TRUMP’s victory and his subsequent far-right appointments which threaten to take the world’s most powerful country back to the Dark Ages are bad enough. The fact that he has majorities in both Senate and House to give him virtually unfettered power is unspeakable. 

And these majorities are based on millions of voters actively choosing to believe conspiracy theories and outright lies, spread by mainstream media sources owned by right-wing billionaires and racist, misogynistic social media “influencers.”

Levellers, Chartists and Suffragettes fought for the vote and eventually won a glorious victory. But an essential prerequisite for universal suffrage to exist in any meaningful sense of the word is a balanced media owned by the people who create and consume it, distributing information free from contortions and lies — and a properly funded education system which equips people to make choices based on that information.