Waking Up to the Realization That You Don’t Fit Either Political Party

Sifting through political news and came to the realization that I’m neither.

As I did my typical reading through different news sources, I suddenly realized that I’m Neither in the American political scene of 2022.

Both parties have become so radicalized that listening to or reading what politicians of both parties have to say that I don’t even think either of these parties is American any longer.

The challenge is in trying to decide how to vote in the upcoming election.

Since billions of dollars are handed to both parties by corporate entities and private trust fund babies with millions of dollars to waste, Joe Ordinary doesn’t have a say in American politics any longer and that is a major problem.

The Independent vote doesn’t really matter in America either. Too many Independents have become known as Bernie backers and thus get lumped in with the extreme left of the Democratic Party since that is where the politicians with Independent behind their name caucus now.

The challenge is that there are still Americans out there like me who study the candidate, study the issues and then vote for the candidate who most closely aligns with what we believe.

The sad part is that we are getting smaller and smaller and there isn’t a voice shouting in the wilderness that there are Americans who dislike both political parties because they are an absolute mess.

Why Are We Stuck Choosing Between a Democrat and Republican?

The crass, cynical, and easy answer to this is to “follow the money”. The American election of 2020 reached nearly $14 billion in spending. Democrats spent $8.4 billion and Republicans spent $5.3 billion.

Let’s put that into perspective, just so one can get the full feel of the wastefulness of this amount:

$14,000,000,000

The Gross Domestic Product of Wyoming in 2020 was $36.26 billion. Wyoming is a state that actually produces goods that Americans all across the country purchase.

Neither the Democrat nor the Republican party produces anything other than more government spending. Yet these two parties alone spent almost half of what one state produces.

Forbes reported in a February 2021 article, Amazon’s Net Profit Soars 84% With Sales Hitting $386 Billion, that Amazon’s total was $45.4 billion.

Amazon sells products and services all around the world, yet these two political parties spent one-third of what Amazon makes in net profit.

The last comparison and this ought to really speak to the problem with American politics.

Third-party candidates spent $120 million in 2020. That’s about 8% of what the two major parties spent.

My biggest challenge is that people/corporations keep throwing money at these two parties. Why? What is in it for all of this money in politics? What does the average American get for electing 542 people into positions in a federal office?

You do realize that means these 542 positions that are fought for cost an average of $25,830,250 to elect this spot.

“Follow the money” indeed!

The reason we are stuck with two parties is that there is little chance of a third-party candidate ever being able to raise the kind of money it requires to get elected to office.

If they can’t get elected because there is little chance of raising money, there is little reason for great-quality third-party candidates to even run for office.

There Are Other Reasons Besides Money Though

An article by Aaron Blake in the Washington Post shines the light on the difficulty in there being anything more than a token showing of independent candidates in America.

Why are there only two parties in American politics? was a timely article in 2016 because if people had paid attention to this article, we may not have ended up with the last two presidents we have had.

Personally, that would have been a good thing. In 2016, I would gladly have voted for anybody except Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. In 2020, it almost made me sick to my stomach to face a ballot of Donald Trump or Joe Biden.

To think that since 1852, only one candidate has placed first or second in a presidential election that didn’t belong to one of the two major parties is astounding. To know that it was merely Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, running as a “third party” candidate after losing the primary is another colossal challenge.

The challenge is that the American political system is set up for two major parties. It always has and unfortunately, it always will.

Americans have very little chance of ever getting a candidate again that one can truly support. The left has run further left than anybody could ever have expected and the right has run so far right under a narcissist that I am afraid it stands little chance of reconnecting with most Americans.

Unfortunately, that will leave us with the mess we have right now. That mess is a political party that believes that the federal government should be the sole recipient of money collected through taxes and then given to those they believe should be the winners.

Where do Americans Agree? Maybe We Should Start There

To the shock of many, the majority of Americans would actually agree on a number of policies if there weren’t politicians involved in the process.

A November 2021 article on NPR’s website has an excellent test within it where one can see just where they fit. Feel Like You Don’t Fit in Either Political Party? Here’s Why is one of those articles that just gets it right, no matter what your political leaning might be.

Not surprisingly, I took the test and found that I fit into the Ambivalent Right. I’m conservative economically because I am not convinced that our government utilizes the taxes it takes in transparently and well, so why bother giving them more to waste.

I am not conservative when it comes to race, immigration, abortion, and marriage. Quite frankly, I believe the government should not be involved in the decision of abortion or marriage. The only reason they are is to be able to raise more money for government coffers so we can hire more government workers who waste an inordinate amount of time doing what the private sector does more efficiently.

As for race and immigration, America still has a lot of work to do in creating equal opportunity for all Americans to choose to succeed or fail. No amount of political posturing is going to fix this either. I believe it comes down to taking a moral stance on how we treat others, regardless of color of skin or country of origin.

Go ahead and try to convince a candidate to be that transparent on race and immigration. It’s never going to happen.

I do believe there is one area that the majority of Americans would agree on and I propose researching candidates that are willing to take this on.

This area would be in the rules and regulations passed each year by government agencies. Out-of-control doesn’t even begin to describe this process.

A Forbes article from 2017, How Many Rules And Regulations Do Federal Agencies Issue? puts this issue in perspective very well.

It only goes to 2016, but look at how many federal laws were passed (214) versus how many government rules and regulations were passed (3,853).

I hate to have to remind everybody of the boring Civics classes we used to have to take in high school, but 3,853 rules versus 214 laws are not why we go about this tedious adventure of having elections.

In America today, we need to be busy as citizens researching and electing government representatives locally, state-wide, and nationally that are more interested in correcting the horrible course we are currently on and working with other legislators to enact and correct legislation.

We also need to take back control from unelected government bureaucrats that are writing and enacting rules and regulations that affect everyday life as an American.

In America today, we need politicians that are willing to do the difficult and tedious job of delivering legislation that the president can sign that meets all the Constitutional requirements necessary in order to become solid law.

We do not need more executive orders, and continuing resolutions on spending and we need way less posturing and tweeting. We do not need activists that spend more time with a megaphone than they do working with fellow legislators from across the aisle to deliver meaningful legislation.

This will require American voters to exercise responsibility along with their right to vote. It won’t be sexy and it will generate way fewer social media posts.

However, it may just be the only thing that saves our republic.