The Election Season is Depressing

Well here we are, four years later and with another election upon us. To listen to the rhetoric of both sides is to get sick. It seems that with each presidential election cycle that we live through, the name calling increases and the real issue discussions decrease. If you look at the last few elections you notice that we are getting so extremely polarized that no serious discussions are possible any more. Even the radio stations put on two competing points of view hosted by two pundits strung out on caffiene, challenging each other to insult the other person's candidate in the shortest phrase possible. Stories are twisted so far out of context that you can't look at the elections except as entertainment. Yet the election process is one of the most important acts that we do as citizens, if not the most important.

And here in the US, where a man is innocent until proven guilty, nothing is done to protect the reputation of people? Is it really acceptable to throw out a scandalous statement and watch while the targetted person squirms trying to prove a negative, yet the individual that starts this accusation or rumor is unknown and is not scrutinized at all? The candidates' election machines seem to delight in latching on any rumor and pushing it to the limit then claiming innocence. Is this how their candidate will govern the country?

That, and the electoral college insult. In a day and age when news travels so fast, we are burdened with this archaic system that is a throwback to the slave era. Either we relegate this system to the garbage heap and allow the popular vote to cover the country and in the process engage all the states' populations in the vote, or we focus on the credentials of those in the electoral college and ask them to pick a president through a new process that vets the qualifications of that person carefully. Somehow the idea of an anonymous (totally defocused by the media) electoral college and delegates is offensive especially that we saw the manipulation of it in 2000.

[Just in time, here is an op-ed piece in the NYTimes about the electoral college. Abolish the Electoral College ] TMM 2004-09-01 11:16

It is tiring to see this kind of politics year after year. We are in need of serious reform to our election processes. We need to empower the masses and shut out all the loud voices. Elections are not about bullying or dazzling people to vote one way or the other. They are deliberate processes to choose the soundest leaders for a country. Sound bites and loud rhetoric are not the way to do this for a country that prides itself on being the bastion of freedom and equality in the world. The more we trivialize our election process, the less these ideals apply.