Eliminating Election Fraud
by
, 08-06-2019 at 05:05 PM (5888 Views)
Voter fraud has been common in some times and places, but it mostly went out of style many decades ago, Candidate fraud is perhaps even more popular now that it was in the past.
It used to be that politicians in the U.S.A. were some of the best people in the country, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, and so on. But that came to an end in the 1820’s and 1830’s, when people like Andy Jackson started doing well in elections. There had been a few populists and demagogues before that, but they had little or no effect. When politicians start catering to the lowest urges of the electorate things are bad. From that time, honesty in politicians became like hem’s teeth. the issues have changed, but the lies have only gotten slicker with few exceptions. Speaking of exceptions, the present president of the U.S. is an exception; he he the biggest, most constant liar, but he isn’t slick; he is a direct and clear liar. I don’t think that anyone, including his supporters, thinks for a second that he isn’t lying, but that doesn’t seem to bother his supporters.
There have been U.S. presidents who lied nearly as much as Trump, but they were slicker, such as Slick Willy and Obama, but those two gave the false impression that they were not lying, and they were slick enough to pull it off, sometimes.
And there have been a few U.S. presidents who were fairly honest, Coolidge, Hoover, Eisenhower, and Carter are examples, but their honesty provided mixed benefits to them, but events were driven by things outside their power to act.
And there there have been a few who couldn’t tell whether anything was fact, and that crew includes the present incumbent, George W. Bush, and the unfortunate Ronald Reagan. Poor Ronnie never had all that much on the ball, and his Alzheimer’s Disease seemed to have started before he was elected president, but some people continue to have high opinions of him, and Bush similarly never had much intelligence, but he had family influence, and some of his kin were quite wealthy.
A hundred, or so, years ago there were people in national politics who were intelligent and reasonably honest, such as William Howard Taft, and the unfortunate Woodrow Wilson, but the hucksterism of electioneering was well established in people like Teddy Roosevelt, but the most extreme example of catering to the electorate was done by Franklin Roosevelt, who ignored the Constitution and bought votes with jobs and giveaways to a degree that has been unequalled.
Politics in the various states that makes up the federal republic is variable. Some states seem to take pride in how dirty their politicians are; this seems to be the case in Illinois, Rhode Island, and New Jersey, but there may be states with even dirtier politics that manage to keep it out of sight.
There is nothing new about populist politicians. In Ancient Rome bread and circuses were provided to the plebes to buy their votes. But there was a period in Ancient Athens when even the lower classes took politics seriously and the politicians used logics and good argumentation to garner votes, but that didn’t last long.
One of my favorite stories about vote buying comes from Russia during the period when the Grand Duke of Kiev was expanding his power to the other cities that were still ruled by the mirs. In one city, when the Grand Duke’s army was camped outside the city wall, the mir voted on whether to accept the Grand Duke, and the motion received a majority, but the mir required consensus. After a few more votes with some people still holding out, some of the hold outs were found in the river with fatal knife wounds; on the next vote the Grand Duke was accepted as the duke of that city. The closest we have gotten to that has been the people who have been dropped from the voting rolls in various places.
But with China having devalued its currency, the trade war has gone to another level, and the fraud that Trump has been putting over on the American people and some business interests. China just kicked the trade war into a higher level by devaluing its currency, which makes it more attractive as a source for goods but less attractive for investing. Competitive devaluations are designed to make it easier for the devaluing country to sell goods (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_war). As a reaction to Trumps tariffs, this is quite effective. If I were running things, then I would cut or eliminate the tariffs and apologize to China, but I would make it clear that there were possible actions, if China didn’t ease trade extensions. China has kept its currency relatively low in value to encourage other countries to manufacture there, but that has made China less willing to buy U.S. manufactured goods.
If Trump tries to tough it out with China, his supporters may be impressed with his pseudo-macho, but the trade conditions will start hurting them financially.
The most effective and thorough way to eliminate electoral fraud is to get rid of the elections. Some people think that it is good for them to have elections, but elections only help the businesses and consultants that sell candidates and the media companies. The typical citizen simply pays for the election campaigns and gets nothing in return. This is another major reason why the American people should acclaim me Emperor, and everyone would win. There would be no more election lies, no more years of campaigns, and the country would be in better hands.