Analysis of the Current Situation in American Politics

Voting is a privilege and a right. A right that was denied for millions of people. Only until the passing of the Voting Rights Act did minorities have a chance to not only vote, but change the face of the government. Before 1965, minorities, especially blacks, faced violent opposition in an attempt to stifle their voices and control the way the government nominates its officials.

Now that President Obama has shown what can happen when minorities are given a voice in politics, there have come some major setbacks. The nation in the next presidential election will adopt one of two sides, a far left or a far right. With the recent death of Head Justice Scalia and the refusal of Congress to allow the nomination of Merrick Garland, it is safe to say the nation is in turmoil in several ways. To understand how things became so unstable it is important to focus on the roots of the current situations befalling the United States, beginning with Citizens United, voter turnout, the Voting Rights Act, SUPER PACs, Scotus appointment, midterm elections, and ending with the current state of the nominations.

Citizens United is two unlike but correlated things. The first is a Supreme Court case concerning election spending. Short background on the case reveals a non-profit corporation produced a 90-minute documentary criticizing Hillary Clinton back in 2008 ("What is Citizens United? -- An Introduction," 2012). At this time, she was strong contender for presidency. Titled Hillary: The Movie, the documentary led to decreased support for Clinton during the Presidential Democratic Primary and a court case on how funds can be used during a campaign/election. The Citizens United is a PAC or Political Action Committee that served as plaintiff in the Citizens United Supreme Court case.

Founded in 1988 by Floyd Brown, Citizens United became a PAC and received major funding from industrialists who owned the second biggest privately owned company in America, the Koch brothers. Promoting corporate interests, candidates who advance their goals, and socially conservative causes the organization's famous court case led to the removal of some restrictions on how businesses/corporations can spend capital in elections. It also led to campaign spending sky-rocketing from hundreds of thousands to hundreds of millions. Experts say the extra money does not affect the results of a campaign, but many believe it does as the media has a powerful hold on the way the American populace recognizes and votes for political candidates. Donald Trump for example, was highly publicized during the recent Republican Presidential Primaries and won the nomination.

Voting is an integral part of the democratic system. When voter turnout runs low, and only certain groups of people vote, it changes the way the government is run in more ways than one. Compared to other nations like Canada and Slovenia, the United States has a low voter turnout compared to the percentage of registered voters. Registered voters for the United States in 2012 was 84.3% (DeSilver & DeSilver, 2015). Voter turnout was 53.6%. More than 30% of registered voters did not vote in 2012.

Low voter turnout has always been a part of American politics. Some of it had to do with racial inequality and the rest had to do with lack of motivation to vote. When Bill Clinton was re-elected in 1996, only 48% of the voting population voted. In 2008 it went up to 57%. Some may say certain groups are less willing to vote like youths and the disenfranchised. During Obama's campaign, President Obama encouraged the youth to step up and vote clinching his victory and increasing voter turnout, albeit a bit more than normal. Going back to the disenfranchised, many people before 1965 could not vote in America, simply because they were not white.

The Voting Rights Act finally broke the grip of state disfranchisement. Before 1965, murders of voting-rights activists occurred both in Mississippi and Philadelphia. Along with the murders, various acts of terrorism and violence ensued. The tipping point for all this bloodshed was the March 7, 1965 attack on peaceful marchers by state troopers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in the city of Selma, Alabama (Justice, 2016). The unprovoked attack led to President Johnson issuing a call for a voting rights law that would end these senseless acts of violence. Thanks to the Voting Rights Act, blacks and other minorities could vote without fear of persecution.

While there is more liberty now than before that does not change the notion that people are trying to claim back the power they had in the past. Businesses, big corporations have begun funding campaigns as early as the 1980's with PACs like Citizens United. SUPER PACs, a relatively new term, has gained attention since the July 2010 federal court decision of SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Committee. SUPER PACs are independent expenditure-only committees. What they do is raise unlimited amount of capital from unions, individuals and associations, and corporations and then spend all those funds to overly advocate against or for political candidates. While traditional PACs can freely donate money directly to any political candidate, super PACS cannot and are require to report donors to their organization to the Federal Election Commission monthly or semi-annually. "As of May 24, 2016, 2,304 groups organized as super PACs have reported total receipts of $753,723,783 and total independent expenditures of $321,966,218 in the 2016 cycle" ("Super PACs -- OpenSecrets," 2016).

SCOTUS is another term for Supreme Court of the United States. Obama nominated moderate by the name of Merrick B. Garland for a prior Supreme Court vacancy. While very qualified, "A longtime Justice Department official, Garland served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia from 1989 to 1992 and Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. From 1994 to 1997, he served as Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, supervising major cases, such as the prosecutions of Oklahoma City Bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols and Unabomber Ted Kaczynsk" (Meko, Keating, Urhmacher, & Stamm, 2016), the nomination faces strong opposition from a Republican Majority Congress. Scalia, who was a former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court was found dead with a pillow over his head in February of 2016. Ever since then, there has been indecision on who should take his place.