Friday, September 9, 2016

Let's Face It -- Democracy Is Broken

Let's face it, democracy looks like it is broken. There's no other explanation for the dismal performance of the main contenders in the presidential election. There are more than 300 million Americans and still, after a year of campaign for the primaries and more than $1.2 billion later (according to The New York Times), both Republicans and Democrats got stuck with two candidates that resemble more a liability than a badge of pride.
According to a recent poll by Fox News 55% of the respondents have an unfavorable opinion of Hillary Clinton while 63% disliked Donald Trump.
And it shouldn't come as a surprise. Clinton's lack of charisma and unlikeable persona have been an established fact for a long time -- that, of course, on top of a steady stream of scandals, from the tragedy of Benghazi to her extreme carelessness in the handling of classified information and her tendency to give short-circuited answers (aka lies).
Trump on the other hand has picked a bizarre feud after another and in early August entered a tug of war with his own party by initially refusing to endorse Ryan and McCain.
Then, the real question is what's happening? How on earth can two highly skilled people, backed by the finest advisors that money can buy, fail so spectacularly at the somewhat simple task of being liked by the public? Where's the problem?
Answer: the system itself. Hillary represents the triumph of cronyism and deceit. She's playing with marked cards and is getting away with it because her network of influence is "too big to fail." That's why, in the most pathetic story of the campaign so far, she got Sanders to endorse her, even after the release of dozens of emails proving the manipulation of the democratic primaries in her favor. That's banana-republic politics.
Trump represents the understandable but overly visceral and populist reaction to those same kind of insider politics, but within the GOP. Many republicans where rightly angered by some of the party leaders who acted like RINOs. The tragedy is that they channeled their anger by supporting a lifelong progressive-leaning democrat and donor to the Clintons. What's even worse is that in doing so they rejected some of the best potential candidates they've had in a long time.
Read the rest of this IBD op-ed HERE.

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1 comment:

cimbri said...

Democracy worked good this year. The problem is that many conservative movement people had a poor strategy, and wouldn't decide on one guy to carry their banner. Also, the truecons picked the most unpopular person to get behind,instead of compromising and supporting Perry, Walker or someone else. You can't jam Cruz down everyone's throat. It's not going to work. My suggestions is to get behind someone with broader appeal next go around. These Romneyites are playing tactical games - you can believe they will be against Cruz next time.