From the jump, let us set the record straight about this presidential election and this primary: you don’t matter.
I know you want to think you do, and it is by far more pleasing to the senses to believe you do.
But you do not matter. And you do not matter because you do not allow yourself to.
To steal from the quotable Mr. White in the most recent Bond film, Spectre: “You’re a kite, dancing in a hurricane.”
Precisely because we do not realize this is why we play right into the hands of the powerful elite which capitalize on everything we don’t do.
We would rather take selfies and complain about something inconsequential than change ourselves, our families and our communities. We ask a lot of whys, bluster on about what’s wrong and then go back to the Bey-hive to taunt celebrities because we’ve analyzed some song lyrics like a conspiracy theorist.
In one week, for the first time in eons, my home state of Indiana believes it will finally play a role in helping shape a presidential election.
On the surface, it does. It appears that Indiana’s voters, with their early May primary, may have a say in who the presidential candidates will be for the Democrats and Republicans in the fall.
But dig a little deeper. Indiana’s voters have the same sway in this as those in Iowa, North Carolina and Mississippi did – which is to say, very little.
You do realize, you’re not really voting for a candidate. You are voting for a recommendation of a candidate to a delegate that you have never heard of that has been assigned to your district. Those delegates will go to the conventions and do basically whatever the heck they want. In a protested – er, contested – convention, delegates are bound to represent their district on the first ballot only.
Except now we’re told that in many states, that is not even the case, that technically speaking, somebody you don’t know can do whatever they please with that all important vote on the very first ballot. So whether you voted for Trump, Cruz or Mickey Mouse, that may not even matter for the first ballot.
And we’ve not even talked about Super Delegates. Let’s just say Captain America, they are not. You know what, never mind.
The fact is, it’s not about the candidate you detest or support so much as it is an exposed process whereby someone can get the majority of the votes after a long, arduous primary process and be denied the nomination by unknown foot soldiers of an establishment.
Are these the rules? You betcha. I suppose you got me there. But this is also not about the “will of the people.” Rules from state parties, delegations and delegates are as much a power play as a massive monetary donation from a corporation. There is little difference in what power they can wield behind the scenes.
For decades, we’ve worried about the role of money in politics and how it influences decisions. Well, we should also worry a great deal about who controls the game and writes the rule book on that, too. It’s hard to tell who the puppet masters are anymore.
To me, this is truly much less about the name or personality – or even one’s personal feelings on a particular candidate. It is about the will of the people and the false message somehow portrayed that we are a democracy. We are not. We are a federal republic. We vote for representatives. And if you’re wondering why less and less people vote, it is because of this very notion: they feel their vote doesn’t matter.
In 2016, how we feel matters much, much more than things like truth or reality. That’s not an endorsement, either. Just a simple statement of fact.
We want our vote to matter – it’s why we push for voting, why we show the popular vote and tally it all up. But the confusion comes when terms like “districts” and “lines” and “delegates” and “bound” and “unbound” pop into our every day vernacular.
The average American citizen – of which there are far greater number than the political class – sees a name on a ballot and marks next to it believing their vote has been cast for that person. If that candidate has more votes than another person, the average citizen is inclined, by simple deductive reasoning, to believe that is the winner.
Except the winner is not always the winner. There are games to be played and delegates to be swooned. And even if you pull in roughly 20 percent of the vote, and your opponent is vilified more than you, you can be the winner.
I minored in political science and have been somewhat active and engaged in politics in a variety of ways for years. And I understand it all – but I definitely don’t get it. The country that champions pamphlets like “Common Sense” doesn’t seem to have any. The typically smarmy media types freely admit they don’t get it, either.
We speak of our founding fathers in glorified tones, and for the most part, it is true. Intellectual, forward-thinking and dynamic leaders they were, they also didn’t have the foresight to deal with race or gender or terrorist attacks or cyber-threats and digital privacy. A product of their time, they despised a King across an ocean telling them they owed more taxes for the products they consumed or created. They wanted the power of those governmental decisions to rest in their hands and on their soil.
Thus, the political system our country was founded on was self-serving. It was a power play, a power grab and they executed it beautifully. And they carefully crafted a foundational document to serve as a blueprint to young nation meant on doing things in a much better way, where the voice and the will of the people would have input – but not the ultimate final decision.
Do most of us understand this? We have the power to elect someone to represent us – at least once we get to November – and even then, you may not like your choices. But until that point, you have far less say. Money, corporations and power players bring us to the ballot box each and every election.
That is, seemingly, until this year. This is our revolt, on both parties. We’ve largely rejected traditional notions this cycle. Perhaps not you, but the larger We has.
Donald Trump is a lot of things. And while it may be difficult to digest, while many are disgusted by the very idea of him getting even this far, the simple fact is at the ballot box, in state after state, he’s winning the votes of those casting a ballot.
That is not an endorsement or a sentence of support for him as a person or even as a candidate. It’s a statement of fact. And while the collective spin room of the Republican National Committee, the national media, the remaining candidates and the candidates that have been eliminated clamor about blocking him due to the “will of the people,” it can be reasonably deduced that the people are rejecting something.
Did it ever occur that this could be less about Donald Trump and more about the other candidates or the party or the system?
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear.” – George Orwell
Here is where we stand, where we have always stood. Our voice can be heard through votes. For all the blustering and protests and social media posts about it, you can make your voice resonate through voting. If you do not like Donald Trump or Ted Cruz or Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton or John Kasich, you vote for someone else.
But what I think we’re all really hearing is there is true majority that doesn’t like any candidate. If that is the case, it requires much more effort and involvement from a collection of people who have yet to show they are willing to do what is necessary. It is grassroots, it is time consuming. It is organizing an effort to promote someone else who may not even be known or who may not even be running. Maybe you should run for office locally. To make changes, it requires changing your behavior first. It requires action. It requires talking to people, gathering a coalition of support and signatures.
That is, if it matters. But the vast majority of us is silent. The vast majority of the nation do not vote, do not get involved. Thus, to the victors, to the workers, organizers and monetary backers go the spoils.
We play into their hands when the extent of our involvement is complaining on social media, in a post stuck between a selfie, a Game of Thrones recap and an analysis of just who is Becky with the good hair.
We disappoint ourselves on a daily basis far more than the political candidates we don’t want to vote for. In fact, we create the vacuum of leadership for their existence in the first place.
In the immortal words of Ice-T, don’t hate the player, hate the game.
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