The United States of Chaos

Perhaps at no other point in our countries history could one name evoke such opposing feelings within the people. One name that could cause both hatred and admiration for a person in equal measure. It's hard to imagine a President being able to cause such diametrically opposed reactions from the people he is supposed to govern but Donald J Trump has been able to do that with ease. His ability to cause such division is not entirely his doing but it begins with him. The majority of news media outlets have done him no favors as they have been opposed to him from the start. The Democrats have done everything they could to stymie his agenda and even some Republican members of Congress have been opposed to him as well. Don't let them fool you. They are as much to blame for the current state of this country as Donald J Trump.

Now we have elected a person who has been involved in the D.C. political machine since before I graduated High School. He will be no different than those who occupied 1600 Pennsylvania Ave before him. His promises are as empty as any other politician no matter the political party. If you expect things to change you are in for a major let down. The only difference between him and Trump is Biden will not be as controversial as Trump. Biden is a politician where Trump was not. Biden knows how the political game works. Trump didn't care. Outside of that nothing will truly change in any meaningful way for we the people.

We the people also have ourselves to blame for allowing this to become the inferno it has become. We continually elect the same people to the Senate and House every election. We continue to elect the same washed up political hacks to occupy the office of President. Trump was an aberration to this continuous disaster that we call an election. He was elected by people that wanted to flip the bird to the established political process. In some ways it worked and in some it failed. Our current state of chaos shows the failure. The success can be seen in places like the Middle East where there is new ground being broken between countries that were previously enemies but are now beginning to become allies. Yes I am referring to the treaties signed by Israel, Bahrain and the UAE. Those are major success stories for the Trump Administration. Unfortunately they are overshadowed by the current chaos as seen on the 24/7 news cycle.

It is our job to cast the ballot that ensures we elect those who would choose to actually represent us in D.C. Those who would work for us and not the K street lobbying machine or the big party political machine. Neither of the 2 big political parties work for us and they have failed to do so for decades. Once a person is entrenched in their D.C. office they become nearly impossible to remove. The big party political machine begins to rumble every election cycle and we are led to believe that the incumbent candidate is either the best person to occupy that office or they are labelled as the son of Satan by the opposing party's candidate. The incumbent will throw a few bread crumbs to the people and hope it is enough to get reelected. The opposing candidate will do the same hoping to take that office. It's time to put a new fear into these candidates and the incumbents. It's time to start looking further down the ballot and voting for candidates who aren't Republican or Democrat.

We need to start electing 3rd party candidates thus ensuring neither the Republicans nor the Democrats can hold a majority in either Congressional chamber. European countries have succeeded in governing in this way. Why can't the United States? Those countries require a political alliance between a major party and smaller ones. Should the smaller ones disagree with the way the major party is working they can opt to leave the alliance and thus cause new elections. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is a recent example of what happens when you anger your smaller alliance members. They nearly quit on her which would have forced new elections and, quite possibly, Merkel would have lost her position as Chancellor. Israel recently went through something similar and Netanyahu is barely holding on to his position as PM due to his alliance. We don't have to take it quite to that level but if we begin to elect 3rd party candidates it could create a unique situation where neither major party can claim a majority and thus force them to work with the other parties involved to get their agenda passed.

We also need to make it easier for other political parties to be able to get on the Presidential candidate debate stage to offer their point of view. This has been a major obstacle and it is one the 2 big parties will not change without a serious fight. It's time to give them that fight and change the narrative. Control of this should not be left to the 2 dominant parties.

Think about that the next time you cast a ballot for ANY political office whether it's in D.C. or in your State government. There are more candidates than just those at the top of the ballot