Two Parties?

    The more we look around today, the more polarized we think the world has become. In my lifetime, which happens to coincide with the advent of the internet, this polarization seems to have become prominent. It has become commonplace to say right-wing nut job, or left-wing extremist. However, I don’t think that people have been able to really think about that. It’s been left or right. Absolutely no mention of moderate. It’s you are for me or you are against me.

     I recently re-read an article that actually explains the evolution of both parties and how they got to where they are (Why Democrats Still Have to Appeal to the Center, but Republicans Don’t). What I took away from the article, and came to realize is that both parties have gone down very different paths over time. I didn’t actually expect the difference to be that much. Obviously core believes and how to govern were going to be different, they wouldn’t be different parties otherwise. What I didn’t except (which in hindsight I should have) was that one party catered to a smaller and smaller group of people and the other party catered to a larger and larger group of people.

      Given some time to think about it, this makes perfect sense. Looking towards November 3^rd, I’m pretty sure just about everyone is upset. Most Democrats are unhappy with Biden; His agenda isn’t far enough to the left; He caters to the right too much; He isn’t Black enough; He’s too sweet on the police; He’s going to continue Obama’s agenda (yeah Democrats didn’t think he went far enough). Many Republicans don’t want to continue with Trump. He is unhinged; can’t read a speech; is overtly racist against Latinx people; ignores experts. Basically no one is winning this election.

                Which brings me to my point. The two party system DOES NOT WORK. You’d think that we have a system of Right vs. Left, probably not much more than that, maybe an outlier or two. But, what we actually have is a subset of Whites vs. Everyone else. That is obviously an over-simplification of the truth but still close enough.
                While the Democratic front runners are still White, they are campaigning for everyone: Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians. They are increasingly alienating their voters because they don’t represent them. They aren’t pushing for the needs of those groups. They are certainly left leaning, but in the end they really represent the center, and too much of the party resents that.
                The Republicans, have come to only campaign for White voters; most likely non-college educated. Times are changing, there are fewer and fewer people outside of this demographic that still consider themselves Republican.
                Coming to 2020 most are upset, neither party is campaigning towards what they want. Its time for more parties to form, and to illuminate this obstructionism that we’ve come to know since the Clinton administration.
                Let me be clear, I don’t like where either party is headed. We need compromise, we need different viewpoints. At the same time, we need to understand that we all belong to the USA, we all deserve the same protections that the constitution grants. We also need to understand that the founders wrote the constitution under very different circumstances from today. They left the constitution available to update. This was the most wise thing of the entire process. Life is not the same now as it was in the 1780s, and they anticipated that. We are allowed to make changes to adapt to today, that is the biggest constitutional right that we all need to keep in mind. Change is expected, and we are Constitutionally allowed to let it happen.