The political system in North America is messed up. Canada isn’t great, but the United States are completely terrible. To run for office you need to raise funds, which means 90% of your campaigning is trying to get enough money to actually campaign, and then while you’re in office at least half of what you do is trying to get enough money to run again later. So we have a system of ineffective beggars running things, which is why very little ever gets done.
But even worse than all of this is the fact that the people who run for office are quite often reprehensible people, and they win elections for completely stupid reasons. Sure, it’s obvious that this man is a monster, but you know what? He came and visited our little town, and the other guy didn’t, so I’m going to vote for him. Or I’m going to vote for him because his opponent, even though she’s a significantly better candidate who will represent me better and look out for my interests better, belongs to a different party. And I’m a republican, dammit!
People are idiots, and idiots are allowed to vote. They care about sexual orientation, gender, race, religious faith, what you wear, and how big your smile is, when literally none of these things have any indication on how good you would be at a particular job. So we’re electing people on these stupid popularity contests, driven by how much money they can raise. And where does most of that money come from? Interested corporations that later expect favors. The money in politics inherently makes it corrupt, and the “everyone has a right to vote” nature of the election system makes it impossible for a serious candidate to run.
Voting should not be a right. It should be a privilege, earned by some sort of test. And I’m not saying that it should require a post-secondary education or anything like that. I’m not even suggesting it should require high school graduation, though that would probably be a good place to start. I think there should be a political logic test that every person who wants to vote should have to pass, to ensure that the people voting actually understand who and what they’re voting for, and what it will mean for the country. If you think lowering taxes on big corporations to less than what poor people pay will actually help the poor, then I really don’t want you voting. Ever.
Moreover, when you’re voting, you are absolutely not supposed to vote for what is best for you. That’s not how the system works. You’re supposed to vote on what is best for everyone. Otherwise just because there are more of your type of people within a larger group, you could vote to disenfranchise everybody else. And that happens all of the time. So we need voters who understand that, and are willing to support the greater good, rather than sabotaging everyone else for their own selfish ends.
People can be misled easily. As I said earlier, people vote for candidates based on completely random, superfluous reasons. Just because a candidate can mislead and lie to more people to get their votes does not mean that they should win an election. In fact, the opposite is true; the person who wins should not be the person misleading the most gullible, it should be the person with the most integrity.
I also think that campaigning should be completely banned. No rallies, no advertisements on TV or on facebook, no calling people at home, or going door to door, or putting up big signs and billboards. When there is an election coming up, there should be a government website where all registered candidates get to put up a brief description of their political platform and plans if they get into office. There should then be public debates where all candidates get equal time to talk and address concerns and questions, and that’s it. We stop wasting billions of dollars, and everyone’s time, with drawn out campaigns. Politicians no longer have to raise funds in order to keep their jobs, so they can actually do their jobs. And everything just works better.
A sitting president should not be holding rallies. Ever. It’s a complete waste of everyone’s time. These offices should be important, doing real work to make everyone’s lives better. They should not be a complete joke.