Today, as I start this blog post, is April 20, 2022 and I was watching a Tim Pool video on YouTube titled GOP NUKES Disney From Orbit Revoking Special Tax Status, Disney Gets Woke Goes Broke As Stock TANKS. I noted at near the end of this 33-minute long video, Tim goes into discussing Civiqs polling data on Which party is more concerned with people like you? data where he was breaking it down by party and ages as he does. It got me thinking. What is wrong with our current system?
The answer to this question is simple, binary. We are a two-party electoral system. Yes we have a few outliers that claim to be independent or a part of (insert fringe party name here) but when it comes to the federal government and the elected officials the majority (99.996%) are from the two main parties, Democrats and Republicans. I got this number from adding up all members of Congress, including non-voting members from territories held, which is 551 and dividing the two “independents” by 551, or 2/551, to get 0.0036%. Does this seem very representative of the views of our nation? Are there only two sides to a political discussion? Or are there nuances and shades of gray?
Of course there are not just two sides that represent our nation, but we are conditioned to believe that is the case. Since the 1968 Presidential Election there has not been a third party that has stolen a chunk of Electoral College votes from one of the two main parties (1972, 1976 & 1988 had aberrations where one EC vote was granted to another candidate due to “faithless electors”) where Nixon got 301, Humphrey got 191, and Wallace got 46. Why is it that we are conditioned to have inability to elect others from parties other than the Democrats and Republicans?
Money. Both parties are private entities and govern themselves. They make the rules on who can run under their collective name and banish those they do not want to run for their party. If you watched Timcast IRL Ep. 513 you would have heard about them talk about Robby Starbuck for being kicked off the ballot in Tennessee because the Republican party stated that he was ineligible due to not voting in enough Republican primaries or having state Republicans vouch for him as a true Republican. Why would they do this?
Power. Corruption in politics and government are as old as civilization itself. The people that run these parties like the power they hold and do not wish to relinquish it. Along come up and coming politicians that could upset the fragile world of these party politics power-mongers that they have to find ways to keep these people down. So some of these disenfranchised people go and create their own parties.
Like the Libertarian, Green, Socialism and Liberation, and Socialist Workers parties that were on the ballot in my home state of Washington for the 2020 Presidential Election. As you can see the two major parties had the majority of the votes. Why? Money again. They can afford the advertising on television, radio, and internet more so than the smaller parties. That is not to say that the smaller parties are poor or cannot run their campaigns, it is just that they do not have the reach and resources to overcome the two-party system.
And the Democrats and the Republicans like this setup because it allows them to spin the gridlock that is Washington D.C. into a repetitive “blame, deflect, and repeat” on issues that need to be done but go nowhere. President George Washington warned the early United States to stay out of party politics and it did not work. Since we cannot be that “….perfect union,” we should try to remember that we need to be a “….more perfect union,” and work together. “But how?” you may ask.
Find other parties that you align with and get involved. If none exist, create your own and work you way into local politics. You do not have to be the candidate yourself, so find those that are of a similar mind. Through this we can get people into Congress and take the majority away from these two parties and force them to work with others. Maybe not with each other per se but at least work with others to form coalitions similar to the House of Commons in the UK Parliament. Who knows, maybe some day your child could be the first (insert non-Democrat, non-Republican party) POTUS in 173 years since Zachary Taylor (Whig) won the election.
J Brown Media 