What intrigues me is the degree to which the American ruling class has inadvertently navigated itself into a serious imbroglio brought on by the collision of two major weaknesses within the American electoral system.
 First are the antiquated and sloppy methods by which people vote in the United States, many of which are easily manipulated, vulnerable, and deceptive.  This has easily fostered cries of theft, corruption, bribery, and graft, many of which, of course, are true.
     Second is the utterly undemocratic method (even by bourgeois democratic standards) employed to elect the President of the United States.  Instead of simply totaling up all the votes in the nation and giving the office to whomever received the most, the American ruling class injected into Article II of the United States Constitution a method by which to make the ruling class the actual determinant of who really will be president.  They did this in order to prevent the masses from voting in someone unacceptable to the ruling class, someone who advocates, for example, a massive redistribution of the wealth.  The plan was, and is, relatively simple.  Instead of simply totaling all the votes, the only sane, bourgeois-democratic way to proceed, the arrangement is as follows.  In the United States Congress each of the states (50 of them) has two senators regardless of its population, which totals 100.  Each of the states has 1 representative for every 500,000 people (approximately), so the numbers of representatives vary widely from state to state depending on population, California having the most.  The total number of representatives from all states is 435 and the total number of senators is 100.
     Now comes the absurd part.  In order to elect the president each state is given electors and the number given is determined by adding that state’s representatives to its senators.  The state of Florida, for example, has 2 senators and 23 representatives which totals 25.  So Florida has 25 electors.  That means the Democrat party must pick 25 people to represent it and the Republican Party must pick 25 people to represent it.  Now who do you think they would pick?  Why the most loyal, of course.  The highest officials in the Party, usually the most powerful and influential.  Next comes the main election and all the votes are counted.  If the democrat candidate for president receives the most votes for president in Florida, for example, that means the 25 democrat electors go to vote on December 18th for the president of the United States.  The Republican electors don’t vote for anything.  If the Republican candidate for president gets the most votes, then the 25 Republican electors get to vote for the president on December 18th and the Democrat electors vote for nothing.  It is an undemocratic all or nothing system.  You get them all or none; nothing is proportional.
     So what does this mean in effect,
     First, it means 538 electors (435 + 100 + 3 more) are the ones who really elect the President of the United States, not 100,000,000 Americans.  By state law most of those electors can vote for anyone on the planet they deem worthy, although being high party officials and loyal to the party the party leadership knows very well for whom they will vote.  Only half the states actually REQUIRE electors to vote for the candidate of the party they represent.  They could vote for Donald Duck if they wanted to.  But regardless of who the majority (one over half of 538, i.e., 270) of electors vote for, that person becomes president.  The people have no say in the matter.  They just think they are doing the electing.
     Second, all of this means that the election that really matters occurs on December 18th not the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November and 538 people rather than 100,000,000 are picking the president.  Now that’s real majority rule!
     Third, the major rub is as follows.  Suppose A receives the most votes of the American people but when the electoral votes are totaled the majority of the electoral votes go to B.  Who becomes president?  B of course.  “But that’s not democracy in action you say.  It’s light years from it.”  How right you are but that’s how it’s done.  Has that ever happened in American history?  Yes, in 1800, 1824, 1876, and 1888, but not in the last 112 years.  Certainly not in the last century.
     But how could this happen you say.  Very easily.  To give a simple example, suppose there were only two states, X and Y, instead of 50.  X has 500,000 people and Y has 2,000,000 people.  That means X has 2 senators and 1 representative, in other words 3 electors.  [Remember: Each state gets 1 representative for every 500,000 people.]  B has 2 senators and 4 representatives, in other words, 6 electors.  An election for president is held between candidates A and B.  A gets 400,000 votes in state X and B gets 100,000.  In state Y, A gets 900,000 and B gets 1,100,000 votes.  So A gets the 3 electoral votes of his party in state X and B gets the 6 electoral votes of his party in state Y.  So who wins?  B of course because he got 6 electoral votes and A got only 3.  But wait a minute!  Look at the actual votes of the people.  A got 400,000 + 900,000 which totals 1,300,000 while B got 100,000 + 1,100,000 which totals 1,200,000.  Even though A defeated B, the bottom line is that A will now get the shaft and so will the majority of the American voters because A lost.
     THAT’S CALLED BOURGEOIS DEMOCRACY IN ACTION.  Why doesn’t this clash happen more often?  Because for the last 112 years the majority vote has coincided with the electoral vote, but now the American people could very well discover who is really running the show.
     In any event, the election has lost its legitimacy in the eyes of millions and the capitalists are in a real dilemma.  They should have eliminated the electoral college long ago and relied on other mechanisms of control.  Millions will be quite convinced the presidency has been stolen and their man has been stabbed in the back.
     The capitalists are in a real bind and will have to bring this entire business to a conclusion [this was written in Nov. 2000] because it is undermining the American people’s faith in the electoral process itself as report after report are coming into the newscasts from state after state of corruption, vote tampering, lost votes, votes by the dead, double voting, etc.  The powers that run the Nation will have to meet and cut a deal which will more than likely entail cutting Al Gore’s political throat for the preservation of people’s belief in the system in general.  I think he will be the sacrificial lamb, assuming some kind of power sharing arrangement or coalition government is not possible.  But regardless of who wins, those on the other side will be furious and that involves millions of people.  Gore may even agree to having his throat cut, but millions of his followers may have other ideas in this regard.  No doubt he or Bush, assuming the latter loses, will try to persuade their followers to toe the party line, but I doubt either will be able to dissuade many.
     This the first election in my lifetime in which millions of people will be convinced they are getting a raw deal and the election was stolen.  In the past the losers have accepted the outcome in the belief that they lost fair and square.  That ‘fair and square’ feeling is now lost for millions and I am glad I am not charged with restoring it.  The capitalists will really have to crank up their propaganda and indoctrination apparatus, because this situation could become a lot more serious.  Eventually someone is going to have to give millions of people the bad news, news which will have little credibility in their eyes, and who knows what will happen.

For the cause,

Klo

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WRITTEN LATER

     I previously said “The powers that run the Nation will have to meet and cut a deal which will more than likely entail cutting Al Gore’s political throat.”  How right I was.  They not only cut his political throat but nearly removed his head in the process.  He was, indeed, the sacrificial lamb.   The political lessons to be learned from this entire travesty are numerous and obvious.
    First, that part of the pledge of allegiance which says “one nation,...indivisible” can now be seen for the fraud that it is and stricken from the oath, because the United States has not been as ideologically divided as currently prevails since the Civil War.  Of course that is due to the fact that the wealth differentials have never been greater and ideology is a reflection of material conditions.
     Second, the Democrat party is composed of people who don’t seem to realize that the Republican Party of today is not the same outfit which existed 30 or 40 years ago when republican liberals such as Mark Hatfield, Jacob Javits, John Lindsay, Nelson Rockefeller etc. had positions of prominence.  The Republican Party has morphed over the years into an organization that is little more than a crypto-fascist ring in which liberals and bourgeois liberalism have no place and are unwelcome.  The strategy and tactics of its leading henchmen towards opponents over the last few decades has progressively exposed this downward slide.  Today’s Republican rulers are ruthless, unscrupulous, dedicated, reactionary, and, unfortunately, extremely well financed.  The Democrats have apparently not taken suitable notice of this transition and paid a price in the process.  Their willingness to allow the reactionaries and crypto-fascists to dominate the nation’s talk shows, for example, are prime evidence of their naiveté.  As I said back in October regarding radio talk shows.
     “I can’t help but note the apparent willingness of American liberals in general and members of the Democrat Party in particular to allow this situation to continue unhindered and not resort to major measures to see it nullified.  Do they seriously think they can win elections or influence the American people when they are slammed, attacked, and denigrated day after day after day by scores of reactionary talk show hosts.  When one national talk show host in particular vilifies your philosophy without opposition or correction for approximately 4 hours on a daily basis, what do you expect the American people to conclude.  Attacks unanswered are judged by millions to be attacks that are unanswerable.  If you don’t reply, they assume that’s because you can’t.  The liberals and democrats are apparently so naive that they don’t have enough sense to finance national talk show hosts with counterbalancing views.  Even though they have the money, they fail to act, relying instead on other mediums and a strong economy.  The demands they make on the broadcasters of the nation for counterbalancing views are obviously anemic and wholly inadequate.  One would think that rectifying this situation through legislation or contrary voices would be a high priority rather than a secondary consideration....  The coming election may very well demonstrate how much liberals in general and the Democrat Party in particular have underestimated the degree to which they have been methodically undermined by the crypto fascists.”  Subsequent events helped substantiate these observations.  American talk show hosts are almost universally very right-wing and represent only one symptom of the degree to which American bourgeois liberalism is being systematically undermined.  [I could have added:  American liberals learned little from what occurred as a result of men subservient to Goebbels dominating the German media for over ten years.]”
     Third, victory in the recent election was not only pilfered but stolen in a brazen manner reeking with accomplices.  Judges who are supposedly impartial and above the fray were shown to be nothing more than tools of the ideologists who appointed them and nowhere was this more evident than with respect to the Supreme Court of the United States which split 5 to 4 along straight ideological lines.  Because no group or organization involved in the entire process was objective or impartial and all displayed rank partisanship and bias, the suggestion by some that impartial foreign observers be brought in to monitor and administer the entire affair was by no means a nonsensical idea.  When the loser obtains 500,000 more votes than the winner nation-wide and the winner is only installed because his confederates were able by skullduggery and deceit to prevent all votes from being sensibly counted in the key state of Florida, the illegitimacy of the election is all too obvious.
     Because millions of people including a very large number of lawyers and legal scholars are firmly and rightfully convinced that Bush did not obtain the presidency by a legitimate process, the ruling class is fearful of future backlashes, as well they should be.
     The ruling class is certainly concerned about what may occur.  One need only watch mouthpiece after mouthpiece on the media to see that the party line now being pedaled to the Nation by the ruling class is one of unity above all else.  We must all unite behind Bush because he is the winner for better or for worse.  To that I say:  Don’t be ridiculous.  Hitler was originally elected with more legitimacy than Bush, but you don’t seriously think I would consider supporting him.  The ruling class is fully aware of the fact that national resentment is rampant and demonstrations are going to occur.  As a result its members are now engaged in a full court press to defuse expected upheaval as much as possible by employing a tremendous propaganda barrage of mouthpieces to prove that: we have been through worse and the outcome must be accepted, the election was constitutional, and we must unite behind our leader regardless, etc.  All of this schlock reminds me of the line fed the masses during the Vietnam War when we were told:  “Remember, My country right or wrong” should dominate your thinking.  Millions learned during that war that when leaders make bad decisions, you don’t blindly follow them like lemmings.  You protest and make your dissent heard.
     The ruling class is working hard to head off any demonstrations but they are working under several major handicaps.  First, Jan 20th is on a Saturday which will release many from their wage slave positions and allow them to participate.  Second, Washington D.C. is centrally located on the east coast and can be quickly and easily reached by virtually the entire population of the United States east of the Mississippi river.  And third, this is a gut issue topic that has aroused more people than any since the Vietnam War.  Even many Bush supporters feel uneasy and worried about the manner in which George W obtained the presidency.  Even many of them have qualms, surprisingly enough.  Even many of them can see that this was not done according to fair play.  Of course, many are like the Bushite on TV who said: I am glad the Supreme Court stopped the counting of votes because Gore might have won.  As far as he was concerned, any way you get into power is acceptable.
     The main question now is the degree to which the ruling class will be able to defuse current mass discontent via its incessant propaganda barrage vis a vis the ability of the masses to see through this subtle indoctrination.  The answer to this query will be provided at inauguration time.  If the demonstrations turn out to be relatively small in view of what is at stake it, it will clearly reveal the degree to which millions can be successfully brainwashed by those who control the media, because political demonstrations are unquestionably justified.  It is very important that the demonstrations be quite large in order for key messages to be sent.  The ruling class in general and the Bushites in particular must know that they have NO MANDATE TO DO ANYTHING.  The almost equal division of the presidential and congressional votes vividly demonstrates that as well.  In fact, the Bushites are viewed by millions as representative of an illegitimate government.  Secondly, and equally important, the ruling class needs to be told in no uncertain terms that THEY MAY CONTROL THE STATE BUT BY LENIN THE MASSES CONTROL THE STREET.
 
 

P.S.  I can’t help but note that with the continuing downward slide of the American economy in recent months, Gore might very well have been the recipient of a gift in disguise, as Bush after 4 years in power could very well be viewed as the cause.  Then, again, as Churchill once said, “If it is a blessing in disguise; I must say it is very well disguised.”