1924 Election: How many colors are on the Map?
If you go back and review Electoral College voting result maps for the past 100 years, every 20 years or so, you’ll notice something unusual in the presidential elections. You don’t have to dig that deep, you don’t have to read a long boring thesis. You just have to use your eyes. Instead of Blue and Red, you’ll notice that the maps are dotted in Green (1924, 1948, and 1968). If you follow that pattern, you should know that around 1988 there should have been another third party surge. Sure enough, in 1992, there was the Ross Perot phenomenon. Ross Perot garnered no electoral votes, but 18% of the popular vote and actually won some counties in places as varied as Texas, Maine, and California.
After the 1992 election, the Democrats and the Republicans sat down and agreed it was in their best interest, not Americas, but their best interest to squeeze out any third party voice, raising the polling threshold to 15% to get into the debates. (Multiple references to this have been well stated in The Daily Liberator.)
Ralph Nader repeatedly decried this artificial floor and even showed up and was barred from entered the debate site in the 2000 election¹. Now you can argue whether Ralph Nader was qualified to be president or not, but like in the 60’s when Nader argued with the automobile manufacturers about seat belt requirements, there should have been a public discourse on what Nader argued was an Anti-American 2-Party Duopoly. Even if Nader didn’t win, the public should have heeded his words and forced the political parties to open back up the process, like it had been throughout history. Instead the Democrats and Republicans doubled down and gave us arguably the worst 2 choices in, at least, a century.
By giving us Trump and Clinton, the Republican and Democrat Parties have proved that they are simply large corporations that are too big to fail. As Gary Johnson is taken to task in the press over lapses, there is no Political Machine to protect him or mercilessly skewer the other 2 candidates.
Gary Johnson is not perfect, but his gaffes have been run-of-the-mill memory errors. He clearly doesn’t have a team of lawyers prepping him for every time a camera light comes on. Donald Trump is a flat-out deplorable choice and Hillary Clinton has broken too many laws. To me and many others, Gary Johnson is the rational choice.
None of this is new information, but I wanted to flesh out the past so we can move onto today.
On Friday Night’s Real Time on HBO, Bill Maher and Sarah Silverman went on record questioning why millennials are voting for Gary Johnson. Of course they should be voting for
….wait for it….
Hillary Clinton. So Cool Uncle Bill and Clever Aunt Sarah are displeased. Despite the fact that Hillary Clinton and the Democrat Machine “slanted” the process against their favorite candidate Bernie Sanders.
Again, let’s be blunt, Sarah Silverman and Bill Maher are, by trade, comedians. They wade into serious waters, sling out a clever quip or two, and move on. Instead of asking why millennials ARE voting for Gary Johnson, they should have been asking why more Boomers and Gen Xers AREN’T voting for Johnson. In their glass Hollywood Bubble, they want to use their platform for change, but seem satisfied with a third Obama term.
(One part of me kind of wants Donald Trump to win so the Republican Party implodes. But that’s bad, cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your face thinking. I don’t want the country to suffer for my amusement.)
One day after Bill Maher’s comments, the 6th largest newspaper in America, the Chicago Tribune, endorsed Gary Johnson. Two days after the USA Today took the unprecedented step to say Donald Trump is “unfit for the Presidency.” (Remember when Newpapers were Kingmakers?) With all of these dominos falling into place for a third-party candidate, people who should be championing Johnson, like Maher and Silverman, are attacking Johnson, then getting praised for it the next day in Rolling Stone Magazine.
That, in a nutshell, is the problem. The game is rigged so you think you only have two choices, then you are brain-washed into thinking that’s the way it’s always been. Not only is Johnson fighting real opponents, he is fighting a mindset reinforced by the big money machines. As I’ve said before, and I’ll say it again, if the public voted FOR people, instead of AGAINST people, Johnson would win in a landslide.
The one thing that Clinton and Trump are both right about is, if the other is elected, America is in a whole heap of trouble.