The Millennial's Guide to Changing the World by Alison Lea Sher

Author:Alison Lea Sher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2018-04-16T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

The Corporate Socialist Oligarchy

I used to think we didn’t need a government, which of course was young and foolish. Why? Because, anarchy. Over the years, I’ve simmered down a bit, and now I see that we need governance. But it can’t look anything like the current governance we’ve got in America.

How would an ideal government operate? How big does it need to be? What should it oversee? What kind of laws would it impose on the people? If the United States is really a democracy, shouldn’t the average person have a say in how they are ruled? It’s been said that the US is a representative democracy, and it sure resembles one in theory and even in appearance. But perhaps that’s the biggest myth we need to bust right here before we begin to discuss our options.

I’ve sat in on Senate hearings. I’ve watched white old men debate for hours about the consequences of passing legislation. From the outside, it looks like a bunch of well-educated people earnestly contemplating what the consequences of passing certain laws would do for the economy and civilian life. And often these are at odds—what benefits the economy usually damages our culture, and vice versa.

We are in the midst of a political milieu of little progress and much backward momentum. Our rights—like the right to a free Internet, the right to privacy, process, the right to healthcare, the right to a living wage, etc.—are being steadily stripped away from us no matter who seems to be in office. Democracy is meant to be slow and steady, but is this a democracy? All the checks and balances that were put in place can’t prevent a dictator from rising into power if one party controls Congress. Millennials know that the two-party system itself is flawed.

And yet, we’re told it’s our fault. We’re told that we voted these dimwits in. But did we? When you take into account gerrymandering, the two-party system, the electoral college, and the corporate financing required to fund the insane amount of money necessary for a campaign, the idea that a majority of the popular vote dictates who gets placed in positions of such power—and that people can rise to power based on merit alone—is quickly discredited.

Millennials have become beyond disillusioned with politics. We know that the time to act was yesterday, and yet we also know that there are things we simply can’t do as everyday citizens. Though our leaders have to make the deals so the system serves the people, they refuse to do the right thing out of sheer greed. The system of our representative democracy is absolutely broken.

According to a Harvard 2015 IOP poll, only 20 percent of young adults considered themselves politically active. We are also, despite our high levels of higher education, politically illiterate. Most of us don’t know how the system works; we only know the obvious—that it doesn’t work for us.

Over the years, I’ve had to realize that I’ve no choice but to be political.

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