A Flaw in the System.

I was reading an article on the BBC News website this morning about something unsavoury going on in the cesspit that it is American politics. It reminded me that the world is generally run by a bunch of thieves, liars, abusers, and other rank opportunists who will do whatever’s necessary to gain power and bask in the glory of their achievement. Some of them simply take power and hold onto it, of course – people like Putin, Assad (until recently), the little fat guy who runs North Korea, and so on. But America is a democracy, right?

Indeed, and democracy has much to commend it, but it also has a few loopholes. One of them is that if you want one of the august body mentioned above to get the reins of power, all you have to do is surreptitiously engineer the situation so that the people are offered a choice of two bad guys. And then the majority of the population will turn out and vote for one of them. Job done. Or so it seems to a cynic like me (and cynics are sometimes right, don’t forget.)

And so it amuses me to imagine that, given the techno savvy there now is in the world, the next Presidential election might be able to be punctuated several times a day by subliminal mind control on every TV station in the nation. The people must be instructed to stay home and put out signs at the front of their properties which read:

GIVE ME SOMEONE WORTH VOTING FOR AND THEN I’LL VOTE

Maybe I can manage to arrange to be the world’s best hacker in my next life.

And here’s what’s fascinating me at the moment: I have a suspicion that Elon Musk has designs on using his wealth and influence to be the next President of the good ol’ US of A. Imagine that, or don’t if you value your sanity.