The 2016 Election Looks More Like an Oligarchy Than a Democracy

Interestingly enough, I just finished studying a United States civics lessons manual in preparation for my naturalization test this week. I came to the U.S when I was two years old from apartheid South Africa which my family was trying to flee from. Like many of my peers, I grew up always thinking of myself as an American with a proud background, but I on the other hand had to experience life without basic rights in adulthood—voting, working, driving, obtaining identification, obtaining higher education, and traveling to name a few hardships. I know what it feels like to watch life go by from the sidelines and the scary feeling of not being protected under our constitution, which in the above mentioned manual’s first page states, “establishes a government called ‘representative democracy.'” A nation where the people are to elect our government officials, not political party insiders and rigging of the system.

According to dictionary.com, an oligarchy is defined as a form of government in which allpower is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few. Unfortunately, for a long time—not only including this election—a dominant class of elitists, bankers, politicians and corporations and their puppets have had their will done instead of the will of the people. Today, the establishment is pushing for a Clinton, Cruz stand-off as both candidates are controlled, while the populist movements of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are maneuvered into getting an unfair shake.

To be clear I don’t consider myself a democrat or a republican. I figured out a long time ago that both parties are controlled by the same banking and corporate interests and that both sides are equally at fault for many challenges we still face today. I find fault in all of the candidates running, some more than others, but that will be for a later post. What is true is that Hillary Clinton has done the bidding for the elite before. As Secretary of State she oversaw the support of radical opposition networks in Libya and Syria to overthrow their leaders—not for peace and democracy for their people as we can see now, but for an agenda, specifically the Project for a New American Century. And Ted Cruz, the supposed white knight republican from Texas, is an insider; and a phony one at that.  He is funded and advised by the Bush crime family with a wife who is tied toGoldman Sachs and the Council on Foreign Relations. These two candidates would make the real oligarchy in control breathe a sigh of relief because business could go on as usual.

So, the talking points out right now are that Donald Trump lost Colorado fair and square and he is just a whiner who has to learn to play by the rules and should have understood them better when he embarked on his campaign. The problem with this argument, at least in Colorado where I reside, is that the rules have been completely turned upside down and the “rules” no longer follow the principles of democracy. Currently in Colorado, on the republican side, there is a voterless presidential primary. Imagine that. Last August the state’s GOP executive committee changed the rules to make it so that the presidential preference poll would be cancelled—a move that former state GOP chairman, Ryan Call says, “takes Colorado completely off the map.”

“Instead, Republicans selected national delegates through the caucus process, a move that put the election of national delegates in the hands of party insiders and activists — leaving roughly 90 percent of the more than 1 million Republican voters on the sidelines,” The Denver Post reported.

Meanwhile on the other side, as the media touts Bernie Sanders as the popular candidate with no chance of winning the nomination, he has currently won seven out of the last eight state contests. One example would be in Wyoming where he upset Clinton by a 12 percent margin; 56-44 percent. But because of the “oddball” delegate system as the New York Post put it, the state’s 14 delegates were still split down the middle between the two democrat candidates while four superdelegates who pledged their allegiance to Clinton back in January were also awarded to her, giving her an 11-7 delegate tally.

The distressing—and confusing— system of superdelegates, brokered conventions, executive committees, political action committees, big money in politics, erroneous voting machines, and the controlled media not doing their job to inform the American public of the truth, doesn’t evoke much confidence in the “democratic process” anymore. In fact four years ago there was another populist movement being led by a presidential candidate and we all saw what the system did to him.

It is good and healthy that the nation is finally getting upset with their vote being taken away from them. It is good we are all finding out the faults in the system so we can correct them in a peaceful manner. When I started reading the “Learn About the United States” civics manual in preparation for my naturalization test, I was actually happy to read again what I learned back in elementary school. Civics and history were a couple of my favorite subjects back then because I was so proud to be in a country that was made to work for the people. Unfortunately today, and for a long time, we have seen it slip away into something twisted. Something dangerous and destructive with a whole lot of PR, misinformation and propaganda wrapped around it.

The troubling election process goes beyond any one of the four major candidates running today. It solidifies a system that will continuously work in favor of the few instead of for the prosperity of the people. I would hope the first vote I cast this upcoming election will have some meaning behind it and somehow turn the bass-ackwards policies that have engrained themselves in almost every part of our lives, around.