Money and time are the enemies of democracy.
Money and time are the enemies of democracy.
Get the money out of political campaigns, PERIOD. Shorten the election cycle to 120 days, PERIOD.
A better democracy requires we stop allowing politicians to lie about what they can do for us, and stop allowing spend millions of dollars spent lying to us in many different ways.
Money and time are the enemies of democracy.
America's politics need to be cleaned up. We do NOT have a democracy today, 2018 day 1.
We can start fixing the system by changing the process and setting limits.
We MUST level the playing field and dramatically attack favoritism and unethical influence.
We need to motivate Americans to WANT to vote, to study and be knowledgeable of real issues/honest ideological positions like big vs small government or balanced budgets (try to reduce hypocrisy and cynicism) vs tribal BS, and involved in who represents them in governing this country.
"Why We Need Reform"
By Joan Mandle
"II. What can we do?
In response there has emerged a pro-democracy movement, committed to deepening the democratic process in the United States. Fundamental to this movement is the struggle to change the way election campaigns are financed, especially by ensuring public financing for serious candidates."
AND . . .
"III. What is wrong with the present system?
- Politicians, who depend on huge sums of money to run their campaigns, respond more to the concerns of wealthy donors and special interests than they do to the concerns of voters."
LIST ISSUES and you will see they are mostly driven by lobbyists.
"A short US election cycle sounds great, but it wouldn't be good for democracy"
Wrong! The truth is the opposite; we do not learn more given more time, sadly! Given more time to vet a candidate is useless. Voters will not use more time to vet candidates. Given less time and less to study, voters MIGHT vet their candidates, MIGHT! We ALL procrastinate!
Lucia Graves 26 Oct 2016
Sheryl Crow is worried about the endless presidential campaign. The trouble is proper scrutiny takes time – and Americans need to know who they’re electing
It's a joke to think Americans need more time to know who they are electing. Sheryl Crow is WRONG!
"American Elections: How Long Is Too Long?"
The upside of the endless presidential race
What’s Happening in Iran
Uri Friedman Oct 5, 2016
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/10/us-election-longest-world/501680/
What are these people thinking? I do not know anyone who does their homework sooner rather than later given one month versus one week to do their homework! Do you!? No, none of you know anyone who does their homework way in advance.
"In any election cycle, misinformation and disinformation vie with factual information, Stevenson and Vavreck note. But over the course of an extended, competitive campaign, factual information tends to win out. “Shorter campaigns may produce ‘happier’ voters, in the sense that they do not watch leaders attacking each other for so long,” they write, “but shorter campaigns may also produce less ‘enlightened’ voters who don’t know as much about the candidates and issues facing them.”"
This logic supporting continuing long political campaigns is ridiculous! There are ways to get honest, truthful, and clear vetting on candidates for public office, like making it perjury to lie for one. There are MANY, MANY simple ways to have an informed electorate with =out taking years to inform the electorate! I cannot believe the writers who want long election campaigns unless their motivation is to have more to write!
