My biggest lasting impression of the midterm elections is that something's profoundly changed in our political system b/c of the influx of $, and an uneasy thought is circulating that we're not as much of a democracy as we used to be.
In Iowa and Wisconsin and Illinois, everyone is shocked at and sick of the amount of TV ads, and at least the guest housing host who I had in Iowa said that she'd not only heard that same response from a lot of people, but also that people were wondering where that money was coming from and why we don't have better things to spend it on as a society.
In Wisconsin, the same hardcore old union activists who I know were comforting themselves by saying "we fought the good fight", but seemed uncertain whether their "knock doors" tactics could really stand up as much as was needed to the influx of money.
In other words, individual people really can't unite against billionaires as much as we'd like to think. Life isn't some Disney movie where it's easy for underdogs to win.
A few years ago, my one (Mexican) (naturalized U.S. citizen) friend said that every year the U.S. is becoming more and more like Mexico, where politicians make a show of being connected to people but are actually being bought and paid for by millionaires, and where everyone knows it but no-one does anything.
I think he's right, and I can only wonder when and how we can pull out of it.
Amendment to the Constitution? Replacement on the Supreme Court that allows reversals of key rulings?
What's worst of all is that so many people don't even know what's happening; Citizens United is going to be in history books as a key point of American democratic demise, and yet so many people I know don't even know that it exists.
Just sickening.
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