We must learn that the sides we are asked to join are imperfect.
In fact, we should learn to stop joining sides, instead of choosing to stick to our values.
I grow more frustrated every day with the bundling of ideologies – the bundling of ideas that the major political parties use to separate Americans into two herds. Why two? Because Washington knows it cannot effectively manage/influence three or four parties.
So if you support gun control, you also get free memberships in pro-choice clubs, don’t build walls and tax the rich. If you’re a pro-life individual, you’re automatically ok with mobs shutting down the border, buying an AR15, and testing drugs for wellness.
It’s a whole range of political and social issues, isn’t it? Does it look like a collection of ideals that can easily be sorted into OF THEM heap? There must be a lot of people taking this one side idea and another idea on the other side, right?
So what is the lesson of all this? It is neither expedient nor acceptable to Republicans and Democrats in this country for you to mix and match your ideals. You choose red or blue, then sign up for the whole agenda: if you choose to think your way, to stray from the party platform on a single issue, you could be attempted to vote for the other party at some point. .
Do you want to see change in this country? Don’t vote for it other party: vote instead for the question that is important to you. Who is most likely to get mad at you if you vote regardless of your party? Umm….how about the parties? They want to know which side you are on and how you plan to vote.
Why? When it’s time to elect a president, for example, if they know you’re a red voter in a red zone, candidates don’t have to campaign so hard. If you want to continue watching entire elections decided by Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and sometimes Arizona or New Mexico, just continue to register for your party and vote a direct ticket.
If you want to see candidates having to come up with real ideas and try to woo your vote, they make you a little less predictable. I mean, do we really all belong to the same pile? Just because you feel strongly about this or that issue, should that necessarily bind you to one party for eternity?
From what I have observed, when voters become too predictable, our officials become lazy. Election season is coming, and rather than addressing the real issues of the moment, our candidates are simply talking about guns, abortions, or the price of gas and fanning the loyal base of the party on this side or that -the.
What about the national debt? What about improving infrastructure? What about better managing inflation? What about the things that actually affect our day-to-day existence?
I’m serious. Are we ever going to force things? Or are we going to let the ideological composition of our electorate always make our choices for us? We have a lazy talking point Republican running against a lazy talking point Democrat, and the election is going exactly the way we knew it would. Worse still, whoever wins has no obligation to do anything meaningful: all he or she has to do is show up in the same district to get that second term. Can you blame them? When your bosses never hold you accountable, why would anyone risk losing future elections by baring their necks now?
Matt Pearl owns and operates newspapers in King City, Albany and Grant City.
