Any query you make on the internet regarding US elections will render little information on voting consequences for citizens, but a wealth of information on who or what party is leading in current polls. Almost all national media sources focus on the rancor of the race. It is like a characterized horse race with no consequences other than transactional winning or losing.

Our news media once held the responsibility for fairly informing us under the Fairness Doctrine. Until 1987, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) required holders of broadcast licenses to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was honest, equitable, and balanced which meant airing both sides of such issues.

Since then, news organizations have become giant corporations mostly existing for profit. Consequently, news media exists on a for-profit basis, one media portion having selective corporate interests, emphasizing spectacle and travail over information and news worthiness. Others, like Fox News, are solely for profit and are not bound by any rules of truth or principle, and certainly not by fair and balanced rules. It has principally become a tool of the Republican Party and like the party, promotes division and rancor, by excluding some news and manufacturing others.

Overall, media tends to reveal the superficial focus of present-day journalism. Citizens either get no real feeling of the consequences of their vote beyond their own personal interests or are filled with acrimony toward progressive views on conservative media like Fox. And too often that interest is determined for them by for-profit news whose agenda is to guide opinion, especially for their own ratings.

If you remove all the paint and varnish from the news, it becomes evident what party or candidate has your interests at heart, and it is not the Republican Party or any Republican candidate.

Though the Republican Party always focuses on what is good for business & investors, their motive is more self-preservation than ideology. Accordingly, imbedded in their actions are the desired end-justifies-the-means ruthlessness. Their own control and power trumps democracy, even rule of law.

Their antics include taking away democratic rights, extreme gerrymandering, blocking an elected president from nominating a Supreme Court justice, selectively expunging voting rolls and decreasing polling places (7 hours to vote in non-white areas last Tuesday in Georgia, for example), using tax money for partisan purposes, misusing the census to weaken their opposition, demagoguing & lying – no institutional rule of ethics or practice is sacred under their rule.

Voters need to remember that they are not voting for an individual candidate. They are voting for a party platform. A candidate, no matter how personal they seem or engaging, can not stray from this platform without certain death, and that death means exclusion from the party.

Now if voters believe that corporations have ascendancy over workers and consumers – most citizens, that is — then they should vote Republican.

This means not valuing things such as unbridled free speech, ability to sue for injustices, health insurance as a right, fair taxation, voting made easier for all, access to public services, equal opportunity for education, equal treatment under the law, concerns for child care, paid leave from work, gun control, even any serious investment in our future like infrastructure — all in all, working for the common good.

We all noted how a Republican majority in the first two years of Donald Trump’s presidency tried to take away Obamacare for the 71st time from some 20 million, now continuing through the courts, ignored the lawlessness of Donald Trump, sat idly by as he dismantled environmental protections, and turned a blind eye to Trump administration corruptions.

Only great resistance by millions of demonstrators kept some of the social safety net intact, including health care. Even with this resistance, fourteen states still refuse to expand Medicaid, costing health care coverage for over 2 million – men, women, and children. The pandemic greatly increased the death and suffering in those states thanks to Republicans.

Before the arrival of a Democratic majority in the House, Republicans passed a nearly $2 trillion dollar tax break for the rich 1% of the population and brought about a ballooning deficit which provided little tax relief for everyone else, more debt for our children, and no economic benefit for workers.

Even with the Democratic majority in one House, every single progressive legislation passed by the House has been tabled by majority leader Mitch McConnell, the most radical and unqualified candidates for federal courts have been approved, and the continued criminality of Donald Trump has been assured by a Republican Senate vote.

The consequences of the Republican vote assured a totally incompetent president delaying any viable response to a pandemic that has infected over 2 million Americans and is projected to kill nearly one-quarter of a million by the end of this year. It was already estimated by a Columbia University study that half of the dead would have survived with a quick response. Republicans seem to be perfectly happy with his divisive response, one which no past president of either party would ever defend.

This is how debased the Republican Party has become, and no Republican has found the courage to defend Americans against this unfit president, or even to defend democratic principles. Mitt Romney is a partial exception.

That is why we must vote Democrat in November at all levels of government – it is actually a life or death vote.