“Under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.” – Albert Einstein, 1949.
I’ve been ignoring the US presidential race because the election is rigged.
When someone says US presidential elections are rigged, there are a number of things they could mean by that. They could be claiming votes are actively tampered with to ensure a particular outcome, as Republicans commonly claimed in the 2020 election. But that isn’t the claim I’m putting forward here — even though the US does have the most dysfunctional elections out of any liberal democracy on earth.
They could also be talking about how legalised corruption in the United States allows the wealthy to manipulate election outcomes and extract political loyalties via campaign donations. While certainly a well-established fact, that isn’t what I’m talking about here either.
They could also be talking about the fact that it doesn’t matter who wins the election since the US president is only a figurehead who pretends to run a country that is actually ruled by unelected plutocrats and empire managers in secretive government agencies. Again this is absolutely true, but that’s not what I’m talking about in this particular essay.
Actually, you could fix all the problems in the American voting system, and US presidential elections would still be rigged. You could fix campaign finance laws to the point where the wealthy are no longer able to use campaign donations to achieve desired political outcomes, and US presidential elections would still be rigged. You could give the US president all the actual government leadership powers you were led to believe he has as a schoolchild, and US presidential elections would still be rigged.
US presidential elections would still be rigged........