There's been a whole lot of talk about "democracy" this campaign season among activists and first time voters. "This is what democracy looks like" was a rallying cry among Sanders voters in the primary and Trump has already laid the groundwork for his possible defeat by saying the election has already been rigged against him.
In California democracy looks like a ballot that forces citizens to make important detailed decisions on many matters they do not understand. This November we have 17 measures on matters as mundane as plastic bag regulation to drug prices to banning of ammunition and the death penalty. Many of these are on the ballot because wealthy people and corporations paid money to get them there in the hopes that the people would be bamboozled by misleading advertising into voting against their self-interest. Others are genuinely grassroots initiatives and important philosophical issues that are rightly decided by a direct vote of the citizenry (like the death penalty.) It's very difficult to know which is which and people (including me) often end up voting for or against things based on an instinctive reaction to the language of the measure or a general belief that it's best to vote no on everything.
It doesn't work out well for either party a good part of the time. Proposition 13, for example, destroyed the tax base. Or Proposition 187 which destroyed the Republican Party in California.
Anyway, if you live in California, here's a good brief analysis from the LA Times of what's on the ballot this fall. You'd better start reading about it now because it's the longest list we've had in decades. Oy.
