A woman on Yabberz posted an allegation that Bernie Sanders is a fraud. And then someone posted a link to it on LinkedIn, where I saw it.

The candidates are not frauds

No, Bernie’s not a fraud. Bernie has always felt like an outsider. He has voted very independently. He’s had pressures to maintain the status quo as well, but fewer than most. He has tried to run a very clean campaign and has done admirably. To me, the author of the article sounded very defensive, spinning everything as extreme as she could.

Hillary is not a fraud either. Hillary is pragmatic. She compromised her ethics like most in Washington feel they must do to stay in power in that she played the game of accepting huge contributions, trying to rise above the conflicts of interest. Even in the case of the bankruptcy bill, it looks to me that she did not sell out to Wall Street. Or if she did a bit in 2001, she came back from that slippery slope in 2005. But 2/5 of Democrats actually voted for the bill in 2005, and Hillary did not. On the other hand, who knows? Maybe she could safely vote against it since others were voting to pass it.

Perhaps as POTUS, she will feel the freedom to live closer to her values. But maybe not. Perhaps she’ll simply continue the game, supporting Democratic values as best she can while keeping in line with the status quo.

The real fraud is our political system

The real problem is that our political system, both our system of campaigns as well as once elected, encourages dishonesty, animosity, ethical compromise and blame. This is the serious problem, the real fraud.

Blaming candidates is part of the way the system protects itself from change. Bernie and Hillary criticize each other. Donald and Ted bicker. Republicans blame and demonize and Hillary. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell steadfastly oppose everything Obama tries to do, even refusing to consider a Supreme Court nominee, lying when they say presidents don’t nominate Supreme Court appointments in their final year. And the Democrats blame the Republicans. And all that blame keeps scrutiny away from a bad system.

When I talk to people, the blame rattling around their heads prevents them from seeing the bigger picture. In our current political system, lying, blame, intransigence and conflicts of interest are all supported. They’re part of the system. The candidates are merely adapting to it.

In my view, Bernie’s doing it the least of all.

The real solution is outside the box

The real solution is to look outside the box of politics-as-usual.

The real solution is to reduce the importance of money in politics. We need to reduce the need for money. As long as politicians are reliant on money, moneyed interests can manipulate them.

Represent.us has a good plan to remove much of the corruption from Congress. Lawrence Lessig ran on this issue, but even the Democrats silenced him, instead of embracing the issue.

Their plan is great. But even it doesn’t go far enough. We also need to remove the need for money from political campaigns. That’s where PeopleCount steps in.

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