Gaming the political system corrupts us all

[Zorro]

The United States has fallen into the ranks of flawed democracies. Let’s stop the slide.

It’s football season. Two football teams, the Blues and the Reds are playing a game. What makes this game different is that the game officials are selected by and are from the Reds team. They determine the rules of the game, which can change as needed to favor — you guessed it — the Reds.

Fair-minded football fans — not the Reds and their fans — would cry foul that the rules favors the Reds and would expect the commissioner of the league to step in to restore the integrity of the game. Watching the game would be useless and worse, the Blues might also defer to devious methods to match the Reds. The game would be corrupted.

Well, this is what is happening to our political process. It is being corrupted because the Republicans (Reds), with their majority in state houses, are gerrymandering districts. They are making it more difficult for certain segments of the population to cast their vote. Case in point: Fewer voting precincts in minority neighborhoods coupled with restricted mail-in voting suppresses the minority vote.

A majority of conservatives conveniently believe the lie that the election was stolen. The mendacity and corrupt practices that their leader — Donald Trump — engages in has become grist for the mill for a large swarth of the party. Politics to them has become a blood sport.

Transparency International explains corruption as the abuse of power for personal gain. It is corrosive because it erodes trust, weakens democracy — repeat: Weakens democracy — hampers economic development, exacerbates inequality and tribal divisions. Based upon their Corruption Perceptions Index, the United States ranks 25th, which is virtually last amongst large, first-world democracies.

https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2021/11/08/gaming-the-political-system-corrupts-us-all-column/

[gab13by13]

1. The Reds are also in control of the scoreboard.

[Walleye]

2. And the green team is on the sidelines trying to stop the game

Because they just can’t bring themselves to root for either team