Being on the winning side

Subject: Being on the winning side.

Gerrymandering is the act of manipulating an electoral boundary be it a physical boundary or putting pressure on a particular segment of society which have a proclivity to vote a certain way.
We often look at Russia when we think of voter manipulation. We think it can't be true that Vladimir Putin can hold such a sway over the population that the opposition is hardly visible. Of course he does use assassination if the opponent is becoming too troublesome and it's mainly through the control of the media and the messages that the public receive daily where is main control lies.
But what of America that great bastion of freedom and unlimited expression.
It has a constitution which is lauded for its balance, in for instance limiting the power the President has to make decisions, unless the country is threatened. The stymieing effect of Congress particularly when it is packed with an ideologically opposed viewpoints on virtually everything the President wishes to do has been the blight of Barack  Obama's term in office.
None the less we think that Americas system of voting is above board and fair but this now seems to be questioned.
Racial segregation has never gone away particularly in the Southern States and Republican gerrymandering has been allowed to raise it head in a number of swing states. In certain states and specifically the 'counties' within those states, the power to impose conditions on the voter when they arrive at the polling  booth meant that the deliberate imposition of stringent identification and limiting, in certain specifically political germane  areas, the time the voting booths were open caused problems for sections of society who could be expected to vote a certain way. Given that the gap between opposing parties was narrow, any inhibiting factor which made it problematic for some people to turn out and vote is archetypal gerrymandering.
It's called vote suppression and America remains " a house divided" with libertarian ethics mixed in with segregation, not only of the traditional black population but now of a significant section of the white population. An economic segregation largely brought on by the globalisation and the ability to outsource production to other, poorer countries has fostered deep distrust and a belief that the politician along the 'beltway' in Washington had their attention elsewhere. Their plight was fostered by the very people who it is claimed manipulated this most recent election, the Republican Party and who are the direct beneficiaries of globalisation, representing as they do the Business Community interest, the very germ of the source of all the "rust belts" problems.
Today at lunch time we will see inaugurated a man who would take, to new levels the manipulation of the masses. His rhetoric (and one harks back to the podium of the Third Reich and its promises to ease the lot of the poor and make Germany great again) is unrestrained unfettered by the need to tell the truth, unabashed by being caught out telling lies, in denial when confronted with tax evasion with the quip that "it's what successful business does and is an 'asset' in his business stratagem".
Unpredictable, hedonistic, narcissistic, an egotist. This is the man who will mount the rostrum today with a new philosophy, unhindered by a world view which purported to believe in the rights of man but one in which there are winners and loser and you must, regardless of the cost to others, make certain you are on the winning side.