Opinion

As the nation gets closer to the November general election, the specter of misinformation and voter suppression grows more ominous. Facebook has become the tool of choice for Russia, Iran, China and homegrown election tampering. If Zuckerberg can't get control of the platform, it may have to be eliminated as a threat to democracy.

As Congress takes a break from negotiations due to a lack of compromise, it leads one to ponder about some of the inherent problems in that branch. Congress is not only there to serve the interests of their constituents, but the greater good of the country as well. By itself, that should be enough to motivate a commitment to pass another stimulus package in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Independent voters choose not to affiliate with a party for many reasons. I would say the common ground for registering as an independent voter is a frustration with party politics and dogma, and a sense that internal party politics and power structures are more important for many partisans than coalition building and advancing overwhelming popular public policy solutions where they exist. I have been registered as both an independent and a Democrat in the last five years.

The election shenanigans surrounding Kanye West should be the poster-child for our need to fix an easily-manipulated and broken voting system. 

I.

The marches in Bensonhurst are a distant memory for me. They were 30 years ago. I don’t recall many of the specifics, the details. We rode on busses to the Slave Theatre in Brooklyn and congregated there before heading to the site of the march, but most of it is a blur. 

If Joe Biden were to ask the framers of the constitution what qualities he should look for in a running mate, they might single out one in particular: a love of lucubration.  It literally means working by candlelight. This “nocturnal study,” as Samuel Johnson called it, was an important part of the political lingo of the 1780s and might just be one of the best measures of one’s fitness for executive office. 

Consider this voting method:

Voting is a right; This shouldn’t be a controversial statement but it is. The struggle to ensure that every adult United States citizen has the right to vote has been going on since the founding of our country. Right now, our right to vote is threatened by the COVID-19 pandemic and by apathy in some state legislatures.

In the wake of Bernie Sanders’ loss of the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, the Left has cried out, as it has in the past, for the creation of a third party. There is some merit to this idea, given that repeated attempts to fashion the Democratic Party into a force for progressive change have failed and likely always will. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

The Left has been fooled many more times than once, most recently by the faux progressivism of Barack Obama.

This November, St. John’s County Florida elects a sheriff. It’s an important race as law enforcement culture and training is the subject of local and national debate--except 47.2% of voters in the county will be denied the right to vote -- how could this be? This is the land of the free and home of the brave, where the voice of the people stands above all. They are electing a sheriff and excluding half the county?