Your Fate is Decided by 4!!
Today's current political outcomes hinge on the votes of just 4 of your neighbors.
Good Morning Neighbors. This is the first in a series of letters describing exactly how you and I can change the rules of the election game. I say game because our elected officials and the party organizations believe it is just that, a game. They simply play with and trade our votes like it was a stock portfolio. I don’t feel like a stock portfolio, do you? I’m a real American that wants his vote to count.
As I’ve said before, the middle represents over 126 million American voters and over 60% of the votes cast every election. While we have been passively unengaged both the Republican and Democratic parties together, yes they work in conjunction, and their adherents in the media have done everything needed to keep us distrustful, angry, and quite frankly dismissive of each other. This needs to stop beginning the second you finish reading this.
There has been talk for years about a strong third party. But is that realistic? For every elected official, except one, it’s a reasonable option (the President being the outlier here I will explain why that is so) but neither current major party wants that. Why? Because every third-party candidate with a reasonable platform would take money, resources, and votes from their parties.
The last time there was a legitimate third-party candidate,1992, the eventual winner of that election got less than 43% of the vote yet received almost 69% of the electoral college voters. The third-party candidate got almost 20% of the popular vote and no electoral votes. The reason being, usually a third-party candidate in a Presidential election is similar enough to one of the candidates, that they split the like-minded voters with that candidate, weakening them. If anyone is trying to sell you on the absolute need for a third party, they support one party over the other and it’s a ruse.
So, if a third party doesn’t work for the President can it work in the election for the House of Representatives and the Senate. Yes, absolutely it can. But do we need a third party? I say not necessarily so. I’m not precluding the necessity a third party, it may be necessary, but I think there’s a way to make our elections more representative of the voters, and to drive voters to the polls without the necessity of a third party.
The answer is to force the candidates to the center instead of the fringes. Its election season now and how many of this year’s candidates would you term moderates? Neither presidential candidate is anywhere near moderate and every candidate with a reasonable chance at being elected is a member of either major party. In my state one of the candidates for attorney general actually uses a grenade launcher in a political ad. Not very moderate in my opinion. While there is the occasional “independent” like Bernie Sanders they generally attach themselves to and caucus (more on caucusing later) with one of the major parties. Even Bernie Sanders voted with the Democratic leadership over 95% of the time. Does that sound like an “Independent”?
I don’t blame any of today’s candidates for allying themselves with either party. It’s expensive to get elected. Both major parties have access to billions of dollars through individuals and organizations. Even more money is raised and spent in support of these candidates through dark money Political Action Committees (PAC). Your well-meaning neighbor that has great ideas stands ZERO chance against a machine that requires absolute allegiance to the party and its platform.
If you believe in limited government, you’re Republican. And if you believe in expanded social services, Democrat. Unrestricted ownership of a gun, Republican. You believe in unrestricted abortion, Democrat. Believe in controlled immigration, Republican uncontrolled immigration, Democrat. Just on those 5 issues alone I don’t agree completely with either party. But because extremism has control of both parties, and the media, a voter that believes in a limited government with adequate social services, regulated abortion and guns, with tightly controlled immigration, must choose his poison because poison it is. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Here is how partisan congress truly is. To exemplify I’m going to use the vote differentials from the current and last congress, the 117th and 118th congress’. I am only using the data from the House of Representatives. The following numbers represent every vote on a bill during the congressional term in 2021-yoday. Any vote differential over 50 as well as procedural or preliminary votes have been excluded.
The 117th House of Representatives was made up of 222 Democrats and 215 Republicans. During that time 168 votes met these requirements. In those 168 votes the average differential was 15.3 votes. The fate of most bills voted on during the 2021 and 2022 fiscal years was decided by fewer than 3.5% of the elected representatives, hmm.
So far during the 118th House of Representatives. It is made up of 222 Republicans and 215 Democrats. During the fiscal years 2023 and 2024 there have been 158 votes that meet the criteria and the avg differential is 15.2 votes. Same as previous class only the majority flipped to the other party. Once again 3.5% of our elected representatives’ votes made a difference, hmm again.
So, our fate is currently being decided by less than 4% of the individuals elected to represent us. How does that track with popular elections for president?
In the 2016 election the popular vote was separated by 2.1% and the 2020 popular vote was separated by 4.5%. In the last two presidential elections the differential averaged 3.3%. Does that number look familiar? Our Presidents are being elected with virtually the same percentage difference in votes as bills are being passed or failed in congress. That is ridiculous! The fact that only 3.5% of your neighbors are determining the fate of your country, and the future of your children should scare you to death. Can you trust a random 4 people out of 100?
Neighbors, only 15 members of the house of representatives are deciding our fate. It’s time for that to change. We must identify a minimum of 20 (out of 435) or less than 5% representatives across the country who will not vote solely along party lines but vote for what is best for their constituents and their country. They need to vote for what’s best for you and me. I believe there are many more that should be elected to represent the middle. They can still be Democrat or Republican, but they must listen to their constituents as opposed to the party leadership. The more we can enable this kind of representative the closer we get to citizen servants. Is that possible? Yes, absolutely and maybe even easy if WE work together.
In my next letter I will be laying out the exact strategy that we, as the middle, can use to make the House of Representatives accountable to US. Remember we need less than 5% of these representatives. If we are the Super 60 shouldn’t that be easy? The numbers are on our side, will you be also? You are not alone. We CAN!!