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| credit: Rick McKee, Augusta Chronicle |
The Democrats are putting up another flawed candidate--"Crooked Hillary" backed up by "Liar Bill"--to run against the racist patrimonial authoritarian, Donald Trump, soon to be anointed by Greedy Old Plutocrats. Despite their initial revulsion, they now view Trump as their best chance to beat Hillary, and in a spoils system the spoils trump ideology, or lack of one, every time. 'The Donald' has gained the required number of delegates to be nominated at the party's Cleveland convention, so he can afford to debate 'The Bern' before the California primary, and slap the Democratic front-runner in the face at the same time.
The truth is, neither presumptive nominee is really liked by prospective voters, but what actually counts is that both now have the support of the elite power structure in the United States. The popular vote in the US is not conclusive since it can be overridden in a close election (i.e. 2000) by the Electoral College, another organ of the plutocracy. There is no federal or constitutional law requiring electors to to vote as pledged and they are generally chosen for their party loyalty and service or their connection to the nominee. The rigged system produces illogical voting anomalies such as the under representation of populous states like California and New York. Sparsely populated Wyoming ranks first in the fewest number of persons represented per elector--143,000 versus over 500,000 in New York. Wisconsin has 33,000 more people than Minnesota, yet has the same number of electoral votes. Oregon has a population three times the size of Hawaii yet only has seven electoral votes versus Hawaii's four. And if you live in a politically "safe" state like Texas or California, you might as well stay home on election day if you want to vote to the contrary because electoral votes are awarded on a winner-take-all basis. Hardly the egalitarian ideal of "one man, one vote".