Many people who I love dearly are psychologically married to a deadly myth: That the “reality” of American politics is something we call “our two-party system,” and that we have no viable alternative to choosing either “Red” or “Blue” candidates, no matter how distasteful we may find the alleged choices to which this system limits us. We must resign ourselves to choosing “the lesser of two evils,” the story goes, even though, by definition, the result of our choice is always evil. The only other choice, picking a “third party candidate” (from one of the available eight American parties), has never been successful; making that “choice” is almost universally regarded as, at best, “throwing your vote away” and at worst “a virtual vote for the greater evil” of the two “major parties.” (Which one is the “greater evil,” of course, depends on what color you choose to identify with.)
Few partisans will admit that their “choice” of candidate is actually evil, and will insist that “their” candidate is far better than the “other one.” However, I think most voters will eventually admit (by the midterm mark) that they actually voted against that “other guy” rather than for “their own.”
What I meant by the phrase “a deadly myth” in the first sentence of this piece is the almost universally-shared belief that in the United States, our political system is accurately described as “a 2-party system." This belief is bogus, a result of gaslighting performed by its beneficiaries, a trap for those blind to the reality that the phrase is the term the puppeteers use to describe the political theater they perform. Each "party" is really a corporate lobbying group, both owned by the same club of kleptocrat, corporate paymasters—deadly because it has murdered American politics.
Case in point: when the DNC was sued on behalf of Bernie Sanders, claiming that the nomination was stolen from the real people's choice (Bernie), the DNC's lawyer's defense was deflection—holding that, as a private corporation, the DNC has no obligation to the electorate or even to its own rules; that it can choose to select a candidate by any backroom method it chooses, and the courts can have nothing to say about it. The judge agreed; case dismissed. I got this through a net search; you can do the same. (I recommend this one: https://inthesetimes.com/article/in-its-defense-against-fraud-suit-from-bernie-supporters-the-dnc-just-dug-i)
The "system" includes maintaining the necessary stagecraft to maintain the illusion of choice. Are Republicans different? Sure. In contrast to Democrats, they have a stronger consensus these days about choosing (or selecting) their candidates and have taken a different tack. The party which celebrates the exclusion of minorities (especially the darker ones) and blames the victims of austerity for their suffering, must anticipate that these folk will likely "vote blue.”
As the numbers of Blue voters grow, Republicans see that they can only win future elections by excluding these voters from the polls. (See Gregpalast.com for details on the scams they've developed to "meet this challenge.") Under Trumpism (which is what has replaced “Republicanism”), it’s either that or other schemes to steal elections, which they’re now openly plotting (rebranded in Orwellian fashion as “protecting election integrity”). The Jan. 6th Congressional hearings have already touched on this subject, in one case involving the wife of a sitting Supreme Court Justice (and her husband).
What can we do to “reform our 2-party system?”
Nothing. The first step in solving a problem is correctly identifying it. We the People must first acknowledge the truth: There is no such thing as “our 2-party system.” When a “system” is revealed as a fraud, it must be abolished and liquidated, much like 45’s fraudulent “University.” Washington warned our young nation that political parties were a very bad idea. Voting for “the lesser of two evils” perpetuates an ever-growing evil, no matter what its “color” is.
Eisenhower viewed “parties” with almost as jaundiced an eye as Washington when he wrote, “If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power.” Today, we have two such conspiracies, owned and operated by the same club of kleptocrats, masquerading as political parties, appearing to battle each other (to provide voters with the illusion of choice) but ignoring the will of the voters. Would you like some facts to back up that assertion? Try this link: https://represent.us/the-strategy-to-end-corruption/?akid=a10031615.371629.I7V2fg&aktmid=tm4215366.6lV7I-&source=conf&t=1 A key statistic that the website represent.us unearthed: 90% of Americans have essentially no impact at all on the laws Congress passes.
Represent.us has a road map to what it will take to end legalized corruption. The solution can begin only when the non-rich recognize what the super-rich have known for centuries: we are engaged in a class war, and the rich class is winning. (Warren Buffett, in a candid moment, said just that.)
Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Washington thought “parties” were a bad idea; Eisenhower said they could be extremely dangerous. Here’s a thought: why do we need “parties” at all? They are mentioned nowhere in the Constitution and are now functioning just as Ike described. As I’ve illustrated, today’s “parties” serve only to deceive and distract the electorate while serving only the super-rich, and cannot be “reformed from within;” at the very least, they would have to be somehow magically transformed into what they pretend to be (representatives of the people) and cease to be what they are (tools of deception and control, owned by a tiny club of kleptocrats and manipulated to advance their own interests at the expense of the other 99% of us).
I propose a “nuclear option:” outlaw party control of our government and allow only independent candidates to run for elective office. Of course, “parties” won’t volunteer to abolish themselves, but the same result would happen if We the People recognized the fraud currently enshrined as “our two-party system” and ceased support for any candidate who ran under a “party” banner. Such a national political paradigm shift is surely the tallest of tall orders, but we—not just the American voters of the United States, but people worldwide— face an unprecedented combination of existential crises, which range from global proxy wars which could escalate to a real nuclear apocalypse, climate change so extreme as to create mass migration, shortages of food, water, and power, wealth concentration impoverishing most while making the top .001% obscenely rich, prompting “survivalists” to prepare to kill off neighbors who might want to survive as well in a coming eco-apocalypse…you can all make your own lists of what will happen when (not if) civilization as we know it crumbles. Some estimate that a tipping point, past which there’s no escape from global disaster, could be reached as soon as eight years from now.
By contrast, my proposed “nuclear option” could save (rather than destroy) the planet, by simply recognizing that “Parties as we know them,” at least in America, do not exist, and what does exist instead is a political puppet show akin to Punch and Judy, a pair engaged in a perpetual false battle, one on each hand of a single puppeteer hiding behind a curtain. Step right up and pay your money, folks! (We are paying that price, every minute of every hour.)
Represent.us provides an array of viable solutions, but all of them face the problem of getting past our political theater masquerading as politics. Considering the urgency of an eight-year pre-apocalypse window, is there a feasible, workable shortcut? Suppose We the People could get an independent candidate on the ballot to run for POTUS, and work to get him elected? Suppose such a candidate develops a strategy for getting in place the real reforms we need, despite a Congress still “owned” by the kleptocrat “elite?”
There was such an independent candidate, a “man without a party,” aiming to do just that. This was his website: JonStasevich2024.com. After 15 months of using his own funds to promote his candidacy, he was forced to abandon the effort. This leaves the state-by-state strategy of represent.us as the best one I see to root out money corruption from our political system.
Is “the Party” over? That depends on you, me, our friends and neighbors, and the internet. As Edmund Burke said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” (or, do what we all did last time, and vote for the “lesser evil” ).
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