Fixing American democracy will require a resurrection 

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Every time I fill up my car, buy groceries at a discount supermarket, duck into a convenience store for some little necessity or read the latest news on how America’s war industries are making billions from the suffering of mankind, I am confronted with the reality: There’s an unholy partnership between big business and the politicians we’ve elected to represent our interests, a partnership that is emptying American wallets.

It stinks.

We elect presidents, congressmen, senators and other public officials so that we, the individual citizens, have a voice in our government. Instead, it turns out that our supposed advocates speak only for the money—the money that got them elected this time around and will allow them to keep their seats in subsequent elections.

We can thank a badly compromised Supreme Court for that. Remember, it was SCOTUS—representing the corporations and the wealthy—that stole all credibility from America’s political process. Its ruling in Citizens United v FEC made it legal for business interests to spend unlimited money on campaigns.

The result: Big money is allowed to “purchase” most of our elected officials. Our elected officials are now corporate assets and have no way of serving the public interest.

Now remember, the Supreme Court is supposed to be the final interpreter of whether laws are in compliance with the U.S. Constitution. That’s a lofty purpose for the third branch of our government’s system of checks and balances. But that ideal has been replaced by a tragedy.

We’ve discovered that SCOTUS justices, too, are bought and paid for by America’s monied interests, have refused to be bound by a written code of ethics and have already acted to make decisions favorable to the dark money that has tainted their loyalties. Those involved haven’t even offered an apology. They know who they are. So do we.

The current round of greed-driven inflation is horrifying. Though there’s been plenty of antitrust and price-fixing legislation in effect for decades, our leaders and courts are doing nothing to fix the problem. That doesn’t mean that the Justice Department won’t single out a few companies for a very visible enforcement action—i.e. Apple—but its marching orders are to allow American business to take money from the poor and working class and give it to the rich, all while avoiding paying its share of the taxes.

The companies that are gouging us keep fabricating plausible excuses for the rising price tags, but long after the conditions that they blamed for the soaring prices have passed, there is no easing of costs to the consumer. The real culprit is unmitigated greed—a greed that is being guaranteed by the SCOTUS justices, all supposedly committed to maintaining a level playing field.

Additionally, SCOTUS’s unbalanced composition—thanks largely to Donald Trump’s cultivation of the extreme-right—has become the “tail that’s wagging our dog.” Radical “conservatism” has been allowed to hijack America with a well-funded minority rule—a handful of extremists co-opting the will of the people.

There’s also been a trend to make individual states responsible for laws that affect the entire nation. What that means, is that local religious and political zealotry can successfully subvert the supposedly inalienable rights of Americans.

The reality is that Americans have been cheated out of that democracy we’ve so vocally worshiped—not by any foreign interest, not by suspension of free elections, but by the insidious parasites that feed on our body politic.

And so, Americans have a lot to complain about these days. But when compared with the most strident activists in other countries of our world, they seem more willing to just grin and bear the affronts to their liberty. That said, complacency gets us nowhere, and we must all be activists against the corporate-government alliance that stands in the way of our financial welfare.

When will we get to the point where we declare, as in the movie Network, “We’re as mad as hell, and we’re not going to take this anymore?”

Now, it’s one thing if you’re one of those who can simply increase your own profits in order to pay your living expenses. But it’s a very different situation for those in the lower socio-economic groups, who are powerless to take their own place in the pecking order.

Abraham Lincoln once powerfully described our country as “government of the people, by the people and for the people.” His statement seemed to embody the dreams of the American Revolution—that America would be, and had become, independent and free and that its citizens would be able to provide direct input through good representation on the policies and laws of the land.

Now, I’m not saying that Lincoln was wrong. His description may have been accurate at the time, but today his optimistic statement is anything but true. The reality is that our job isn’t about saving our democracy—it’s about resurrecting democracy’s corpse.

Preoccupied with and deluded by the wishful thinking of the Founding Fathers—and a supposedly-perfect and sacred Constitution—Americans are now being challenged by the realization that our country is not a real democracy, that the institutions established by those wise men of yesteryear actually stand in the way of our freedoms and that some of the un-democratic laws must be changed in order for our nation to thrive and survive.

Several things need to happen in order for Americans to realize their dream: 1.) Every individual vote must count equally; 2.) The nonsense of the Electoral College must be tossed out the window; 3.) Partisan redistricting (gerrymandering) must be declared illegal; 4.) SCOTUS’s Citizens United decision must be vacated to end the purchasing of candidates; 5.) Supreme Court terms must no longer be lifetime appointments and justices must be held to a strict code of ethics, or face removal; 6.) Fund all political candidates with a limited budget of public money to avoid any commercial allegiances.

If we do these things, we may be successful in restoring our democracy. But one thing is sadly predictable—if the status quo is followed and reform is not instituted, our country is bound to follow the historic failures of other so-called democracies throughout history.

The author is a retired businessman, novelist, columnist and former Vietnam-era Army assistant public information officer. He resides in Riverton with his wife, Carol, and their adorable and ferocious dog “Poppy.” comments@cityweekly.net