senate prevent president Obama from appointing judges, for example. One man, Senator Jim DeMint is an extreme radical, can hold the nomination of a presidential appointment. By radical, I mean he will not compromise.  Grover Norquist can use a pledge to cause elected officials to vote according to a radical “no tax agenda”.  If they do vote to raise needed taxes he will use ill-gotten money to mount a campaign against the offender—if not used, he can use the same pot of money to threaten many elected officials.  

The next technique is redistribution of “political” wealth. For example, the Republican Governors Association collects money across the nation to elect a Republican governor in North Carolina, a swing state. We are on the verge of electing a governor who represents the Republican philosophy and not the people of the State of North Carolina. He openly says he will turn the state to big business.

The next techniques if issue obfuscation; this is a Karl Rive specialty. Gay marriage, abortion, race relations, Sharia Law among others are thing that have nothing to do with there central desire, which is they want to form a plutocracy.

Another factor is fairness. Can anyone in his or her right mind think of asking Karl Rove, or any other Republican operative to be fair? Rachel Meadow on MSNBC essentially has only democrats on her show mainly because most republicans will not accept her invitations. When she has a candidate for office on the show and he or she gives their e-mail address, Meadow will give the e-mail address of their opponent, just to be fair. Can anyone imagine FOX news talking heads doing that?

The list factors is long. For example, they will vote for a candidate who is against voter fraud —the implication is that Democrats are for voter fraud—because Karl Rove collected enough money to by TV time to tell them there is voter fraud, even when they know in their heart that there is no such thing.  I happen to believe that people know and understand that these things happen and they are wrong but they overlook them and vote their genes. This is a “default” conclusion because there seems to be no way else to explain what they do.