We Desperately Need A New Electoral System, New Methods Of Campaigning, And New Types Of People Running For Office

            To reiterate the bottom line, the political system would be opened to needed third party candidates under the proposed new plan of electing the president, if that plan were supplemented  by a run off system that would allow people to vote for a third party candidate without fear of thereby electing another demento from a major party.  (Note that, even under a new system, the major parties, which have given us wackos,  nonetheless seem likely to receive more votes, at least initially, than a third party candidate.) 

But at least as important, and quite possibly even more important in my judgment, the new plan, supplemented by a rankings-based instant run off, would also be a powerful precedent for opening up the Congressional and Senate races to third parties -- it would be a precedent whose example would constantly be cited and might shortly be followed.  It is crucial to open up the legislature to third parties.  Only in that way is it liable to be possible to elect legislators who wish to cause America to recede from being a national security state, and who will vote for policies that serve the interests of the vast bulk of the country instead of the oligarchy of wealth and power that has run it for about the last 50 years.  If forty or fifty third party legislators were elected to Congress (instead of there being only one or two who do not belong to either major party), the debates over policy and legislation would have quite a different cast, the enacted policy and legislation would likely be quite different, presidents could not safely ignore the third party legislators’ views, and we would have a fighting chance to go upward instead of downhill.  The initial years of the Republican Party in the 19th century show what a difference can be made by a new party with a fighting chance to win.

            Today a third party does not have a chance in Congressional elections to the Senate or Congress because, as in the Electoral College, the states follow a winner take all system.  Whoever gets the most votes in a Congressional district becomes that district’s Congressman or Congresswoman.  If one wishes to cure this, there would seem to be various possible ways, with the most effective perhaps being statewide proportional representation.  But, however it is done, it is important that it be done.

            To many, this will seem like pie in the sky, just as, as recently as a few years ago, changing the Electoral College, or its present workings, seemed like pie in the sky.  But now its workings may well be changed within a few years, so maybe we can hope that the way we elect Congresspeople can be changed too, especially since the future of the country depends on giving people more choices than the tweedle dum, tweedle dee non- choice between the two major parties that are part of the ruling oligarchy and now monopolize politics in support of the national security state.

            And, while I’m bringing up what lots of people will think pie in the sky, let me bring up a matter that goes to the heart of how our crappy politics are currently practiced in this country.  If there is one thing that is lacking in current politics, it is thinkers.  One does not get elected by spending his or her time reflecting deeply on matters, spending his or her time thinking them out and engaging others in serious discussion about them.  For such individuals there is no place in American politics -- a Lincoln, should he come along today, would be dead in the water before he even began.  Rather than promoting thinkers and true accomplishers into political office, our politics consists of going from house to house day after day, week after week at the local levels, going from city to town to village to city in state after state after state for years on end at the highest level, various mixtures of these at intermediate levels, and, in general, exhausting one’s body and one’s mind meeting, greeting, flesh pressing, blabbing and bobbing and weaving instead of thinking, reflecting and in a serious way discussing.  (This was not the way Lincoln -- or even Harding (to take a bad example) - - sought office.  Lincoln didn’t leave Springfield.)  Our present anti-Lincolnesque method of politics is virtually guaranteed to get us exactly what it usually does get us, government by a near kakistocracy (government by the worst) instead of government by the best (or at least the quite good).  Our near kakistocracy is adept at making themselves look good to people:  to get elected they need show a pleasing, amicable personality (like the demento we first knew), a ready smile, good looks, reasonable fluency (although demento initially was semi tongue tied -- but let us not misunderestimate him).  They must show themselves the kind of persons you might want to have a drink with.  But reflectiveness, thoughtfulness, rationality, high intelligence, extensive knowledgeability, serious achievement -- these are distinctly not part of the game.  All this too needs to be changed if the country is to escape the fix it’s been in for decades.  Nor would it be difficult to drastically change methods in this age of streaming internet video and audio that enable a candidate to reach gazillions of people. 

You know, the kind of people who run large, successful corporations or other businesses, or who successfully run universities, conduct themselves in the way I would like to see politicians’ conduct themselves.  Why does anyone think our political methods will produce competent officials instead of the dementos it does produce, when more serious methods are used to obtain more serious, better leaders in walks of life where America is more successful than in politics?* 

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