Our electoral process has created perverse incentives that have warped our democracy and empowered special interests and a vocal minority.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The American polity is infected with a serious imbalance of power between elites and masses, a power which is the principal threat to our democracy.
Experience shows us that most people's votes are based on their biases, not on objective reality. Elections are a collective gut reaction. That any good comes of it at all is the miracle of democracy.
We love the ability of the people to influence the actions of decision-makers, of lawmakers and presidents to be removed from or elevated to office by the will of voters, and of the community to connect amongst diverse populations through the ballot box.
Voting is fundamental in our democracy. It has yielded enormous returns.
Transformational politics requires us to challenge the way people think about issues, opening their minds to better possibilities.
Increasing inequality in income distribution in this country has broader policy implications, and there is also the growing problem of perverse incentives that result from executives receiving grossly disproportionate compensation based on decisions they themselves take.
We can only undo the election if the behavior meets the constitutional standard of subverting and threatening our system of government.
Electoral contests have nothing but polls, which is why people have grown so obsessed with them; we're desperate for an objective rendering of what is happening and what may happen.
Let's not give the electoral process so much importance. We have to be cynical about it. Let's give importance to the real democracy that's constructed on a day-to-day basis. That's my hopeful perspective on it.
To the contrary, I think we bent over backwards to press for elections and for democratic reform.