The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled this week to exclude the Green Party and Kanye West on absentee ballots. Kanye, I can understand, but I have to admit I’m a little perplexed by the exclusion of the Green Party. You know who isn’t confused and is pretty happy at this turn of events?
Leftists.
And I’m sure there will be some on the Right happy at this decision because it gives them the ability to exclude other third parties that have the potential to drain Republican votes in upcoming elections. As someone who doesn’t subscribe to the two-parties-and-two-parties-only mindset, I’ve heard a lot of chatter leading up to this year’s Presidential election about how I’m “throwing away my vote” and “need to vote for a winner.” And I’m going to tell you the funny part after the introduction of this week’s Leftist Lexicon entry.
third parties
What the Left thinks it means – fringe kook parties that deprive Democrats of votes
What the Right things it means – fringe kook parties that deprive Republicans of votes
What it really means -parties that deprive Democrats and Republicans of votes because the choices suck
Did you notice the funny part? If not, it’s the fact both the Left and the Right use the same argument to try to persuade people like me to vote for their candidates. Once you decide not to root for the Red Team or the Blue Team, you hear these arguments almost constantly, and they all revolve around the same concerns. “If you don’t vote for X, then Y will win and horrible things will happen! Radicals will get selected for the US Supreme Court! Things you value will be under attack! Nickelback will put out a new CD! It will be Hell on Earth!”
As bad as a new Nickelback CD will be, it’s not a good enough reason for me to overrule my principles to pull the lever for Democrats or Republicans. I’m one of those weirdos who actually wants to vote for someone or something instead of voting against someone or something. This may come off as selfish to some, like a Leftist I interacted with on Facebook. To him, if I didn’t vote for Joe Biden, I was a) selfish, b) a Russian bot, c) not taking the 2020 election seriously, d) voting for Donald “Hitler-Satan” Trump, e) wasn’t being honest, and f) not intelligent. I will cop to that last one, but not the others.
The thing that scares the Left and the Right about third parties is it has the tendency to show how flawed the current two-party system has been for, oh, the past few decades. When your choices are a dog turd sandwich and a cow turd sandwich, at some point you get tired of eating turds and want to order something else off the menu. Granted, some of the third parties aren’t much better, but the result is the same: voters taking their votes to candidates and platforms they endorse more than the Democrats or the Republicans.
That’s why the Left and the Right use fear and shame to get potential voters to stick with the current status quo. Like with the example with the Leftist I mentioned above, he tried throwing out insults, threats (not against me, I have to say), and generally talking down to me like I was Cardi B trying to understand the Electoral College. Maybe she should have gone to the Electoral Junior College first, but that’s just my suggestion. Either way, when people can’t break through with their completely partisan arguments, they hunker down and double down on the very tactics that didn’t work the first time. And as failure after failure mount, the rhetoric gets more and more heated, and the insults break out.
Not a great way to win voters and influence policy.
For me the best argument in favor of third parties is we’ve let Democrats and Republicans run the government for decades and things aren’t getting any better. The national debt is more out of control than a daycare center run by Charlie Sheen. The partisan divide is getting wider by the day. The only way things get done in Congress anymore is with more riders than 2-for-1 days at the Moonlight Bunny Ranch, and even then it’s usually for advancing an agenda that has nothing to do with the original bill, only to have it turned against political opponents if they don’t vote in favor of some of the good things in the bill.
It’s been said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. Guess what, kids? The current two-party system is the best example of insanity we have going. Voters are tired of the same-old-same-old that occurs every 4 years like a quadrennial STD and want something different. Why not give third parties a try? If they suck as much as Democrats and Republicans, they can be voted out in 4 years (except for some third parties who either want anarchy or Democratic Socialism). No harm, no foul.
But that would require Democrats and Republicans to give up power, and we know that’s about as likely as Ben Shapiro putting out a gangsta rap CD. Until the day they decide to grow up and share their toys we can only keep eating dung sandwiches and pretend they’re roast beef.