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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 corruption of 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
https://home.forwardparty.com/
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