John --

Yesterday, we wrote to sum up how truly crazy the 2024 election season was. It’s easy to normalize experiences that you live through, but, when you see them all laid out like that, it’s hard to believe what our political system has become.

In a functional democracy, getting elected (or reelected) requires you delivering solutions to the people who are voting for you. But, because of the slow corruptionof our political system by the legacy parties, that’s no longer necessary.

How did they do this?

First, they have made it increasingly hard for independent and new party candidates to even get their names on the ballot, let alone truly compete. With only two options on the ballot, it’s now a matter of just being better than your opponent.

Then, they have gerrymandered districts so that fleetingly few significant elected positions are truly competitive - by some measures, fewer than 10% of them.

They’ve driven so many people out of each party by their actions and statements that an increasingly large plurality of the electorate no longer belongs to a party. This trend has happened despite many states featuring closed party primaries, not allowing these independents to vote in any primary. The only people left to select the Party candidates are the most partisan among the parties.

So, in short, the legacy parties have ensured they’re the only ones on the ballot. They split up the country, gerrymandering districts so that there isn’t real competition. Then, they drove anyone not bought into their agenda out of the party so that they can’t vote in primaries, ensuring party control over all aspects of our election process.

The two legacy parties have corrupted our electoral system so that it’s focused more on their maintenance of power than on delivering solutions to American voters. It seems a lot harder than just listening to voters and solving their problems, but here we are.

Addressing these structural issues is one approach to solving the problem, but, as we’ve seen, there are powerful interests aligned against them, and the two parties fight back every chance they get. They can spend millions to fight against ballot initiatives. They can pass legislation raising the bar for even getting the initiative on the ballot.

What they can’t do, however, is stop you from voting for better people. And so that’s what we are doing here at Forward - building the infrastructure so that better people, those who want to listen to you and your community and deliver real solutions for them - can win in this system.

How?

Look for an answer tomorrow,

Lindsey Williams Drath, CEO

Matt Shinners, CSOO

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