The brilliant founders of America devised a balanced system based on both competition and cooperation. The competition of ideas is settled by voters after politicians proclaim their opinions and plans. After the vote, the elected leaders work together in serving the interests of the people.
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Unfortunately, this system has been corrupted by partisanship and money. Two parties have rigged the system to the detriment of other parties and real choice for voters. The system fails the people as each party controls and corrupts the politicians within their party. Politicians of both parties acted in cahoots to exempt themselves from insider trading laws that apply to everyone else and they legalized bribery disguised as campaign contributions. Most national politicians are very wealthy while getting away with representing donors over voters. They demonize the other side and look toward the next election in a continual competition that lacks cooperative public service as they prioritize party over country.
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Loosening the grip by parties over politicians will help correct the corrupted system of self-serving politicians who dishonor predecessors. Scheming politicians tell people what they want voters to believe while the best funded campaign wins nine out of ten times. Money controls politics with both parties being influenced by large campaign donations and lobbyists seeking gain for donors at the expense of the public, regardless of whichever party wins an election.
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With a skewed political system, the economic system also becomes imbalanced in regards to costs, rewards, and representation. Donors invest in politicians because they want policies that protect their profits. They often seek to socialize costs and privatize profits. Polluters profit at the expense of the environment and everyone within it. Manufacturers profit at the expense of workers by shipping jobs overseas. Defense contractors pursue profits as they endanger soldiers by promoting military conflicts around the world. The healthcare industry extorts profits from the sick. Laws and tax code that favor the powerful and abuse the bottom are a disgrace. Children are priced out of an education, families have no healthcare, and for-profit prisons provide slave labor from the largest prison population per capita of any country. Still, they call it the land of the free.
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Despicable pundits earn riches by spinning bits of information into misleading portrayals that ridicule opponents and praise supporters of their bias. Sadly, closed-minded partisans are attracted to the propaganda, which affirms bias instead of informing truth, as it becomes easier to dupe them than to convince them that they’ve been duped. When facts prove lies, the fooled make excuses, dispute facts, and say things like “yah, but what about the other guy?” Leaders of their chosen group lead in groupthink and conspiratorial gamesmanship in manipulating information to support the home team and oppose others, even though many know they are pushing untruths. Open dialog with the freedom to disagree must be preserved, but partisanship discouraged.
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Corporate media, which relies on ad revenue, supports the grift by providing voters with an illusion of choice while actively supporting views of big advertisers and opposing threats to wealth and power. How issues are framed reveals their bias as viewers are often persuaded to oppose their own self-interests when convinced to support tax cuts for the wealthy and vote against public programs. Corporate controlled media tries to hide bias as it entertains with shallow content and sows disunity among the masses by focusing on divisive social issues and horse-race analysis of the rigged race where both teams represent the same donors. Outsiders posing a threat are impeded by the issuance of spoiler warnings within the two-party race while patriotic messages of greatness warmly distract from needs to fix flaws.
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These problems can be corrected with ranked-choice voting, aka instant runoff, even though both parties oppose unrigging their self-serving system. We can fix a broken system where money wins elections as empty promises are commonplace, misinformation destroys accountability, and voters attach their identity to political parties.
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The solutions to fixing a broken two-party system is to create a system of many parties that require coalitions to combine to serve. First, we fight to unrig a system of two-party control by implementing ranked-choice voting. As people identify with particular issues instead of political parties and voters have more choices with nuance regarding issues, then voters benefit as democracy is restored. Ranked-choice voting also discourages name calling and negative advertising as candidates are incentivized to appeal to all voters instead of simply towing a party line with misleading scripted talking points while trying to destroy the opponent.
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Voters should demand options that honor forefathers and respect descendants, instead of being forced to choose the least offensive of two self-serving deadbeats.