America's Political Infrastructure is Broken

Imagine a country where a party that takes over a Government then changes the rules so that they are guaranteed to stay in control despite what appear to be "free" elections despite the fact that most residents support the opposition party?

We would probably consider it a dictatorship and certainly not consider it democratic.

Yet that is the situation here in these United States as between gerrymandering, voter suppression and our old standby, the electoral college we have created a minority controlled congress and presidency.

Of course the electoral college was always anti-democratic as the states with lower populations got the same number of senators as states with much larger populations.  The idea that California and Wyoming have the same number of Senators representing their people is absurd on the face of it.

This disproportionate importance then feeds into the electoral college and while somewhat offset by the number of congress people is simply ridiculous.

Now by both strategy, luck and a lack of common decency, the reaction to the first term of President Obama and a large infusion of special interest money left Republicans in charge of a large number of State Government right after a census led to a reapportionment, giving them the opportunity to redraw congressional districts. Redraw they did with a clear agenda, to marginalize minority votes and assure continued power for them.

Now this isn't a new thing, but with the data we now have and the total lack of fair play in these elected officials we have established a virtual lock on many institutions, which can only be undone if there is a small electoral miracle.

Of course to make it even more complete, they are doing everything they can to suppress votes from our minority communities using voter ID laws and other methods to prevent their voices from being heard.

Our Democracy has been "rigged" to assure that white Republicans maintain control.  It is not going to be easy to fix, an by fix I mean a system where every vote counts about the same and all citizens are able to vote.

It has to start at the state levels and the 2020 elections are the key to fix the gerrymandering.