Welcome to the new baktun. While the hope of a new age beckons, our hopelessly broken society and political system aren’t equal to the task. 

Representational government has become anything but, thanks to the great gerrymandering of 2010. Though Democratic votes for the U.S. House of Representatives outnumbered Republican by 1.1 million, Republicans manipulated a 33-seat majority. 

If this isn’t chilling enough, Republicans are now conspiring to reform that nasty, antiquated, constitutionally established Electoral College to reflect the gerrymandered congressional district vote, rather than the state. If in effect this past presidential election, the Democratic vote majority of 5.5 million would have resulted in an Electoral College victory for Republicans. I guess, if you can’t suppress or steal enough votes, you need to find a different way to count them.