Your comments deserve more than a simple comment in return. So David, because of you, I’m responding with a new post, and hope you’ll continue to participate in this ongoing discussion. I hope others will participate, soon, too. November 7 really is only days away.
I get your point. I do.
But I don’t believe I’m making myself clear ;-(
What I’m trying to say is: Regardless of the alleged merit (and I like to believe everyone has some portion) of any number of Republican and/or Democratic politicians, they are still a part of the problem. The problem, David, is the party. Either party. Both parties.
Once upon a time, I was asked by my local party chairman (I have been both D and R in this life) to run for state senator. I was kind of a small time mover and shaker, and although it was clear I’d lose, (the seat, uncontested, was held by a popular ex-pro football player), I was asked to run for the sake of democracy and the “good of the party.”
Ah, did they know the way to my heart, or what?
I was younger, and still a true believer in our electoral process, especially the importance of the two main parties. Give and Take, I thought. Yin and Yang.
Problem is, David, while I was deciding what to do, weighing the impact of campaigning (for even a rather lightweight office) on my then wife, and life, I was contacted via portable phone (when they still looked like walkie-talkies), by the state party leader. He assured me 1) I needn’t worry about raising money, it was a bit late in the season, and I’d be bankrolled by the party, 2) No one seriously expected me to win, 3) Small “d” democracy depended on my running (to keep the system “honest”), 4) My party needed me, and 5) A substantial new position in the state capitol (in an area of special interest to me–I had and have my pet causes/issues) would be waiting for me after the elections were through. Oh, yeah, and don’t forget, the party would be VERY grateful for my effort.
Anyone who knew me then (or knows me now) would tell you the surest way to alienate me was to ask me to sacrifice my principles in order to “get ahead.” Okay, so this will sound overly dramatic, but I can’t think of another way to say it:
It broke my heart.
My belief in the system had been altered. Permanently. But before I began using my anecdotal experience as a measure of Democratic and Republican politics in general, I have spent quite a bit of time and effort over the years since, investigating, talking to people and exploring the extent of this “cancer.”
David, it doesn’t lie within the individuals who bear the D or R label. Many of them, especially in the beginning, aren’t jaded, backroom dealmakers. But, in one way or another, they all seem to reach that place eventually. Is it their fault, or the system’s?
Both, I say.
I could have, maybe should have, run with some other party affiliation, or as a true independent, on my own non-party, party line.
I chose not to. I am responsible for not trying to make a change, for putting my personal well-being, sanity and dignity, ahead of attempting to make a positive difference. I tried to make my contribution to improving things in other ways. I suppose this little campaign of mine is my latest attempt to make a difference. And maybe make up for chickening out back in the day.
Nearly twenty years have passed since my story took place. Our national political system has not improved, it has retrenched, and become more intractable with each passing election season. Keeping either party in its relative state of authority (and the iron grip they exert over how and why things get done–supposedly on our behalf) is achieved by voting ANY of their candidates into office.
The game is rigged as long as their candidates hold sway. Nothing, I repeat, David, nothing will change from the inside, by them, unless We, the People, from the outside come knocking on, and making visible dents in, the walls of protection they’ve constructed over the years.
They don’t mind LOW voter turnout. Actually makes their job easier. Voter apathy is actually approved, often encouraged of by both parties. Just as long as most every voter, everywhere, is focusing on a Republican or Democrat; as long as “the lesser of two evils,” we select is one of theirs, they win. And We, the People, lose.
National and global corporations, special interest groups, both “left” and “right,” bankroll the status quo, encouraging complacency and institutionalizing voter ennui. All media is supported tremendously by both parties (and the forces behind them), but they will not be able to ignore the vote of the people, when that vote seems to say: Enough! The time for an oil change is long past, the engine of our democracy needs an overhaul!
You say, “Look at it this way: keep finding ones you like and vote them in, and eventual the party will shift to what you want it to be.” I used to think like you. My eyes were opened years ago, and I’ve kept them peeled ever since, and I believe what you’re saying simply won’t happen.
The status quo we’ve allowed to be created has become a genuinely immovable object. The parties and the money behind them control nearly everything we see and hear, and nearly everyone who bears the Democratic or Republican candidate label. That doesn’t make them bad people. Just “compromised” politicians.
Sure, any and all “other” party candidates will run some risk of principle “erosion” if elected. There will be pressure to conform, and pressure to “join the game.” But if “the game,” or rather the party machine, didn’t elect them, they’ll stand a much better chance of remaining true to themselves and the people who really put them into office.
Maybe, David, just maybe, the two power parties will consider swimming in a different direction if they notice the tide turning against the monopoly they’ve enjoyed all these years.
Electing their own–whether I think they’re “good,” or whether I “like” them or not, won’t make a dime’s worth of difference in the trillion dollar game better known as our “two-party system.”
