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Voting Rights are a Critical Defense Against Political Terrorism, Dictatorship it's Cause. But . . . [1]
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Date: 2025-09-13
The alternative to having the right to vote in a free and fair election is what you see in the above photo. This is true in American as well as in any other place else in the world.
Defending democracy was the main battle cry for Democrats in the 2024 election. Why did such an important, noble sounding platform fail? I believe there were two major factors in play.
Factor Number One
Democracy has been in a steady decline long before Trump.
The first and primary factor was the steady erosion of the democratic process over the years along with the increasing domination of mega money since the Citizen’s United ruling enabled the wealthiest among us to determine what issues and policies could be addressed and resolved by government and the political classes, largely circumventing the voter.
What developed among many of the voters was both a perception and an accompanying reality that democracy was less and less a medium which could address the bread and butter issues that have long remained unresolved.
In short, many of us have lost faith that voting can bring about change. Changes addressing factors such as racism, misogyny, corruption in government, a largely impotent and increasingly paralyzed Congress, low wages for many, huge military budgets, constant wars, and numerous other forms of sexual and ethnic biases have become nearly impossible. All the while, the mega wealthy and their lobbyists increased their control and influence in the Congress. The gap between the wealthy and the rest of us kept increasing.
The Conditions for Dictatorship Were Growing
Trump’s place in history.
In turn, this alienation was more or less successfully blamed on democracy itself along with the Democratic Party. A mainstay of Republican propaganda, it helped pave the way for dictatorial and increased racist and anti-democratic perspectives to expand within the population.
Enter Trump in 2016 on the scene to take advantage of this alienation along with his backing by elements in the mega wealthy and elite classes who also favored dictatorial control. Mainly through buying influence in the Republican Party and backing Trump. Which rather quickly morphed them into a fascist Party.
Factor Number Two
Did anyone ever ask why voters are so apathetic and ill informed?
America already has a long history of racism, racial policies and practices, militarized nationalism, patriarchy, misogyny and authoritarian tendencies, all of which guaranteed that fascist development was always potentially in the cards.
Together these factors have led us to the deplorable and shocking mess we find our country to be in today. When you consider these two factors, it should not be surprising that calls to defend democracy were insufficient to hold off the election of perhaps the most dangerous man in history ever to become president.
A Vengeful Man Without a Soul or Conscience
Trump is a soulless, vengeful man who was able to willfully assembled a totally incompetent and slavish administration straight from Dante’s Inferno. One that if not stopped could trigger a Civil War and America’s destruction as a civilized nation, if not a nuclear war. Voter ignorance and apathy and the defections to Trump, and even poor turnout by our own voters, were mostly blamed by establishment Democrats. But that and much more than that were going on.
Appeals to defend freedom and democracy failed failed in 2024.
Did anyone ever ask why voters were so apathetic regarding the Campaign Message or badly ill informed? Isn’t it just a little bit upper class clueless to act like they themselves had no role in contributing to the problem. Or to act like the Republicans were the only ones that played a role in this development?
How Democracy Must be Defended
For many Americans, calls to defend democracy fell on deaf or indifferent ears in 2024. Sure, Greg Palast’s views, investigations and findings on the various Republican electoral cheating practices concluded that they tipped the 2024 election in Trump’s favor. Which could actually be possible, but one must also consider why the results were even close enough to make the cheating successful.
Trump both was the worst presidential candidate in history and probably also had run the worst campaign in our history. How could he have won??
For those that cannot understand or accept why the Democratic platform fell flat and lost all control of government, the most obvious reason for me was the long term simmering alienation, frustration and increasing voting irrelevance felt by roughly half of American voters toward democratic institutions and democracy itself. Even those with enough awareness of the dangers Trump represented to vote against him felt some degree of alienation and frustration. That fact must be digested, otherwise it will fail again if pursued today the way it failed in 2024.
Change and Reform, the Missing Components
Most campaigns should include such issues.
A large percentage of voters wanted ‘bread and butter’ change, but such changes was not a fundamental part of the 2024 Democratic message. Trump’s changes were all for the worst. But they were change.
The large crowds that Bernie and Alexandria pulled earlier this year identified the case for change being a strong motivator among Americans.
So to answer the question, “How do we defend democracy and make it attractive to more people?” is that it must be accompanied by a credible platform and commitment to fundamental change and reform.
That said, voter education is not as easy of an issue to address as it may seem. One serious question is “Can political parties that represent primarily the interests of the upper classes and rely on their money be expected or trusted to educate rank and file voters?” Or do they even have an interest in doing so?
Hope without Change can be deflating.
Democrats Have Lost Voter “Ears”
FDR did not win four terms by accident. America changed in many ways that before the Great Depression would have been impossible. Changes that are slowly but surely being attacked and negated.
FDR earned the ears of the people. Obama’s campaign was twice victorious because he ran on change and hope. But significant changes were not made and some of the people that voted for him later became disillusioned and morphed back into Trump voters. Media domination by the billionaire class is also a huge detrimental factor in politics and many other area, a subject for another article. []
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