Voting Is The People's Greatest Power

16 Jun

16Jun

Millions of Americans believe that voting is a waste of time, that they have no power to make change.

We've been taught to believe this. And when the two political parties offer us poor choices, then it does seem true.

Both the Democratic and Republican parties are controlled by corporations and the rich. They manipulate primary elections to make sure that only candidates beholden to corporations win their contests. They dump billions of dollars into elections to prevent independent, grass roots candidates from winning. The end result is that we, the voters, are only given the choice between two candidates, both of whom will support legislation that benefits the rich 1% rather than the rest of us.

As a result, it seems like our vote often makes no difference. How many times have you voted for the lesser of two evils? When the President, Senators and Representatives mainly work on behalf of corporations rather than people, nothing seems to get better regardless of who we vote for.

But the truth is that voting is the people's greatest power. We are the 99%. In principle, every adult citizen gets one vote, no matter whether you're rich or poor. The homeless man has the same power as the billionaire on Election Day.

In elections, true power comes from numbers. According to the US Census, there were 258 million adults 18 and greater in 2020. If even the 80% (206 million) voted in record numbers in November 2024, the working people of this country could install a new government that was committed to representing the interests of average Americans, rather than corporations and the rich.

But EVERYONE has to vote. And there have to be CANDIDATES WORTH VOTING FOR.

The ruling elite know they are wildly outnumbered and they have multiple strategies for overcoming that:

1. They limit the choice of candidates to ones beholden to them and friendly to their interests. There are many ways that the Republican and Democratic committees configure primaries and conventions such that grass roots independent candidates are placed at great disadvantage or shut out completely.

2. They work hard to divide/fragment the 99% so that, despite our common interests, we don't vote in a block against them. They create and encourage division and mistrust between segments of the population based on characteristics such as geographic location, urban vs rural, blue vs white collar, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion and gender.

3. They devise ways to reduce our potential number of votes. They take the vote away from people convicted of a felony which for thousands might be a drug-related charge. They make confusing and burdensome requirements to register and vote. They assign each voter to only one location at which they can vote, regardless of travel, school or working hours. They have insufficient polling places which creates hours long waits to vote. They gerrymander/divide voter districts into illogical jigsaw puzzle pieces to dilute the effect of people's votes.

4. They try to instill apathy in voters, encouraging them to believe their vote is unimportant and won't make any difference. They do this by limiting choice of candidates so that neither candidate represents the interests of people. Why bother. They refuse to implement rank choice voting in which voters are permitted to rank the candidates according to preference so that there's no such thing as "throwing away your vote" on an underdog or independent. They continue to use the electoral college for the presidential election rather than election by majority of the national vote. In the electoral college system, winner takes all the votes within each state so the value of one's vote in uncontested states is diminished and many think, "What's the point of voting?"

5. The two dominant political parties engage in so much infighting and petty politics which makes government appear dysfunctional and voters become disgusted with the whole system and tune out.

In the past 50 years or more, the quality of life for most Americans has gotten progressively worse. Income and wealth inequality has reached epic proportions (inequality.org). Millions of Americans drink unsafe tap water and eat foods contaminated with pesticides. Prices rise while salaries don't. Health care gets worse and more expensive. Public schools become more crowded and offer fewer educational options. Tuitions for college and vocational schools are unaffordable. Millions of Americans hold serious debt that smothers them.

Meanwhile corporations pay little to no taxes. Many industries including weapons manufacturers, fossil fuels, Big Agriculture and Big Pharmaceuticals actually receive subsidies and tax breaks from the federal government. During the pandemic years, the combined wealth of all U.S. billionaires increased by $2.071 trillion (70.3 percent) between March 18, 2020 and October 15, 2021, from approximately $2.947 trillion to $5.019 trillion (inequality.org). Billionaires fly around the world in their private jets and launch private rockets into space, sometimes for pleasure cruising. Wars and weapons siphon more than a trillion dollars each year to build more weapons and run the war machine that neither benefits the American people or keeps us safe. We bear the brunt of increasingly chaotic and extreme weather while the world's natural and wild places are quickly disappearing, being burned and bulldozed by wealthy corporations. For the next generation of children, great natural wonders, forests and wildlife will be only history.

All of this global capitalism with its overseas sweatshops, rockets, satellites, drilling, mining, deforestation, foreign occupations and wars benefits mainly corporations and the super-rich who run them. For average Americans, all this global commerce and industry actually makes us poorer, less healthy and less safe. The 1% who gain enormous wealth and power from it will fight very hard to continue the current arrangement because it's very profitable for them. They'll do whatever it takes to preserve their power. Intimidation, bullying, lies and violence if needed,

That's why the 99%, the working people of this nation need to pull together, unite, organize, collaborate, cooperate, rally and energize each other to change who is making policy and setting priorities in government. We need to find candidates from among us- honest, sincere, trustworthy people from humble backgrounds who work jobs on the clock, whose children attend public schools, who know what it's like to juggle mortgage payments, credit card debt, health care copays, child care, housing insecurity, seniors needing services and support.

We need to find these candidates, get them on the ballot for every seat in Congress and vote in record numbers to elect them to office.

Once we install representatives of the people and control congress and the presidency, we can change all of the policies, priorities, rules and laws so that government finally works on our behalf instead of corporations and the rich. For most of us, every interaction with government is negative and slightly abusive. Whether it's taxes, licensing, traffic fines, penalties and punishments for even small infractions, our experience of government is often to be hassled and punished.

We can change all that if we control government. And we can. We just need working people to run for Congress and then we all need to VOTE. Mail-in ballot. Write-in. VOTE!

VOTING IS POWER. IT'S THE GREATEST POWER THAT EACH OF US IS GIVEN. NO AMOUNT OF LOBBYING AND CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS CAN ACCOMPLISH THAT OF VOTING AND ELECTING A GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE. VOTING IS FREE.

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE CAN CHANGE OUR NATION, CAN CHANGE THE WORLD, CAN SAVE THE WORLD BY VOTING FOR CANDIDATES THAT WILL WORK TIRELESSLY TO CHANGE THE FOCUS OF GOVERNMENT TOWARDS CARING FOR PEOPLE, CHILDREN, NATURE; TOWARDS LIFE, LOVE AND THE BEAUTY OF THE THE HUMAN SPIRIT.

VOTE!

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