Okay...this'll be one of THOSE threads/rants again. Sorry, but it's a necessary one. You can always choose to not continue reading. 
Okay...You've all heard of the accusations of Russians messing with the last presidential election. Whether that's true or not has been discussed to death (contributions gladly taken in this thread). But I'm currently reading through Bernie Sander's last book, and the more I read, the more I see this Russian influence incident as something minor (even assuming that it's true to begin with). The real danger comes from a totally different corner. A democracy explicitly means "a society ruled by the people". And the more I read, the more I agree with Sanders that at this point, the USA resembles an oligarchy (meaning: it's ruled by corporations) more than a democracy.
Only two candidates
Let's start with the elephant in the room: the people can only vote for one of two candidates. Thus far, I sort of assumed that this was only an implicit end result. With a country the size of the USA, there is no escaping the fact if you want to be elected president, you have to get a team and a campaign together and travel the country to convince people. This costs a lot of money and requires political backing, which I assumed was the reason that candidates first get their CV in either political party before actually running for president.
However...Sanders was an independent (in fact, he has the record of longest sitting independent in the government). The reason he ran for the democrats wasn't because he wasn't a fan of the party - in fact, he had some harsh criticism on 'em - but because traditional media apparently treat independent presidential candidates as though they don't exist(1). End result: for as long as traditional media remain the dominant news source, they decide which party they'll report as having presidential candidates.
The consequence of this already has some implications. Trump immediately knew that television stations and media love a good story. As such, speaking in sound bites and twittering headlines got him on a proverbial pedestal. On the other side, Sanders's political stance is widely popular among millenials, but pretty unknown among older generations (guess who relies most on traditional media? ).
Winner takes all
I'm not sure how many of you remember the 2000 elections, but there was this heated argument over who won in Florida (W.Bush or Al Gore). Before that, I simply assumed Americans voted for their president. They don't...they vote for a certain Electoral College who do the ACTUAL voting for the president. The amount of votes each state has is sort of representing the amount of citizens they contain, but most States use a 'winner-takes-all' mentality. California has 55 votes, but last elections, it meant jack shit whether 1% or 49% of their voters wanted a Republican president: Clinton got all 55. that's why the 2000 elections were pretty absurd as a foreigner: Al Gore flat out had the most votes, but (in the end) didn't became the president. The same thing happened in 2016: Hillary had the most votes, but instead of saying she won the elections Americans say she had "the popular vote".
Then there's the thing about republics. These also operate on the "winner takes all" mentality. I'm not going in depth on Belgian politics, but when we vote for our parties (we've got a bunch of them), the election decides their power in regards to each other. Then they'll have to form a coalition of parties that'll make up a government that represents at least the majority of citizens. I won't deny that there are serious disadvantages to it when it comes to getting shit done(6), but isn't the USA pretty absurd in being the exact opposite? I mean...shouldn't it make at least a difference whether a political party wins with a minority vote versus winning with a landslide?
Okay...think of this as this way: you and your colleague do the same job. Only one of you can get a raise, but in the end you'll still do the same job. Would you go as far as to publicly shaming your colleague to get that raise? Not very likely, as in the end, you'll still have to work together. As such, that whole "lock her up!!!"-tantrum that Trump used on his adversary is unheard of in pretty much the rest of the political world (okay, agreed: most likely within the US government as well). Getting chosen is one thing, but for the task at hand, knowing how to co-operate with others (especially the opposition) is what matters in the long run. Or even the medium run.
Influence and how to use it
One of the things I find strange in the investigations is that it's hardly explained what Russia is actually accused for. If it were hacking computers to change enough X to Y (more specifically: swap 'Hillary' with 'Donald'), then that would at least be a clearly defined crime against US democracy. But it's not that simple. I mean...I'm a foreigner, my real name isn't "Taleweaver" and I've made a bunch of posts dissing Donald Trump for being insane(7). Am I guilty of the same conspiracy, according to Mueller?
*sigh*
Don't get me wrong: dressing someone up as Hillary Clinton in a fake prison cell and attempting to pass it as genuine is below the belt, no matter what. But you can't have a nation of free speech unless you allow people to exercise that right. It has always been the implicit assumption that the audience is smart enough to separate fact from fiction. And as much as I would hope otherwise, that often isn't true. Technological advancement hasn't lead to an upheaval of intelligence, but more in a platform that confirms your political stance, no matter what that stance is (8). I've seen the fake reports that the pope would endorse Trump, that picture where the devil tauts to Jesus that he would gain influence when Clinton would win or that Donald Trump hired strippers to pee on the bed that Obama once slept in. So what? They're clickbait articles, meant to draw in readers who want entertainment.
The bad thing is: the internet isn't the only manipulated source of information. Television and papers often like to refer to them as objective (erm...does Fox still do that, btw? ), but they rarely don't have their own agenda. And as a foreigner, that can get pretty frustrating when talking politics with Americans. I don't pretend that my local newspaper is unbiassed, but since it's on the other end of the ocean, I can be pretty darn sure that it doesn't get paid by any political party to influence their analytics in any way. Nonetheless, I've had the "you should try other sources than liberal media" punchline being used against me. I usually don't bother that I do that sort of research before forming (and posting about) an opinion.
But I digress. The thing is: all these stories seem to incite fear against new media. Who do you trust on the internet?(2) Why do you believe THAT person??? But as already stated: the majority of influence is still in the hands of the media. Which sometimes tends to be so absurdly biased that I honestly wonder whether people believe anything that somehow ties in with that they already believe.
Lobbying
So running for president takes a lot of money to get enough popularity to honestly stand a chance against the competition (Sanders estimated a decent campaign at around one billion dollars(3) ). Where does it come from? And more importantly: what does the spender want in return?
In theory, a candidate always has the right to use donations as he/she sees fit. In practice, things don't work that way. Large corporations like pfizer or Walmart rather spend their money on making sure that products remain legal or that the minimum wage is kept low than paying for alternatives or paying their employees a decent wage.
All of this and more shouldn't really strike Americans as a surprise anymore. It all contributes to that proverbial swamp Trump promised to drain(4). Unless I'm mistaken, wall street is seen more and more as a place of corruption and less as a place of innovation(5). The inequality probably plays into that as well (the whole "the poor get poor, the rich get rich" has been going on so long that we might as well live on different planets). But regardless: the rich elite and large companies are pretty busy influencing the government. In fact, they outrank congress 2 - 1 as far as lobbyists go. And that starts right at the gate with the candidates. Why would a potential president pass laws that benefit the environment when the Koch brothers (a.k.a.: oil companies) are more inclined to fund a candidate who does NOT pass this law? Economists and philanthropists agree that an increase of minimum wage is more efficient for the economy than tax breaks for the rich (which is also common sense: give thousand dollars to thousand poor people, and they'll spend it. Give a million to a millionaire and his spending pattern won't suddenly grow thousand-fold), but why have a country that benefits the most people when a small percentace has influence where it matters?
In that light, I wasn't TOO surprised when reading about this thing called "citizens united act". As thin as the line between sponsoring and bribing might have been, at least there was a maximum to it. And I'm speaking in past tense, because that's no longer the case. Result: the Koch brothers spent more money on the presidency than either the democrats or republicans. But that's hardly in the news. Perhaps things would've been different if they were Russians?
Conclusion
Okay...I admit I'm rambling a bit. It's also a shame: at the end of 2016, it was as if there were actually three candidates left. Even though Sanders was 'eliminated' by Clinton, he left quite an impression over here (not sure if it's over there as well). His book describes most of the above, but not in a regretful or envious fashion. It acknowledges that the system needs to be fixed, but accepted that the system was what it was.
But I wonder...how do Americans themselves feel about this. Do you feel the voting system as fair and balanced? Is it a system that should work but is hindered by external factors? Or should it just be all together changed for another system?
(1): from what I understand, Bernie Sanders was already more popular with the people than most other democratic candidates in the preselections. But because television networks and newspapers can do whatever the fuck they want, they can pretty much ignore independents and focus on their political sponsors.
(2): for the record: I'm politically left-oriented (@Americans: that's 'extreme left' as far as you are concerned). I voted for our local socialist party quite a few times, and the way it currently looks, I'll vote for a smaller party with an emphasis on the climate/environment. But I'll put my personal political views in a blog post in case anyone cares about Belgian politics
(3): at first I thought this was an insane amount, but it's about three dollar per citizen. With our upcoming elections, I read that our political parties spend on average just below one euro per citizen. And "three times less!" doesn't say much, because our country is hardly the size of a US state, so travelling is a lot cheaper
(4): kind of ironic that his staff contains more millionaires than any previous president.
(5): Sanders makes claims like that 52% of the money in jobs generated in this century directly benefit the top 0.1%, and that they're only American when it comes to reaping benefits...as far as taxes go, they're as foreign as they can legally have it allowed.
(6): Belgium holds the world record of "longest time to form a government"
(7): I still stand by that opinion, btw. Upon request, I'll dig up the threat discussing his mental health
(8): If I start talking on facebook on the fact that the world is flat, I bet it wouldn't take long before google throws me advertisements of cruises to the edge of the earth.
Okay...You've all heard of the accusations of Russians messing with the last presidential election. Whether that's true or not has been discussed to death (contributions gladly taken in this thread). But I'm currently reading through Bernie Sander's last book, and the more I read, the more I see this Russian influence incident as something minor (even assuming that it's true to begin with). The real danger comes from a totally different corner. A democracy explicitly means "a society ruled by the people". And the more I read, the more I agree with Sanders that at this point, the USA resembles an oligarchy (meaning: it's ruled by corporations) more than a democracy.
Only two candidates
Let's start with the elephant in the room: the people can only vote for one of two candidates. Thus far, I sort of assumed that this was only an implicit end result. With a country the size of the USA, there is no escaping the fact if you want to be elected president, you have to get a team and a campaign together and travel the country to convince people. This costs a lot of money and requires political backing, which I assumed was the reason that candidates first get their CV in either political party before actually running for president.
However...Sanders was an independent (in fact, he has the record of longest sitting independent in the government). The reason he ran for the democrats wasn't because he wasn't a fan of the party - in fact, he had some harsh criticism on 'em - but because traditional media apparently treat independent presidential candidates as though they don't exist(1). End result: for as long as traditional media remain the dominant news source, they decide which party they'll report as having presidential candidates.
The consequence of this already has some implications. Trump immediately knew that television stations and media love a good story. As such, speaking in sound bites and twittering headlines got him on a proverbial pedestal. On the other side, Sanders's political stance is widely popular among millenials, but pretty unknown among older generations (guess who relies most on traditional media?
).Winner takes all
I'm not sure how many of you remember the 2000 elections, but there was this heated argument over who won in Florida (W.Bush or Al Gore). Before that, I simply assumed Americans voted for their president. They don't...they vote for a certain Electoral College who do the ACTUAL voting for the president. The amount of votes each state has is sort of representing the amount of citizens they contain, but most States use a 'winner-takes-all' mentality. California has 55 votes, but last elections, it meant jack shit whether 1% or 49% of their voters wanted a Republican president: Clinton got all 55. that's why the 2000 elections were pretty absurd as a foreigner: Al Gore flat out had the most votes, but (in the end) didn't became the president. The same thing happened in 2016: Hillary had the most votes, but instead of saying she won the elections Americans say she had "the popular vote".
Then there's the thing about republics. These also operate on the "winner takes all" mentality. I'm not going in depth on Belgian politics, but when we vote for our parties (we've got a bunch of them), the election decides their power in regards to each other. Then they'll have to form a coalition of parties that'll make up a government that represents at least the majority of citizens. I won't deny that there are serious disadvantages to it when it comes to getting shit done(6), but isn't the USA pretty absurd in being the exact opposite? I mean...shouldn't it make at least a difference whether a political party wins with a minority vote versus winning with a landslide?
Okay...think of this as this way: you and your colleague do the same job. Only one of you can get a raise, but in the end you'll still do the same job. Would you go as far as to publicly shaming your colleague to get that raise? Not very likely, as in the end, you'll still have to work together. As such, that whole "lock her up!!!"-tantrum that Trump used on his adversary is unheard of in pretty much the rest of the political world (okay, agreed: most likely within the US government as well). Getting chosen is one thing, but for the task at hand, knowing how to co-operate with others (especially the opposition) is what matters in the long run. Or even the medium run.
Influence and how to use it
One of the things I find strange in the investigations is that it's hardly explained what Russia is actually accused for. If it were hacking computers to change enough X to Y (more specifically: swap 'Hillary' with 'Donald'), then that would at least be a clearly defined crime against US democracy. But it's not that simple. I mean...I'm a foreigner, my real name isn't "Taleweaver" and I've made a bunch of posts dissing Donald Trump for being insane(7). Am I guilty of the same conspiracy, according to Mueller?
*sigh*
Don't get me wrong: dressing someone up as Hillary Clinton in a fake prison cell and attempting to pass it as genuine is below the belt, no matter what. But you can't have a nation of free speech unless you allow people to exercise that right. It has always been the implicit assumption that the audience is smart enough to separate fact from fiction. And as much as I would hope otherwise, that often isn't true. Technological advancement hasn't lead to an upheaval of intelligence, but more in a platform that confirms your political stance, no matter what that stance is (8). I've seen the fake reports that the pope would endorse Trump, that picture where the devil tauts to Jesus that he would gain influence when Clinton would win or that Donald Trump hired strippers to pee on the bed that Obama once slept in. So what? They're clickbait articles, meant to draw in readers who want entertainment.
The bad thing is: the internet isn't the only manipulated source of information. Television and papers often like to refer to them as objective (erm...does Fox still do that, btw?
), but they rarely don't have their own agenda. And as a foreigner, that can get pretty frustrating when talking politics with Americans. I don't pretend that my local newspaper is unbiassed, but since it's on the other end of the ocean, I can be pretty darn sure that it doesn't get paid by any political party to influence their analytics in any way. Nonetheless, I've had the "you should try other sources than liberal media" punchline being used against me. I usually don't bother that I do that sort of research before forming (and posting about) an opinion.But I digress. The thing is: all these stories seem to incite fear against new media. Who do you trust on the internet?(2) Why do you believe THAT person??? But as already stated: the majority of influence is still in the hands of the media. Which sometimes tends to be so absurdly biased that I honestly wonder whether people believe anything that somehow ties in with that they already believe.
Lobbying
So running for president takes a lot of money to get enough popularity to honestly stand a chance against the competition (Sanders estimated a decent campaign at around one billion dollars(3) ). Where does it come from? And more importantly: what does the spender want in return?
In theory, a candidate always has the right to use donations as he/she sees fit. In practice, things don't work that way. Large corporations like pfizer or Walmart rather spend their money on making sure that products remain legal or that the minimum wage is kept low than paying for alternatives or paying their employees a decent wage.
All of this and more shouldn't really strike Americans as a surprise anymore. It all contributes to that proverbial swamp Trump promised to drain(4). Unless I'm mistaken, wall street is seen more and more as a place of corruption and less as a place of innovation(5). The inequality probably plays into that as well (the whole "the poor get poor, the rich get rich" has been going on so long that we might as well live on different planets). But regardless: the rich elite and large companies are pretty busy influencing the government. In fact, they outrank congress 2 - 1 as far as lobbyists go. And that starts right at the gate with the candidates. Why would a potential president pass laws that benefit the environment when the Koch brothers (a.k.a.: oil companies) are more inclined to fund a candidate who does NOT pass this law? Economists and philanthropists agree that an increase of minimum wage is more efficient for the economy than tax breaks for the rich (which is also common sense: give thousand dollars to thousand poor people, and they'll spend it. Give a million to a millionaire and his spending pattern won't suddenly grow thousand-fold), but why have a country that benefits the most people when a small percentace has influence where it matters?
In that light, I wasn't TOO surprised when reading about this thing called "citizens united act". As thin as the line between sponsoring and bribing might have been, at least there was a maximum to it. And I'm speaking in past tense, because that's no longer the case. Result: the Koch brothers spent more money on the presidency than either the democrats or republicans. But that's hardly in the news. Perhaps things would've been different if they were Russians?
Conclusion
Okay...I admit I'm rambling a bit. It's also a shame: at the end of 2016, it was as if there were actually three candidates left. Even though Sanders was 'eliminated' by Clinton, he left quite an impression over here (not sure if it's over there as well). His book describes most of the above, but not in a regretful or envious fashion. It acknowledges that the system needs to be fixed, but accepted that the system was what it was.
But I wonder...how do Americans themselves feel about this. Do you feel the voting system as fair and balanced? Is it a system that should work but is hindered by external factors? Or should it just be all together changed for another system?
(1): from what I understand, Bernie Sanders was already more popular with the people than most other democratic candidates in the preselections. But because television networks and newspapers can do whatever the fuck they want, they can pretty much ignore independents and focus on their political sponsors.
(2): for the record: I'm politically left-oriented (@Americans: that's 'extreme left' as far as you are concerned). I voted for our local socialist party quite a few times, and the way it currently looks, I'll vote for a smaller party with an emphasis on the climate/environment. But I'll put my personal political views in a blog post in case anyone cares about Belgian politics
(3): at first I thought this was an insane amount, but it's about three dollar per citizen. With our upcoming elections, I read that our political parties spend on average just below one euro per citizen. And "three times less!" doesn't say much, because our country is hardly the size of a US state, so travelling is a lot cheaper
(4): kind of ironic that his staff contains more millionaires than any previous president.
(5): Sanders makes claims like that 52% of the money in jobs generated in this century directly benefit the top 0.1%, and that they're only American when it comes to reaping benefits...as far as taxes go, they're as foreign as they can legally have it allowed.
(6): Belgium holds the world record of "longest time to form a government"
(7): I still stand by that opinion, btw. Upon request, I'll dig up the threat discussing his mental health
(8): If I start talking on facebook on the fact that the world is flat, I bet it wouldn't take long before google throws me advertisements of cruises to the edge of the earth.
Last edited by Taleweaver,
