114

So the 114th United States Congress was sworn in yesterday, with Republican majorities in both houses.

Call me a pessimist, but given the predominance of Republicans in state houses, the recent history of gerrymandering, and the current role of money in election politics, I see little possibility of change in the foreseeable future.  We'll have a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and likely a Democratic President.  The presidency represents, as I see it, the last tangible shred of democracy--and even the presidential election is compromised by money, of course, and by the absurdly anachronistic tradition of the Electoral College.

And let's not even mention the Supreme Court…

Aaaargh!  Call this an elegy for a once-promising political system, before it was hijacked by greed, self-interest, and a mindless belief in the infallibility of the market economy.

F**K DEMOCRACY

Well, that was a surprise.  The Supremes once more made obeisance to the great God Money, bestowing their blessing on the wealthy, so badly in need of all the help they can get.  Building on the triumph of Citizens United, they now give us McCutcheon vs. Federal Election Commission, removing the cap on the total amount any one individual can give to candidates for federal office.  Now, more than ever, the amount of money you have in the bank determines the volume and effectiveness of your voice.  It's a mockery of the basic principle of democracy, one person, one vote, particularly in an age when money buys political advertisements, and political advertisements are used with unprincipled but brutally effective venom to deceive vast numbers of the American electorate.

So much for democracy, when billionaires control not only legislative action with the unimpeded flow of cash through the hands of their lobbyists, but also, more and more, the elections.  Their money makes it easy to buy the kind of slime, and unreason, and lies that have determined the outcome of an increasing number of elections in recent years.  The so-called Justices--more and more, in my view, a misnomer--of the Supreme Court have now delivered even more power into the hands of the rich.  We proudly preach the values of our democratic system to the rest of the world, but the rest of the world cannot fail to see the widening gap between our purported ideals and our practice.  The rot at the base of our pulpit is all too evident.