(#6363) Our elections need to be protected from our capitalism and nefarious manipulation!

      Public financing of elections is the proper way forward. Where the candidates debate each other on the policies they envision. Currently we have straw men/women being promoted as candidates with money behind the scenes. Instead of a grassroots leaders arguing for his/her version of a fair and just democracy, we have groomed candidates of special interests flooding the airwaves with their pretzeled policies. Where name recognition is desired over the value of their opponents arguments. The unlimited money now that is allowed by the republican majority of our compromised not supreme court is undercutting too many grassroots candidates from ever getting any deserved traction.
     It isn't just unlimited and dark money either that is failing our democracy. It is laws like the compromised electoral college where the majority of votes in an election is subjugated to delegates in each state. Wherever the vote is being diluted from the voters through a secondary process that can deny the majority vote getter an election is where the will of the people is being dishonored and abused. No matter the reason for the electoral college although it is not an honorable one either, the purpose is to allow for a subversion of the one person one vote logic. As an example, both Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016 won the popular vote for president but neither was allowed the presidency because the electoral college gave their two republican opponents the presidency instead.
     There is only one political party fighting for equality in our elections and it is the democratic party. There is only one party fighting to maintain dark money and the electoral college in our elections and it is the republican party. For me this is the red line. Any party that is not on the side of one person one vote, or not on the side of public funding of elections is an enemy of democracy. No one who is an enemy to democracy will ever be viewed by me as anything other than that. We the people need honest and good hearted people running for elections. Not the current cabal of republicans who are just straw men/women for their moneyed masters.