It's Already Clear our Election Process is Broken
The only solution for fundamental change is to vote third party
Let’s face it, we want better choices. A system of choosing candidates that nominates a declining octogenarian with the worst approval rating of any President’s third year in history (38%), and the soon-to-be octogenarian and defeated previous incumbent who lost, refused to concede and left the office with an even lower approval rating (32%), is broken. So much so that 70% of Americans do not want Biden to run for President and 60% do not want Trump. And yet, it seems more and more likely that when we enter the booth in November, these will be our choices.
When you compare 20th Century Presidents like Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Reagan (let alone titans like Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln) to the career Washington insiders and stuffed shirts we’ve had as choices in the 21st century, you really start to wonder what has gone wrong with our choosing process. Compare the list above to these winners and also-rans: George W Bush, Al Gore, Barrack Obama, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, and yes, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. These people lied to us about WMDs, about the reasons and progress in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, caused a financial meltdown, bailed out banks and union-backed car companies and not the people, pretended to fix healthcare that to this day has worse outcomes and is more expensive than ever, ran up huge deficits, debt and inflation, froze wage growth with terrible immigration policies, enacted terrible COVID policies that didn’t work and will hurt America and its youth for a generation, and haven’t solved any major issues facing America in at least a generation. Indeed, the Democratic and Republican parties (along with their allies in the donor class and the media) no longer serve the interests of the people and have far too much power in selecting the candidates for which the people get to vote. It is time for change.
I’ve written before about the useless governing of the modern Republican Party, and the ways in which the two parties give us a false sense of democracy. The net effect is to limit our choices to two similarly minded candidates who participate in an amateur illusion, a milquetoast melodrama that pretends they will enact radically different platforms. But the radical changes never come. Once elected, the rancid sausage that comes out of the legislative kitchen smells and tastes eerily similar regardless of who is President, as the DC institutions limit choices and hardball politics rule the day. It is clearly better in Washington for these parties to pay off donors with special regulations and tax benefits; and likewise, more important to win the next election through demagoguing wedge issues than to govern effectively on behalf of the American people.
Today, a week before the first voters cast a ballot in what should be a six month process to select the parties’ nominees for President, every poll and most pundits believe the race is already over. Donald Trump leads national polling with 60% of the Republican vote, and 51% in Iowa - the first matchup. No one else is even close, and the national pundits are already writing stories about DeSantis dropping out. I believe strongly that Governor DeSantis is the best person to lead America out of the mess we are in, but even if I’m wrong does it serve the people’s interest to not have a vigorous debate and primary campaign process?
Similarly, despite members of his own party asking him to drop out, and polling that shows Democrats want a different candidate, Biden’s nomination looks all wrapped up. The Democratic Party has changed schedules and rules in the nomination process to the President’s advantage to lock out challengers like RFK Jr., Phillips and Williamson. Who wins if DeSantis, RFK, Manchin, Newsom and other current and potential candidates all don’t run or drop out? The entrenched elite.
Because the elite know something we don’t - if it is Donald Trump versus Joe Biden, Biden will win again. There is simply no way that independents and other key constituencies a Republican candidate needs to defeat Biden will go for Trump in the end. At least that is the bet the elites are making, and they usually win those bets - it’s easy when you can fix the game. The grand exception was 2016 when Donald Trump defied the fix and beat Hillary Clinton solidly. After that defeat, the elites began to up level the fix, and decided they will never allow Trump or someone like him to win again. These entrenched interests began a multi-pronged strategy to make it so. That strategy includes: the Steele Dossier and the Russian Collusion hoax, two questionable impeachments, a semi-secret effort by DHS, the FBI and other agencies to censor “misinformation” that is overwhelmingly conservative and a legal strategy that - surprise! - has every case being adjudicated four years later in the middle of the next campaign. Where were these cases in 2021, 2022 or 2023? Does any one seriously believe the timing and veracity of these cases is a coincidence?
As voters who are not able or not willing to pay millions to get what we want out of these candidates and our government, what is to be done? We must stop voting for these two parties. Both of them. Now. We must stop being fooled by the silly argument that a vote for a third party is really a vote for Biden or Trump. This is a fallacy concocted by the parties themselves to convince you to surrender your vote to their candidate. We the People can elect whomever we want, and if enough of us vote for a third party candidate, the jig will be up.
So, imagine if you will that it is November 6th, 2024 - the day after the election. A third party candidate - Joe Manchin of No Labels or RFK Jr or someone else not affiliated with the Democrat NOR Republican Party has been elected President. Every single thing would change. The parties would be forced to recognize that, 1) the voters are again in control and, 2) that each must either reform to serve the people’s interests or face extinction. It has happened once before in American politics (the Whig Party was replaced by Republicans around the time of the Civil War) and it can happen again. Once in office, our third party President could work with Congress to reform our election systems - removing the domination that the parties have over our elections, restoring the people’s power and making the election process more fair, independent and free. We could forever see more choices rather than less, and the parties would be forced to work together to get any legislation or other important work done with a leader not beholden to either one.
Barring unforeseen changes (for which my heart longs but my head now doubts), Trump and Biden will be the nominees. I will vote for someone else.