Greg Awtry

There comes a time in every car owner’s life when you have to make the decision whether to continue to throw money into what seems like endless repairs, or bite the bullet and buy a new car.

There comes a time in every election when you have to make the decision whether to continue to throw your votes to candidates that continue to fail the American people, or bite the bullet and vote to bring in someone new.

That time has come. If we have learned anything over the past few decades it is that Congress has broken itself by their hyper-partisanship and quest for power. We are also in a time when real solutions to real problems are paramount and instead of working together the two parties are engaged in political warfare, leaving the country and the people with a legislative body frozen in gridlock.

If you have been paying attention, the fastest growing block of voters are Independents. You may wonder why? The answer is simple enough and one only has to read George Washington’s farewell address to realize his warnings that forming parties would lead to exactly what we have now. He knew strong political parties would rob the power from the people and place it in the hands of a few party leaders. Old George was spot on!

Recent polls show, when asked what party you identify with, 47 percent say Independent, 27 percent say Democrat and 27 percent say Republican. Does Congress membership reflect that? Nowhere close. And finally the people are waking up to that fact.

So what can we do about it? First we must realize the problem, which means we must look at the priorities of Congress. Their first priority is to gain or regain power. Their second priority is to get reelected. The third priority is to toe the party line so they can receive party money to run for reelection. In short, we need election reform that ensures open primaries, the reduction of “big money” poured into elections, and establishing ranked choice voting, where you vote first choice, second choice, third choice, etc. This eliminates candidates with less than 50 percent of the vote from advancing, while giving all candidates a fighting chance to win.

Do you realize with a Congressional approval rating of only 19 percent in 2024, meaning about 80 percent of us disapproved of Congress’s performance, we reelected 97 percent of the incumbents? It boils down to electing the lesser of two evils because of the faulty primary election rules, and we are left with just more of the same broken down Congress we had before the election.

Would a third party be the answer? It may be. If Abraham Lincoln was still alive we could ask him, as he ran as a new third party called The Republican Party and got elected, defeating the two major parties, the Democrat and the Whig candidates. And I think that worked out pretty well.

It comes down to this. Many Independent-minded voters are politically homeless. That’s why so many organizations are popping up trying to break the stranglehold of the two major parties. I am a member of NoLabels, an organization that puts a lot of energy into getting both parties to find common ground on major issues. But there are many more parties or organizations: American Promise, The Good Party, The Forward Party, Unite America, Independents for America, Better Together America, Represent Us, Common Sense America, Independent National Coalition, The Fair Vote, and The Braver Angels to name a few.

The vast majority of Americans realize that Congress is broken and cannot self-correct. We do have choices. Some will say a third party will be just a spoiler and your vote is wasted. I say voting for the same people who have broken the system is a wasted vote. If you think we need changes in the way we elect people or changes in the election process, you may want to consider getting involved with one of the organizations listed above. Together we can make a difference or we can just continue to fall into the trap set by the two major parties and expect more of the same.

The time has come for a common sense third party that is more focused on solving problems than getting reelected.

I am interested in your thoughts, at gregawtry@awtry.com. Greg Awtry is the former publisher of the Scottsbluff (Neb.) Star-Herald and Nebraska’s York News-Times. He is now retired and living in Hubbard Lake.