"Government without the consent of the governed" is the meme of Election 2016 results. "We have met the enemy [the Platonic form of it] and it is us." We are Donald Trump? He is civilization's id. As King Louis XIV might have said, "The country, that's me." In other words, it's all about him and his family and fortune, not We the People. Populist charisma loved by the press which obsessed over this Agent Orange at the expense of the virtually ignored HRC except for the emails scandal. Bernie Sanders, who would have won the election and is currently the most popular politician in the country, was virtually ignored, even by Rachel Maddow, who focused an entire program on him only after I complained. No kidding! Masses of others, no doubt, We the People who award her the Emmy, demanded coverage of our guy, who triumphed hugely in the caucuses and then, coincidentally, flunked the computer-test. Then the Russians came too, reveling in the midst of the two most unpopular presidential candidates in history: rock versus hard place; that is, an HRC presidency would have been wall-to-wall impeachment hearings the press would salivate over. There's its alternate obsession, Hill--your hideous suffering.
"Trump was so profoundly flawed a candidate that the election should not have been close." In Austria, earlier in 2016, suspicions about the integrity of the presidential election had triggered a "re-vote," courtesy of that country's supreme court. "Not on the GOP's watch!!" [to steal a Nikki Haley line caught on video by Greg Palast]. And remember how we supported--we the United States led by that flower of Election 2000, George W. Bush--the new election in Ukraine? Is the term Orange Revolution somehow relevant here? Somehow.
There is so much more: the millions of provisional ballots forced upon voters, the recount engineered by Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, the Ossoff versus Handel abomination in Georgia's special Congressional election and runoff in April and June 2017 that replayed the man-in-the-middle ruse in Ohio's Election 2004 unscrupulous heist--one stonewalling after another. In the final chapter of the running text, "The Way Forward," the meme is that "democracy is not something we watch; it is something we do." It's a verb, to quote FairVote and others. And Simon eloquently and decisively spells out the details. One is an "opscan party," in which nonviolent would-be witnesses and hand-counters join hands around the scanners and refuse to give way until we are granted our purpose: one crucial aspect of what "democracy looks like." At this book's website occurs a reiteration of this meme: "Read this and weep; no, read this and ACT!
Several technological studies form appendixes to the book, abstruse and decisive in proving results the author has used throughout the book and in other contexts. Scientific backing is hugely convincing. It's the closest thing to the Truth we humans have invented.
Simon's purpose is to spread the word throughout the mainstream public. An educated citizenry is essential to a functional democracy, to paraphrase founding father Thomas Jefferson. It's a tough road ahead, Simon tells us, but we must rough it. He's done a lion's share of the hard work. Let's join him. Read his book and then "proact" instead of "react." Thank you, Jonathan, for your exemplary and inspiring patriotism.
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