Effects of Technological Development on Universal Suffrage 8 30 2026
The only answer to the big money in the media propaganda industry is to not play along with it. Candidates, in particular the more capitalist ones, keep spending more and more money to fill cable tv and radio with messages favorable to capitalism. This year for the midterms it is adding up to something like a billion dollars, mostly for attack ads.
What can be done about this? Well there are several options, including ad block technology, or simply disconnecting from cable tv and gong internet. But the most radical is probably the easiest; completely reject television and radio advertising.
When it is clear the only political message on TV is the Republican bourgeoisie, people will know what to expect when they turn on commercial television. A slick product engineered to make a profit for the producer of the Republican propaganda if it brings in campaign contributions. The more sophisticated it gets the more chance of complete rejection of cable tv, ushering in the internet and streaming services. That is where the ad block technology comes in.
The ads can be blocked on your apple computer. It is not hard to download, and can be effective, although not completely.
That is where a new idea comes in; paying for the internet services you use like youtube. The latter charges 15$ a month for no ads. It also pays for google, resulting in less pressure from google to defeat ad black technology.
The Washington Post and New York Times are also worth subscribing to, and with an adblocker are free of political advertising. Again, selling space on the papers is replaced by direct payments by the consumer, resulting in less pressure to rely on propaganda ads for revenue.
The idea the only television and radio political advertising is the republican bourgeoisie would be most powerful. It would save tens of millions of dollars for the independent, or democratic socialists, running for office. It was effective in Michigan, Abdul el Sayed is running for Senate as a Democrat, and he used the political attack ads by his opponent in the primary she spent tens of millions of dollars on as an example of her questionable ideas about how to reach people, drawing a sharp contrast to him in the primary. In all he raised something like 7 million dollars for his campaign, and defeated the big money democrat.
It can work. Francesca Hong got close in Wisconsin, so close Republicans were attempting to fool people into thinking she was making ads, by running ads “for her”. Really slimy….
We have gotten several people identifying themselves as socialists elected, like Zohran Mamdani as Mayor of New York. A socialist mayor in the big city was an accomplishment, it shows seats can be won in suffrage,
But the unfortunate reality continually faced by the Democrats is the supposed need for the big money. Well, the big money works for Republicans, who spend hundreds of millions of dollars every big election on television and radio advertising. Democrats have fewer large donors, yet there are some who pay into the party, which corrupts them. They get convinced the only way to win is to counter the attack ads with their own.
I don’t need to go into detail how ugly this becomes, everybody has seen it. It worked for Donald Trump.
But a new path forward is gaining momentum, totally reliant upon technological progress. The internet and artificial intelligence is changing everything, from applying for an absentee ballot online, to publishing articles on your website. It is an example of a struggle for free speech, causing revolution.
The old means of communication like FM radio, and cable television still have followers. But it is going the same direction as AM radio; all Republican and nobody really listens to it.
The Democrats need to make a choice of if they want Mamdani or Bloomberg. The big money does not always win. We saw this with Judge Janet, when the richest man in the world spent tens of millions of dollars to influence suffrage for our supreme court.
We sent him packing. He’s not done with, he is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to support the republican bourgeoisie, and it may not be so openly but some of it no doubt comes here too. But it showed the power of the workers to get a seat in the court. It also created momentum , and Justice Crawford was later elected to the court, also less bourgeois than her opponent.
One person, one vote. It comes down to that, Trump knows it, and has to try to stop absentee ballots. He votes absentee in Florida. Apparently it is only the wealthy and powerful Trump believes should receive an absentee ballot. We have bad news for Trump, in most of the west, in states like California, everyone is sent a ballot. Trump attempts to stop the Post office from sending them out. As if it is the Post Office’s responsibility to stop absentee voting. Trump is flailing, the harder he pushes against absentee voting the more like a Hitler he looks like.
Complete rejection of television and radio advertising. No more paying tens of millions of Chevron’s billions of dollars to the pipeline politician to drown out the voices of the workers. This can work, the technology is here, ad blockers and paying for the paper.
Nicholas Jay Boyes
Milwaukee Wisconsin
American Democratic Republic
8 30 2026
Ecological Era 