Dear Donna

    The Republican Party is a threat to the citizenry of the United States. The Republican conjecture, allow government to look after the interests of the upper tier of the economy which will then use that consideration to generate wealth that will then factor itself into prosperity for everyone else, results in eliminating the citizen and turning the population into nothing more than employees. The idea that a so-called "free" market economy contains all the features and dynamics required to accommodate all the needs of a population is fraught with short-sightedness and omission. Should the citizenry surrender its power to the upper tier of the economy, it would also surrender the rights of the citizen. Any rights remaining, along with any power, would then accrue to that upper tier who have already themselves voiced a desire for a plutocracy, complaining about their vulnerability to the citizen's right not only to vote, but to publicly speak opinions some of which are at variance with the ambitions and desires of this upper tier of the economy.

     In a sense it can be said in a system of checks and balances designed to not allow a particular governing entity to gain a dominant position, there is no check on the upper tier of the economy save the citizenry itself. Should the Republicans, or any party trying to achieve that conjecture, actually gain power, over time and incrementally their objective would be to transform the United States into this plutocracy. Evidence of this can be found in the strategic redistricting of the electorate Republicans have already achieved at the state level. This is done to ensure election results run counter to the will of the majority. Need it be repeated that the point of an election is to ensure the will of the majority is reflected in governance? Unfortunately, today, it seems not only does that need to be repeated, it needs to be re-explained, for when this usurpation of the majority was engineered and implemented, it was done with little or no opposition.

     This, of course, brings us to the Democratic Party. The two major parties have undeniably written themselves in by law, making any third party attempts to represent the citizenry laughable at best. The most a third party can hope for due to active opposition by the system itself (engineered in concert by both the major parties) is six percent historically. Two major candidates, Ralph Nader and Bernie Sanders, were actively opposed by the Democratic Party. However, both these candidates more sharply defined the conditions and situation which exists in the United States with regard to the citizenry and its rights. The two major parties discussed anything but this. This means there is no real opposition to the Republican conjecture and no means by which the citizenry can defend itself from this threat.

     Since the middle of the 20th Century, apathy has won every national, and most state-level Federal elections. An average of 70% of eligible voters do not vote. An average of roughly 30% are the people both parties vie over. That huge apathetic majority is apathetic because it believes the upper tier of the economy is so entrenched it doesn't matter who one may vote for, the same process will win. All the candidates offered are owned by the upper tier. They know well that is not them, so to them elections are an exercise in futility. Of course, the parties like to claim these people don't vote because they don't understand, or they think it's too difficult, or perhaps are just too lazy - especially if it's raining or snowing outside. Therefore, they focus on trying to steal voters from each other. Democrats try to get an average of eight percent of the Republican voters to vote for them "this time." The Republicans do the same, and this has been the practice for so

long it's now viewed by the professionals in electioneering as "the thing to do." This makes that apathetic 70% incidentally, as well as self-fulfillingly, prophetic.

     Writing off the majority of the population with vapid criticism, unsubstantiated assertions of ineptitude or lack of discipline, and focusing on the minority without trying to delve deeper into the wherefores and whys can only be done if someone so prefers. The most remarkable thing about Bernie Sanders' candidacy was as an openly avowed socialist he had a remarkably strong following that grew as the election progressed. His candidacy dwarfed any Republican's and certainly Donald Trump's. How he was treated by the Democratic Party, which he had to run under due to what was mentioned above regarding the major parties' engineering of the election process, ensured his candidacy would fail regardless of what it factually represented; socialism is no longer a dirty word, and the apathetic are willing to come out and support someone who genuinely at least defines their condition. Hearken back to Barack Obama's candidacy. He too, espousing change, activated that huge apathetic majority. However, the change they were hoping to see never came. At least Mr. Sanders, who had been visibly and vocally declaring his message for decades, truly promised that desired change. (This is why when his candidacy was torpedoed by the Democratic Party, angry Sanders voters intentionally voted for Trump to invite disaster, having given up completely on the viability of their own political system.)

      The citizenry has no representation in government. The citizenry has no opposition to, and therefore no defense against this Republican conjecture. The Democrats are (ostensibly) supposed to fill that role, however, they seem to have found a niche alongside the Republicans to play patty-cake and obfuscate themselves careers from this process which now serves no one but professionals in the political system. Would that this was not the truth. Whatever the truth, the majority of voting-eligible citizens of the United States believe this is. That decides every election, regardless of what attendees of the party in Washington D.C. believe as the results of yet another election are celebrated. The United States population is roughly 6% of the world's population. Just because this has happened in the U.S. doesn't mean the rest of the world is going to Hell in a handbag.

     Unfortunately, there is a greater dimension to this. The once-called third world (now called emerging nations) looks upon the U.S. as the model to emulate. There are scant few democracies in this nation-world not ridden with corruption with a citizenry powerless to intervene. As is true in the U.S., it is true in these places, that when the citizenry rises up and tries to demonstrate its dissatisfaction, the police their tax monies pay for are deployed to control them. They aren't deployed to control the corrupt. They are deployed to control them. Should that fail, the military is used. Is this the future citizenry is relegated to?

This is the ground.