Why I Can’t Support Either Major Political Party
Those of you who know me personally know that I am pretty open minded. I use to be fairly conservative, but I also voted for Obama the first go around. Please forgive me, I was young and naive. The fact that I am a libertarian now should indicate that I was persuaded by superior arguments and changed how I look at politics. It also helps that neither major party represents what I believe in. Each one may get a few points here and there in their rhetoric, but they both fail when it comes to their actions.
I’m going to attempt to show those who will listen why a vote for either major political party is more of a wasted vote than voting for any third party. Obviously, I am biased in the fact that I am a libertarian, but in this instance, I simply want to show why being an independent voter means you’ll actually be more likely to get the change you can believe in.
Voting Libertarian or even independent gives you far more power than voting for anyone in the two major parties. You’ll be part of a movement that will actually lead to change. Your candidate doesn’t have to win to help make change. Republicans and Democrats will either die out or adapt. According to a Gallup poll, party affiliation for Democrats and Republicans stands at 27% and 26%, respectively. That means only 53% of the population is committed to the two party system while 44% are independents. A change of only 5 percentage points shifts everything in favor of those against the two major parties.
I have had fleeting moments in the lead up to the mid-terms where I have considered voting for candidates of both major political parties. In both cases, it was more of a response against the other candidate who I felt would be more disastrous. But then I realized I am sick of voting for the lesser of two evils and until we as voters start supporting alternative parties we will never get meaningful change. I had to stop thinking of my vote as being wasted and start realizing my vote against the two parties has meaning in itself. It sends a message to the other parties. It sends a message to other voters who will start realizing its not a wasted vote. It sends a message to those candidates you vote for and lets them realize there are people who want them to succeed. They just need to keep running and we need to keep supporting candidates who have superior arguments and not superior funding.
So why can’t I vote for the Republicans? The worst things you get from the Neo-Cons are war, both foreign wars and the war on drugs. Both of these make us significantly less safe and severely restrict our rights. Governments throughout history have used foreign wars and fears of an outside threat to curtail their citizen’s rights. Even more centric-minded Republicans are suppose to stand for limited government and lower taxes. What did we receive from George W. Bush and Donald Trump, with Republican control of the House and Senate?
You might point out the fact that both Bush and Trump cut taxes. That would be a really persuasive argument if either had also cut spending, but each administration hit all time highs for spending. Cutting your revenue stream while raising your expenditures would put any family on the street or bankrupt any business. But since the government can simply print more money, they don’t have to worry about that. So just like the Democrats like to spend money to garner more votes, the Republicans are simply cutting taxes and borrowing money to gain more votes. It’s just the opposite side of the same fiscally inept coin. Neither party gets it.
So why can’t I vote for the Democrats? We just pointed out how they like to spend like its Brewster’s Millions and they’ll get even more after each spending spree. They also want government to control everything. Now that I am out of the Army and looking for health insurance, I found out that I can’t get health insurance because my zip code is in Nashville. No one living in Nashville, except those who get it through their employer or who don’t make enough, can get health insurance. What kind of backwards crap is that? I don’t agree with anything to do with the Affordable Care Act, but at the very least I would have thought it meant I could get health insurance. But the government has screwed that up so much that I can’t even pay for it anymore. Does that make any sense? I am actually incentivized to make less money just to have taxpayers cover my insurance. So no, I can’t vote for idiots who think they know how to take care of me and my family better than I do. But hey, weren’t the Republicans suppose to repeal and replace the ACA? Guess that was just some more political rhetoric they used to get elected and then distract us with every other stupid idea they have to make us forget all about their promises.
What is really worrying about the Democrats though, is for all the things I can’t stand about their policies, they also give us the worst of the Republicans; WAR. Obama was elected largely on an platform of ending the Iraq War, which he did in time to get reelected, just to start up Iraq War III and spread the conflict into Syria creating a civil war that we’re still involved in. He and Secretary Clinton also overthrew the Gaddafi regime in Libya, sending that country into civil war. He supported Saudi Arabia in their bombing campaign in Yemen. Obama also significantly increased the CIA’s drone program, dwarfing how Bush had used the program. This wasn’t just Obama and his administration supporting these interventions. Not a single Democrat in Congress called for the end of the wars. They simply swept that inconvenient truth under the rug so they could push for universal healthcare. Never mind the millions of people killed or displaced because of our wars.
In conclusion, I can’t vote for either of the major political parties because with both of them we get endless war that stretches across the globe, making us less safe with every intervention. One party promises more spending and the redistribution of wealth as they see fit, increasing the size of government and their control over our everyday lives. Their opponents claim to be against all of that, but follow all of the same policies. The only difference between the two is one taxes us directly and one puts us in debt. No thanks. If you want change, stop voting for the same parties who don’t change a thing. Vote independent. Preferably Libertarian, but at this point, any independent vote is better than the SOP. The Same Old Parties.
Recommended Reading:
Challengers to Duopoly: Why Third Parties Matter in American Two-Party Politics
“Gillespie maintains that despite the infirmities they often bear, third parties do matter, and they have mattered throughout American public life. Many of our nation’s most important policies and institutional innovations—including abolition, woman suffrage, government transparency, child labor laws, and national healthcare—were third-party ideas before either major party embraced them. Additionally, third parties were the first to break every single gender, race, and sexual orientation bar on nomination for the highest offices in the land.”
