OUR TWO-PARTY SYSTEM IS KILLING US!
Christopher Ebbe, Ph.D. 6-26
It is natural for like-minded people to form affinity groups, like conservative groups and liberal groups, but it is ruining our political process that our two major parties spend far more time fighting and competing with each other than they do trying to create policy that will help all Americans and not just their supporters. The descent of our process (a la Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh) to name-calling and mutual demeanment is largely to blame for making things so bad that Congress can hardly do its job at all.
The two main contributors to Congressional hell are too much focus by the parties on only part of the electorate rather than all Americans (Republicans on MAGA and Democrats on the underprivileged and marginalized) and the self-interest of officials who wish to make their positions into careers. Both parties should give up trying to “win” over the other and focus instead on sane and reasonable policies on larger issues and let voting about those policy stands win elections. To try to “win” and dominate the other party is actually un-American if we see America as standing for basic equality and equal opportunity for all.
Please, Congresspersons and Presidents, admit that the other side has some good ideas and good intentions, too, and join together to reject the calls from extreme voters on both sides to make everyone live like they want everyone to live! Wouldn’t it be glorious to have Democrats discussing how their policy positions could benefit Republican voters, and vice versa? If all candidates vowed not to appeal to extreme voters at all (but instead to focus on the good of all Americans), then extreme voters would not vote in primaries in such large numbers compared to moderates.
We must also change the perception of voters regarding the parties, since many voters think that we have to have these two parties. WE DON’T, and the public shouldn’t have to pay for their primaries. The parties can conduct their own ways of selecting candidates, however they like (smoke-filled room, convention, internet poll, ietc.), at their own expense. Political parties should be limited to public education, policy development, and endorsing candidates rather than turning our elections into divisive contests between huge blocs of citizens. The parties are already paying for their divisiveness in dwindling membership, as there are now more Independents than there are Democrats or Republicans. If we chose to, we could select candidates on the basis of who would be the most qualified to do the job, rather than on entertainment fame, hatred, salaciousness, or demeanment of some part of our population. (I will write soon about a sequential approach of structured speeches starting in neighborhoods and building up to produce the top five or so candidates.)
Compromise must become a good word again, in contrast to our current absurd situation in which if a candidate won’t “fight to the death” for cultural issues, he or she can’t get elected. Good compromise is not easy but would benefit more Americans than cow-towing to the extremes (who are of course entitled to express their opinions but not entitled to the power they now wield).
I regret laying blame, but the desire to get re-elected is our biggest problem, and since incumbents hear more from angry haters than from moderates and those sincerely interested in policy issues, they therefore feel that they must pander to those voters, particularly in the primaries. To complete a restructuring of our election process, we must have Congressional term limits and remove the money from politics. Not all career politicians are bad, but we should call on all who put their careers (re-election) ahead of the good of the country to resign for the sake of the country!
Citizens have a right to express their wishes, but rich citizens have no legal right to have more influence over elections than every other voter. Political contributions should be limited to one set, reasonable amount for everyone. Contributing money is not speech and is not what The Framers thought of as speech, and the sooner that can be reversed in the Supreme Court or in Congress, the sooner we can have saner and more fair elections. The more actual speech we can have about our wishes for government, the better government we will have. We will not benefit from maintaining a culture of buying influence. To allow money and not principle to control our country puts the lie to any pretensions we have regarding equality, and we should be ashamed! We have so given in to the worship of riches that most readers will pass this idea off as quaint or blind—money controls everything, right—but then we should have to own our abandonment of our ideals and sit down to wait for our inevitable devolution to an authoritarian government handing out bread or money (lower taxes) just like Rome handing Christians to the lions to keep the population satisfied!
Essays\Politicalparties3