I have previously written (here and here) about the need to break the duopoly of power in this country by creating greater opportunity for other parties and candidates. Every presidential election, the voters are told that they have to chose between two candidates who garner little support in their own right. It is the continual replay of “choosing between evils” option for voters. Now we have a new disgrace: a majority of polled voters in swing states view both Donald Trump and Joe Biden as mentally unfit but are told that they must chose between them.
The poll of 4,143 likely voters in the pivotal states of Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin was shocking, even for those of us who have been long critics of the duopoly system. A 51% majority said Trump is mentally unfit to be president while 52% felt the same way about Biden.
Those figures generally track the rest of the country. In a CNBC/Change Research nationwide poll, 55% said Trump was mentally unfit and 52% said that Biden was mentally unfit.
They do not fare much better on physical fitness. Only 52% said Trump is physically fit to be president while 54% felt the same way about Biden.
Every four years we are faced with the same unpopular choices but we now have two candidates that most voters consider mentally unfit. Every four years I hope that voters will finally get sufficiently angry to make real changes in our political system to break up the hold of the political establishment on our elections. We are a nation of over 300 million but have produced two candidates that the majority concerned mentally unfit. That captures the insanity of our times perfectly.
As somebody who has been working with The Green Party for the last twenty years, I have to say it will take more than a “popular movement” to change the system. The D’s and R’s have used their monopoly to get a lock on the electoral system. Getting a new party on the ballot is a prohibitively expensive and time-consuming project, made more difficult by the need for the new party to win a certain percentage of the vote in the Presidential or other statewide office race in order to stay on the ballot. This ensures that the new party’s best vote getters, rather than running for a lower office they could conceivably win, have to run for high offices that are usually sought by those with plenty of previous experience in governance. The D’s and R’s, and the compliant press, then make fun of the naivete of the new party’s candidates and, if those candidates have much success in spite of the obstacles, they are framed as “spoilers,”even though voter turnout in the US is far less than 100%,
After enormous effort and much litigation and political maneuvering, Maine has become the first state in the union to establish “ranked choice voting,” in which voters, as the name implies, rank the candidates in order of their preference. If no candidate receives a clear majority of the votes, the second choices of the last-place candidate are factored in, and so on, until there is a clear winner.
The other change that would give us a broader choice at the ballot box would be the institution of proportional representation, in which any party that receives, for example, five percent of the national vote gets an at-large representative in Congress, whether the party wins any geographical seats or not. Under this system, political parties often have to govern by forming coalitions, which makes for a much more collegial, and less contentious, political climate. I think it might take a Constitutional amendment, or maybe a basic Constitutional rewrite, to work that into our system.
I don’t think the prognosis is good for either one. I still maintain my connection to The Green Party, but I think at this point the US political system, like our economy, is toxically terminal, and I’m doing what I can to prepare for impact.
Thanks for sharing your frequently iconoclastic views on the passing scene. I don’t always agree with you, but I value what you have to say.
Just to clarify, when I wrote “If no candidate receives a clear majority of the votes, the second choices of the last-place candidate are factored in,” I meant “the second choices of those voters for whom the lowest-ranked candidate was their first choice.”
Brothermartin, I am more closely aligned with the Libertairians. The Greens and the Libertarians are close to 180’degrees in government involvement in corporate or private lives. But both have one common goal. Ballot access, debate access and maybe % representation if states would change to that.
But do the minority parties put aside political differences and work toward that one common goal? I dont see.it. Maybe if the Constitutionalist, Libertarians, Greens and any others would say our one and main goal today is equal access to ballots and federal election funds, then maybe a third party could become relevant instead of a tite.on a bull.
Obama’s CIA director John Brennan is going down. Get the popcorn.
Little doubt he’s earned it. I’ll believe it when it happens.
Perhaps these voters are actually unfit to vote because in order to vote one must make a choice.
For those following U.S. v. Flynn, Gleeson filed his reply today. The entire document is available on the Court Listener pages for the docket, and there’s a discussion of excerpts here: https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/09/11/john-gleeson-lays-out-how-doj-is-arguing-against-doj-then-invokes-barrs-other-interference/
This is your insurmountable political problem, Buttercup:
“64% of Americans oppose ‘defund the police’ movement, key goals: POLL”
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/64-americans-oppose-defund-police-movement-key-goals/story?id=71202300
Political Science 101: Fear is the greatest motivator.
It seems Gleeson’s reputation is well deserved. His arguments are very clear and detailed. I don’t see how the government can justify its position after Gleeson exposed major flaws in its reasoning.
More information Democrats don’t want voters to know prior to the election. Nothing to see here, move along.
DLA Piper boasts of having “long-established and embedded “China Desks” in both the U.S. and Europe” to assist their China-focused consulting, prompting questions about the firm’s potential proximity to the White House could be leveraged by DLA Piper, exploited by the Chinese Communist Party, or represent a financial conflict of interest for the Vice Presidential candidate.
https://thenationalpulse.com/politics/harris-husband-ccp/
Politico: “Chinese state-owned companies are constructing two luxury Trump developments in United Arab Emirates and Indonesia.” “the president and his daughter Ivanka Trump, a White House adviser, have been awarded trademarks by China’s government [during Trump’s presidency and] his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has courted Chinese investors in at least one other real estate deal.”
No doubt you’re concerned about how their “proximity to the White House could be leveraged …, exploited by the Chinese Communist Party, or represent a financial conflict of interest for the [President].”
At least Emhoff doesn’t co-own DLA Piper, unlike the Trumps and Kushner and their businesses.
As Richard Painter and Noah Bookbinder argued in a USA Today op ed, Congress should pass a “ban on financial conflicts of interest of the president, vice president and members of Congress that is as strong as the current law for all other federal employees,” requiring them “to divest from conflicts of interest … sell off conflicted assets and put the money in conflict-free assets or a blind trust.”
Congress should pass a “ban on financial conflicts of interest of the president, vice president and members of Congress that is as strong as the current law for all other federal employees,”
They aren’t employees.
Yes, they’re federal employees (just not federal civil service employees). However, the financial conflicts of interest laws exempt them.
So, then, not ordinary employees. And that is for a reason, one of them to keep people like you from sticking your thumb in their eyes over petty and byzantine regulations.
“So, then, not ordinary employees.”
I’m not sure what you mean by this, but then I presume you aren’t either. At any rate, the fact that they are “not ordinary,” i.e. that they are elected officials in policy-making and -enforcing roles is absolutely all the more reason that they should be bound by conflict of interest laws. As a 2020 Trump voter and 2016 Hilary voter, I think Committohonestdiscussion is making a valid point here.
The Chinese Government is NOT our friend; we need to start thinking of them as an enemy. For that very reason, even if you think these particular officials should not be bound by conflict of interest laws generally, we ought to make it absolutely illegal to have conflicts with the chinese government.
You have no idea what a joke you’ve become ever since you came out and effectively declared your allegiance to an ideology and not our country and rule of law. Bwahahahahaha!
In other words, Olly, you don’t have an argument, and you’re choosing to resort to insult based on nonsense you’ve projected onto me.
That’s one theory. Readers of this blog have an archive to prove it is projection, or accurate. Lol!
Olly — She hit you with ‘insult’ and ‘projection’ but left out ‘ROFL’ and ‘LOL’, also favorites.
But you are right about her becoming a joke with an OCD fixation of rabidly hating the President.
Young, you and Olly have no idea what a joke you’ve become ever since you came out and effectively declared your allegiance to an ideology and not our country and rule of law. Bwahahahahaha!
You are becoming a joke with an OCD fixation of rabidly hating liberals..
ha, ha. DLA is one of the biggest law firms in the world. tons of trade business. trust me they know no allegiances above MONEY