Does anyone remember when Senator John McCain pushed election campaign reform? People’s eyes glazed over. How short-sighted we were.
To decry money’s power is not to encourage class warfare or demonize the wealthy. Rather, it is to understand the lure of money and the human temptation to want it. If our laws allow money to be spent freely with, in many cases, no information on who’s funding which candidate, our politicians will favor laws which benefit those who give them money, not the average citizen.
Some who study the progress of democracy in the world claim the United States no longer is, in fact, a democracy. They point to the power of money to call the shots in our elections.
How to change this mockery of democracy? Some candidates will support reform if they know people want reform AND will bother to vote for candidates favoring it. A large turnout of voters is more likely to vote in officials who favor election reform than a smaller turnout, which tends to favor the status quo.
In the last national election, only about a third of eligible voters bothered to make that trip to the polls.
Hear! Hear! Why we aren’t in the metaphorical streets with pitchforks and torches I don’t know. The influence of money seems to patently obvious! And yet, I hear eligible voters lament “Oh, well. Voting does no good anyway.”
Ever tried it?!
One’s thing’s for sure. Nothing will happen if we don’t vote. From what I understand, younger voters are particularly less likely to vote. Older voters show up. That’s why this segment of the population is listened to.