By Bill Collier, Publisher- Legally gamed elections are the result of dirty pool, merely legerdemain and blatant and dishonest media collusion with their favored Party, the Democrats in most cases, the Republicans in fewer cases. This turns our much vaunted “democracy” into a sham because no true “informed consent” is possible under these shady circumstances.
The 2020 election wasn’t stolen by fraud, it was unethically hijacked through media manipulation and extra-legal legerdemain, e.g. unelected bureaucrats enacting policies that ran afoul of state law and ignored the legislatures. We realize some feel strongly that real fraud occured, and if or when we see extraordinary proof to back these extraordinary claims, we will change our tune.
That being said, the 2020 election, and MANY OTHERS, some favoring Republicans, were not truly fair and free of dirty tricks which, while “legal”, are certainly not ethical. Gamesmanship as opposed to honestly conveying your true intentions, philosophy, and character colors our elections and makes a mockery of any concept that winners of our elections truly have a mandate earned through informed consent.
This does not mean Biden didn’t legally win, it means, in part, he had “legally rigged” the process to give him an unfair advantage by the way the rules were changed and by the corruption of a “free press” that is merely a lapdog to the Democratic Party. It’s not fraud but it is dirty pool. It is perfectly legal to game the system and play dirty pool and to not ever really and honestly earn the informed consent of voters who basically have no idea what you true intentions, philosophy, and character are!
Dirty pool is integrated fully into our politics and while both Democrats and Republicans play dirty pool habitually, Democrats are just better at it right now, although not always and in many ways 2020 was a bad year for them. Currently, the Democrats, despite all the dirty tricks and legerdemain they could muster, only have a slim majority in the House and a tie in the Senate broken by the Vice President’s tie-breaking vote.
Elections as we see them all over the world are not capable of being a free and fair competition in which informed electors choose candidates based on an accurate knowledge of their true intentions, philosophy, and character. This is true in Israel, Germany, Russia, and the good old US of A, but, obviously, even more true in Russia, for example.
Is it possible to have free and fair elections where true informed consent based on honestly knowing the intentions, philosophy, and character of candidates can be obtained? We have strong doubts and the trend away from this possibility just isn’t getting any better, nor do we foresee any changes.
Alternative models cannot be created at scale in our present sociocultural and political structures because they are stratified and stagnant. Trying to change things like the behavior of unethical “reporters” who literally lie and misrepresent things for purely partisan purposes, robbing people of their right to informed consent, is beyond this civilization’s capacity. Moreover, how would you “regulate” the press to make them behave without destroying the very concept of a free press?
The “solution”, unfortunately, if you want to stop bad actors like the miscreants who populate both Parties from getting into office, is to understand and master election gamesmanship and legerdemain and to find new ways to reach voters and get through the media propaganda assault on their very psyche. Even if your intentions, philosophy, and character are truly good, so that truly informed people would choose you if they knew the truth, the path to victory isn’t to simply hope your “truth” will speak for itself.
The “truth” is not enough under the current electoral system, which is geared toward rewarding legerdemain, media corruption, and dirty tricks more than a straightforward and accurate comparison of the intentions, philosophy, and character of the candidates. You can be labeled horrendous things even if this isn’t who you are or you can be labeled awesome things even if you are far from awesome.
While fighting the electoral battle, using all the means to hand, should never be off the table, building freedom must depend on strategies that go beyond this reliance on election outcomes. If you are frustrated at election outcomes, the answer is both to get better at playing the actual electoral game but, even moreso, building relationships, associations, and structures that unilaterally liberate as much of your economic and physical life from the control of politics as possible.
