• November 8, 2022
• Midterm Elections
• Mark your calendar

If you’re happy with the system and the administration, stay home. Do nothing. Watch reality TV instead of being involved in reality.

Now, if you like the admin but think it could be better, vote.

If you are in the majority that is displeased with the admin, vote.

Not voting is dumb. The admin is going to take low turnout as approval. This is true in 2022 and will be in 2024, 2026, 2028, 2030 ad infinitum (or at least until the US ceases to be a country). It doesn’t matter if it’s your favorite party or the other one, the admin is going to take no news as good news and keep right on with whatever they were doing.

Voting is the one poll that really tells government what people want. It’s also the only poll that samples at least a sixth of the total population and usually over 1/3rd of registered voters. Which sample do you think is more likely to be representative of 330 million people: 1012 or 60 million?

That’s right, 60 million. Pew and Gallup can only dream of sample sizes that big. That’s also assuming average to low turnout. The numbers are often much, much larger. But only in elections.

Those of you who think of yourselves as independent*, as well as those of us who identify with a party, get the chance to select the candidate whose positions that best fits your desires for your country. Being honest, a lot of party identifiers just vote straight party because the party platform (hopefully) agrees with their positions and we assume the candidate for that party will as well. It’s a cheat but more often than not, effective.

But, if you want to maximize your impact, you have to be willing to do the work, find out the candidates actual positions and be prepared to vote for the other guy if your party’s guy doesn’t hold positions with which you agree. If you’re thinking ‘that’s a lot of work’ you now have a good understanding of why we have political parties.

So, what about when the party doesn’t represent your positions anymore? That’s usually painful – we treat political parties like football teams and want to root for them no matter how badly they stink. We think of ourselves as Democrat or Republican. It hurts when we don’t fit in the group anymore.

But is hiring a new coach after every game really the best way to get a winning team? Or do we need to hire a staff we can trust and let them have the time and resources to do the job we’re entrusted to them. Then if they still fail, fire them.

But that’s mean! No, it isn’t. Truth only hurts because we lie to ourselves. The more lies we build up, the more it hurts when we learn the truth. It’s better for the hypothetical coach and his staff to find out sooner rather than later that they really aren’t good enough.

Yet.

Once we know we messed up, we can either come to the realization that we’re better coaching baseball or playing golf than coaching football and go do what we’re meant to do. Or we can sit down, figure out where we went wrong, how to do better, find a new job and win the state championship. Failure can be a kick in the pants or an open door – it doesn’t have to be the end of the world.

Same thing for political parties. I’ve been talking about the upcoming collapse of the Democrat Party. I take no joy in the prospect of people having their feeling deeply hurt – and that will happen. But the Democrats as an organization have lost all sense of proportion, decency and common sense. They will not stop until voters make them stop.

Voters have a choice to make: let the Democrat Party continue down the road of destruction it has taken and let it pull the country down with it, or vote against them so that they lose power. The party is in such fragile shape that it likely won’t survive the midterms if (when) they lose. But letting them continue as they are does them no favors and just pulls down the rest of the country with them.

The guys that don’t show up? Oh, they voted alright – for the status quo. Like I said, an admin will always take non-turn out as a sign of consent.

The sooner we get this over with, the sooner the people that form the Democrat Party can recover and decide what to do to move forward. Join the Republicans? Become Independent? Create a new party?

Learn to play golf?

The Golfing Party could be interesting. Not sure anyone would be willing to watch their debates though. Maybe the Paint Drying Party?

I only jest in part – the new party needs to be boring in order to get back in line with the center. The US is still very, very much a centrist nation. Trying to be different is what pushed the Democrats over the cliff. Their replacement doesn’t need to be different – it needs to be better. The American people will handle the being different thing. Different is not what we need in a political party.

And don’t think this doesn’t apply to the Republicans. They are also on borrowed time. The age of do nothing so you have something to run on is long dead. Welcome to the do it right age.

First though, we voters have to do it right – by showing up and voting. Let’s see what happens when we do.

*Did you know the candidate you voted for circuit court last time? No? You’re not independent, then. Independent is hard work.