If you’re like me, you are fed up with the options available for president this election cycle. With Cruz and Kasich dropping out of the Republican race, we are left with The Donald as nominee. On the other side things are a little less ridiculous, with a standard slimy career politician who wants it too bad versus a refreshingly authentic socialist. But whichever side of the aisle I look to, I feel like I’m faced with utterly abysmal options. And I’m not the only one. This article explains how both Trump and Clinton are the most disliked candidates in history, with 37 percent of people rating Clinton “highly unfavorable,” and 53 percent saying so about Trump. More so than ever, the general election will be choosing a “lesser of two evils.”
Maybe it’s time to look elsewhere.
I don’t know if you watched or remember the Republican primary debates, but they were ridiculous. Like a bunch of children seeing who could throw the best insults about the others’ records. Bearing that in mind, I’d like you to take a look at this:
That is this year’s Libertarian presidential primary debate. Interestingly, it is the first televised third party primary debate ever. I for one was impressed at how mature, yet lighthearted their debate was. And how straightforward they were. For example, when the moderator brought up Mcafee’s arrest for driving while high on Xanax, he basically responded with, “Yeah, I did that.” And then they moved on to substantive policy discussion. As someone who pays a lot of attention to politics, it was refreshing.
And honestly, I hadn’t seriously thought about voting third-party until recently. I firmly believed that the two-party system is inevitable, like this video demonstrates.
Like many people, I thought that voting third-party was basically a wasted vote. Every election I’ve participated in thus far, I’ve fought the internal battle of which party to side with (as a fiscally conservative, socially liberal person). But it doesn’t have to be that way. Nowhere in our nation’s laws does it say we must have only two political parties. And even with our “first past the post” system, we aren’t locked into it. Look at Canada, for example; they have the same system as us, yet they gained a third major political party when citizens were dissatisfied with the two existing ones.
That could happen here. And if a third party is ever going to go mainstream in the USA, it’s now. In fact, there are already rules in place for allowing a third party into the race. For example, in the presidential debates, a third candidate could appear on the stage if he or she is consistently earning 15 percent or more in polls. That’s a pretty high bar, but with the amount of hatred for the two mainstream candidates, it is certainly a possibility. In fact, it’s happened before, with Ross Perot in 1992.
So, as you consider who to cast your vote for this November, remember that no one is forcing you to pick a lesser of two evils. Look at your options, particularly in the Libertarian and Green parties, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll end up with a president we can trust.
