Blurts & Spasms

It is very easy to become disenchanted with U.S. politics. Years ago, as a party delegate in the Washington State Presidential primaries when I was in my late teens, I was asked by the DNC to switch the votes I represented – some 34,000 voters at the state convention – to support the candidate the party decided was most likely to be the winner in other states. I was devastated, as that seemed like a betrayal of those voters, who had absolutely no say in the matter. But that is how things in the real world of our current two-party system are decided. For me, it was the beginning of a harsh and depressing learning curve about that system, the flaws of the electoral college, and how actual “representative” power is brokered by a relatively small number of affluent folks in the U.S. at both state and federal levels. Frankly, it seemed very corrupt, and undermined my youthful idealism for years afterward.

But I still believe voting is incredibly important, and I wanted to share why, even after observing even more disappointing conditions in the U.S. political system over the intervening decades, I still vote regularly at every local, state, and federal election – and perhaps more importantly, why I work very hard to be the most informed voter I can be in each of those elections.

First, I think it is critical to explore some of the profound weaknesses of status quo democracy in U.S. politics, just so we can be very clear about how bad things have become, and what we must do to set them aright. After all those unfortunate details, I’ll explain why I think informed voting nevertheless remains a powerful individual and collective act to support U.S. civil society, and share some of the tools I use to stay informed enough to vote most effectively.

A “top six” list of factors that have undermined the U.S. democratic system:

1. A two-party stranglehold on U.S. politics. Since the early 1800s, the U.S. democratic system has not allowed third parties to have much power in our country, with very few third-party candidates getting elected to any office over the past two centuries. At the state level in particular it is extremely difficult to even get a third-party candidate onto a ballot. And for the rare third-party candidate who does get elected to have any influence, they must align themselves with Republicans or Democrats in order to govern (i.e. get legislation passed, etc.). At the national level, third parties have routinely fractured and diluted either Democrat or Republican votes, allowing the opposing side’s candidates to win – although the ideas of third-party candidates who do well can often influence political discourse and policy on both ends of the political spectrum. (Read more about this here).

2. Massive amounts of “dark money” in political campaigns. This is a result of the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court ruling that allowed unlimited amounts of dark money –money that cannot be traced to any single source – to be used by super PACs in political campaigns. The ruling protects such unlimited spending by corporations and wealthy donors as “free speech,” even though political contributions had been much more strictly and transparently limited before this change. As a consequence of the Citizens United ruling, a very small group of extremely wealthy special interests have disproportionately influenced outcomes in local, state, and federal elections, sometimes spending a billion or more dollars during each election cycle. (Read more about this here and here)

3. The fundamental structure of the U.S. political system. The framers of the U.S. Constitution did their best to balance many competing concerns around a fledgling democracy, but some of their decisions clearly lacked adequate foresight, resulting in barriers to an equitable democracy they could not anticipate. Take for example the allocation of only two senators to each state. This has resulted in California, with a population of 39 million people, having the same representation in the U.S. Senate as Wyoming, with a population of only 500,000 people. The electoral college system, similarly intended to allow all U.S. states to have similarly imbalanced influence in presidential elections, ends up negating a huge number of individual votes. For example, in those same two states, Wyoming has one electoral vote for every 190,000 voters, while California has one electoral vote to every 700,000 voters. Additionally, 48 states have “winner-take-all” systems for awarding their electors, rather than awarding votes proportionally to the candidates that folks in those states actually voted for. As a result, the winner of U.S. popular vote can, and has, contradicted the electoral college results in national elections – in 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016. (Read more about this here and here)

4. Distortions and deceptions across mass media and the Internet. Three things have undermined the ability of mass media to adequately and factually inform U.S. voters in recent history. First, in 1987, the FCC abolished the “Fairness Doctrine” after Ronald Reagan vetoed legislation to continue that 40-year policy. This dealt a devastating blow to balanced, less biased, more factual reporting in U.S. news, and resulted in a new breed of news broadcasting that unabashedly pandered to special interests and amplified political propaganda. Second, foreign state governments began carefully crafting misinformation and disinformation campaigns to mislead voters in the U.S. – campaigns that really caught fire with the advent of the Internet in the 1990s. Third, the success of social media platforms in the 2000s then rewarded carefully crafted misinformation and disinformation campaigns by propagating them broadly and rapidly with outrageous claims and other “click bait” that appealed to existing fears, indignation, and political biases. (Read more about this here, here, and here).

5. Fake research to support fake “truth” and science skepticism. In the early 1970s, well-funded conservative think tanks were created to influence U.S. policy, persuade elected and appointed officials, and shape voter thinking around certain topics. Probably the best examples of these efforts are pro-tobacco and anti-climate change propaganda, and the campaign to excite deeper skepticism about science itself – all of which began back in the 1970s and continue into the present day. The impact of these think tanks has been far-reaching, including everything from inviting sitting Supreme Court Justices to attend all-expenses-paid “informational retreats” where they were subjected to persuasive faulty research and overt indoctrination, to shaping the political narrative in the U.S. by routinely providing “experts” who discredit factual data to be interviewed on news media outlets. An astonishing amount of false information has now been accepted as gospel in the United States as a result of these efforts, and had exactly the desired effect on election and legislative outcomes. (Read more about this here, here, and here)

6. Deliberate and systematic sabotaging of the voting process through the courts or legislation. Such efforts include partisan redistricting/gerrymandering at the state level, disrupting new voter registration, disenfranchisement of poor voters and voters of color with new voting rules that disproportionately impact them (for example, rolling back protections of the Voting Rights Act in the South beginning in 2013 led to many new, restrictive state laws), and promoting nonfactual conspiracy theories about election fraud that actually lead – rather contrarily – to the intimidation and quitting of election officials, or to states withdrawing from systems like “ERIC” that actually reduce the chances of voter fraud. (Read more about this here, here, and here)

So how should we react to these discouraging conditions…?

Well certainly the easiest decision would be to throw up our hands, disengage from this unfortunate reality, and stop voting. According to a 2023 PEW Research study, a majority of Americans surveyed felt exhausted and angered by U.S. politics – citing many of the concerns outlined above – and this was despite some of the highest turnouts in the previous three U.S. elections. That said, the higher-than-average voter turnout meant that, across those three elections (2018, 2020, and 2022), only 37% of eligible voters voted in all three elections. This is a pretty dismal level of consistent engagement. (Read more about this here)

Thomas Jefferson’s old adage certainly holds that “the government you elect is the government you deserve,” especially if we don’t vote at all. At the same time, Jefferson also opined: “Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.” And I think his point is essential to a functional democracy: without being as well-informed as we can be, voters will tend to fall under the spell of “tyranny and oppressions of body and mind,” and either lose interest in their own governance…or subscribe to fear-based conspiracies about it. Jefferson sums things up this way: “Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights."

So that is how I arrived at my convictions to remain well-informed and engaged with the political process, even after learning about how vulnerable, threatened, or corrupted our democratic institutions have become. Thinking we accomplish anything by not voting – or by voting for a third-party candidate – is the false choice we have to resist. We know this because of past election outcomes, where third party candidates and/or lack of voter participation contributed directly to candidates being elected POTUS who did not win the popular vote – this was a determining factor in both the 2000 and 2016 elections (read about these here). Instead, we must at least attempt to counter any corrosive sabotage of our democratic systems, or things will become much worse over time. Why will they get worse? Because there are those who would prefer not to allow messy democracy to interfere with their hold on power, and – as evidenced by the “top six” issues listed above – they are relentless in their self-serving pursuit of political power.

What tools, then, are available to us to remain informed, engaged, and vigilant?

First and foremost, to appreciate how biased and/or factual information from a particular news outlet will be, please check out https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/. 

Then, from my experience, some of the more trustworthy sources of news and well-vetted information include:

Worldpress.org (World Press Review — includes different perspectives from all around the globe)
News.Gallup.com (Gallup News; see also Gallup Reports)
Reuters.com (Reuters)
PewResearch.org (Pew Research)
ICIJ.org (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists)
Opensecrets.org (Open Secrets)
Factcheck.org
Politifact.com (Politifact)
Snopes.com (Snopes)
Factchequeado.com (fact checking in Spanish)

In contrast, below is a list of sources I have concluded are nearly always either highly biased, counterfactual, or have a specific agenda to manipulate the truth to some nefarious end (such as to sew discord, misinform, evoke fear or irrational doubts, etc.). Due to a baked-in business model of creating sensational but shallow takes on current events in order to lure viewers, a majority of social media (Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Truth Social, etc.) memes, influencers, and podcasts also tend to be much less reliable. Here, then, is a list of the most questionable sources:

RT.com (Russia Today, RT News)
SputnikNews.com and Radio Sputnik (Sputnik News, formerly RIA Novosti and Voice of Russia)
Infowars.com (InfoWars)
TheSun.co.uk (The Sun)
Voltairenet.org (Voltaire Network)
Oann.com (One American News Network)
FoxNews.com (Fox News)
Breitbart.com (Breitbart)
TheEpochTimes.com (The Epoch Times and NTD TV)
21stCenturyWire.com

And lastly, here are some personal favorites that I find very interesting (though admittedly some of these are more biased than others), and which I often rely upon to help me navigate the nuances of many compelling issues in the news:

Ground.news (Ground News captures current news stories through left, right, and center lenses of bias – and highlights "blind spots" where particular news is neglected or ignored by certain media)
Guardian.com (The Guardian)
Politico.com (Politico)
NPR.org (National Public Radio) and PBS.org (Public Broadcasting Service)
NYTimes.com (New York Times)
TheAtlantic.com (The Atlantic)
Vice.com (VICE News)

In addition, I will often do a deep dive into local media regarding a given candidate or issue for municipal and state ballots. This can be time consuming, but I usually come up with some very interesting nuggets that help me decide how to vote – and really I might spend a similar amount of time shopping for new hiking boots. And sure, I will also watch debates, listen to interviews, and – whenever possible – speak with politicians one-on-one. These efforts nearly always assist with voting decisions which would otherwise be more like throwing a dart at a dartboard than making an informed choice.

Lastly, it is critical that we surround ourselves with people who value rigorous inquiry, appreciate nuance and resist black-and-white thinking, can revise their positions based on reliable new data, aren’t prone to conspiracy thinking, and aren’t overly invested in a belief that “all truth” is relative or subjective. Without these supportive relationships, it can become increasingly difficult to maintain our convictions, or translate them into meaningful and effective action. And it really doesn’t matter whether such folks agree with our positions on various topics or not – in fact it’s healthy to engage in debates where our points of view are challenged, and where we might discover unsupportable assumptions and bias in our thinking or conclusions. I’ve always found such discussions extremely helpful in avoiding my own reflexive groupthink, and helping uncover logical fallacies I may have overlooked. But it is essential that such engagement is grounded in a shared valuation of vetted information sources, carefully evaluated evidence, and an ability to suspend aggressive certainties in favor of a more tentative humility and openness.

I hope this was helpful, and please feel free to email me your questions about any of these topics at [email protected].