Recently mid term elections were held and the outcome was less than desirable, to say the least. In spite of years of a calculated obstructionist strategy , a complete government shutdown and an agenda that should be abhorrent to any intelligent American, the GOP swept not only congressional seats but most governorships as well. It all seemed to be beyond rational thinking.  In one state, a governor who beat a recall by rigging the ballot box was reelected. In another state, a long time senator who continues to vow to repeal the Affordable Care Act – even though that would mean over 400,000 people in his state who never had health coverage before and have it now would lose it, was likewise reelected.  There are numerous examples one could site but one still needs to ask the question, what the hell happened. What caused voters to elect incumbents who clearly were the cause of single digit congressional approval ratings, historic dysfunction in both the House and Senate and for all intent and purpose, bringing the processes of government to a screeching halt. To try to understand this curious phenomenon, one needs to look at some key forces which made this outcome possible.

A major issue which contributes to the pain for both parties is the lack of turn out. According to several sources, of the eligible voters across the board, the turn out for the mid term election did not exceed thirty-six per cent ( 36% ). When one listens to the displeasure with and the disdain for congress and how for years it has miserably failed in its charter to govern, one has to ask why did the voters reelect these idiots or worse, why did they not vote at all ! The most important part of civic engagement afforded to us as citizens is the right to vote. How does one explain that more than half chose to ignore it! There are two sides to every coin and the flip side of this one is the issue of voter suppression. It is very real and it is a yet unsolved problem.While many, particularly the GOP leadership, would have you believe the measures enacted in the red states were so to protect the voting process from fraud, none has been able to document any record of such activity. However, there is compelling evidence of voter registration lists being strategically purged with no justification or, as in the case of Georgia, over forty thousand voter registration forms being “lost”. Funny thing, though, they were all from heavily minority districts , being a product of a huge voter registration drive conducted by a state wide advocacy group.

A second force, if you will, is that of the influence of so called “dark money” . Dark Money is defined as funds used …. to pay for elections the source of which need not be disclosed. Usually these funds flow through organizations known as “ SUPER PACS “ which somehow are granted non profit status under rules which are in serious need of revision. There is also, as earlier posts alluded to, the now apparent consequences of that dreadful Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case. Which is why we are, in no uncertain terms, seeing the buying and selling of elected offices.
Millions upon millions are being spent on elections – some in support of a candidate but far more in antagonism toward a candidate. Smear campaigns, waged with complete immunity from any oversight as to the truth of what is presented – have created a major disregard for the needs of the community in deference to the needs of the political party as it grabs for power. Case in point was the congressional race in Arizona in which the GOP candidate, whose state legislative background was questionable at best, levied charges against his opponent that were simply and legally impossible to actually have happened. In the governor’s race in that same state, millions of dollars from Koch Industries were pumped in to the race to discredit the Democratic opponent, playing on the current widespread disdain for government or anyone who had a part in government. The fact that the GOP candidate had been state treasurer and had made millions on the bankruptcies of his franchisees didn’t seem to matter.Take all this and add the calculated and unrestrained gerrymandering, made so much easier by yet another disastrous decision by the Supreme Court and the fix is in, so to speak, and the voting population either doesn’t see it or it doesn’t matter to them – gross misinformation and undisclosed spending notwithstanding. There is part of both of these at work here but there is more and more evidence that the voting population, being pathetically uninformed or misinformed, has to be a primary root of how we got to the level of chaos we are experiencing.

And that brings us to the third force – fear and ignorance.
In recent studies conducted by several universities, including the University of Maryland and Fairleigh Dickenson University, it was shown that people who rely on Fox news for their information are woefully misinformed at best and worse off than if they watched no news at all.
A recent Pew study found similar results.
Earlier in the year there was a vote in the Senate to either yeh or nay sign on to a U N Treaty on Small Arms. Far right wing groups together with the extreme so called Second Amendment protectors such as the NRA and again Fox News would have you believe that this treaty would call for the confiscation of all hand guns in participating countries. IN reality, the treaty simply was to establish a guard against the international trade and trafficking of illegal small arms
There are far too many like instances to list here but one should get the drift. During the mid term campaign, following the old Fox News agenda of promoting fear with misinformation, many believed ISIS warriors were coming across the border from Mexico and were beheading U S citizens in border towns. One can’t be sure where that one started but a California congressman stated not once but twice in public speeches that DHS and the Border Patrol had in custody, ten such ISIS warriors. DHS’s response was that this was pure nonsense and no such prisoners existed. However, the seeds of fear had already been sown and xenophobia had taken over rational thinking.When you add up the incredible lack of civic engagement and the pathetic level of political ignorance in the U S, one should not wonder about the why and how that a well oiled propaganda machine can successfully commandeer an entire election and the agenda to follow. When the likes of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the Heritage Foundation are the information source for so many, does anyone wonder why that gate to hell is getting closer and closer.It is nothing short of criminal that a nation of such wealth on the one hand should have one in six children go to bed hungry and one in thirty will spend some time in their early years being homeless. The question has to be asked- have we as a nation completely lost any moral compass ? Are fear and ignorance proving to be effective fertilizer for this mindset, for this power grab by the ten per cent, for this complete lack of community ?