For those who haven’t voted yet, before you cast your vote for a vile & self-serving man with an orange complexion, making rude and false comments about his opponent/s, think about it.

Are you voting out of anger and fear stoked by Trump, Facebook, and Fox News? Are you voting without thinking of the consequence of losing health care and risking further contagion to COVID-19? Are you feeling left out by establishment politicians in both parties?

Think about who is really behind you and your family’s low wages, failed access to health care, fewer opportunities for education, and flagging retirement plans. How have Republicans really voted in the last two generations?

Since corporate America took over our government, pushed aside our livelihoods, gutted our unions, and took control of our economy, we don’t even get the leftovers. It’s been so gradual that you hardly noticed. Corporate chieftains are pulling the strings in the shadows behind Republicans, their agents.

When LBJ was president, crony capitalists didn’t like the way things were going economically. Too much of the money and opportunities were going to the middle class, even the poor. CEOs were being criticized for polluting our environment. People were talking about better retirement, environmental controls, health care, and union wages, even talking about having a corporate voice.

About the time of Ronald Reagan, things began to change in their favor, much through corporate money and intense efforts to change American culture.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank formed in 1973, even published the Mandate for Leadership in 1981, a comprehensive report aimed at reducing the size of the federal government and provide public policy guidance to the Reagan administration. Reagan liked it so much he gave a copy to every member of his cabinet and implemented or initiated 60% of its 2000 suggestions.

One involved control of the media. There couldn’t be any more Fairness Doctrine where media discussion was evenly balanced. Everything had to be profit-based and in their favor. So we have a bifurcated media: one branch strictly profit-based & transformed into right-wing, and the other corporate-owned and corporate-biased, the mainstream media.

It has come to pass. The Republicans are now their agents, their mouthpiece. Democrats are somewhat compromised and not as focused on unions and the working class as they were, so your interests often do come second to corporations, politically.

The truth is the most likely party to represent you and not themselves and crony capitalists is the Democratic Party. The Republicans are totally bought, to the extent of doing everything for their own interests and that of corporations.

So how do you vote, and which party are you going to actively push for your interest?

And I mean you must be informed, and active. That’s how a democracy must be.

Without participation, democracy erodes, a characteristic that allows the Republican Party to suppress the vote (long lines in nonwhite areas) and, in states it controls, even partially nullifying the vote (Georgia).