We can no longer deny that we are living in a post-truth era. It is real, and it has tragic consequences. But the situation is not hopeless.
Who among us could have imagined the post-truth era?
Yet, when ‘alternative facts’ abound, when deception and lies are shrugged off as just spin, when the U.S. president has made tens of thousands of proven false or misleading statements, when fake news penetrates YouTube and Facebook, and then spreads insidiously across the internet, we can no longer deny it. The post-truth era is real — and has tragic consequences.
The parties are not giving voters much choice going into the 2020 presidential election.
The parties are not giving voters much choice going into the 2020 presidential election. While there are still 19 candidates running on the Democratic side, party pundits and media allies are declaring it to be a three-person race at this point between Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders, limiting the coverage of all other candidates.
They hand-pick the polls that decide which candidates get on the debate stage. They choose for voters -- even their own -- who is viable and who isn't.
In the latest episode of "Toppling the Duopoly," Open The Debates founder Eli Beckerman and I discuss these issues and how the impeachment narrative opens the door to greater awareness in the public on just how rigged our political elections process really is.
There are two political narratives in American politics: One side with a million reasons to “impeach 45.” The other side with a million reasons why calls for impeachment are just another partisan sham.
Those who step outside these narratives risk being sidelined, including the majority of Americans who no longer trust either side to represent them.
What is missing from the conversation are the schemes both parties use to kill political competition in the US -- from rigged primaries to partisan gerrymandering to exclusionary debate rules.
Two South Carolina voters, including a former US congressman, claim the South Carolina Republican Party has violated state law, the state constitution, and its own rules and principles by cancelling the primary.
US Rep. Tulsi Gabbard tweeted Monday that candidates should stop fundraising off Trump impeachment, saying candidates doing this are "undermining credibility of inquiry in eyes of American people, further dividing our already fractured country."
The exclusionary presidential debate rules that prevent any candidate outside the Republican and Democratic Parties from participating is another critical cog in the anti-competitive electoral machine that is crippling our representative democracy.
Democrats looking to make any headway in the 2020 elections might do better to keep their message positive and constructive, rather than rancorous and partisan.