Awtry

A Republican, a Democrat and an Independent walk into a bar. The bartender asks what they want. The Republican and Democrat order some black label over-priced whiskey. The Independent just orders a glass of water. The discussion turns to politics, quiet at first, but grows into the Democrat shouting at the Republican and vice versa while the Independent tries to point out common ground to calm them down. They tell the Independent to shut up. Eventually the Democrat and the Republican stand up and say they are going to take their fight outdoors. They leave and don’t come back. The bartender gives the tab to the Independent demanding payment. Not wanting to stiff the bar owner, the Independent pays the over-priced bill.

As the Independent walks out, he notices a couple of reporters and asks what’s up? The reporters tell him there was a big fight out here and the police took both fighters away. They said there wouldn’t be any charges because they were big shots around this town. The story is all over the news the next day. 

It’s like your backyard fire pit. You start with a little flame, add oxygen and soon you have a raging inferno. Most of the oxygen gets sucked into the fight and the media grabs what’s left and adds even more fuel to the fire, which spreads across the land starting political fires everywhere.

So who is going to put this fire out? It’s been burning for decades. Do we actually support the people who start the fires? I can’t believe we do since 45 percent of Americans now identify as Independents because they are dissatisfied with the partisan “arsonists”. So, should we look to the Independents to put out the fire? They can’t carry that much water. Out of the combined 545 House and Senate members, only three are Independent.

So that must mean it is left up to the voters to put out the fire by electing more Independents. Sounds easy enough. But no, the Republicans and Democrats fight even harder to stop that by controlling the primary elections, where in many states, Independents aren’t even allowed to vote. In other states Independents are only given partial ballots without all the candidates listed. And for Independents to get on the ballot, many states require ten times the number of signatures it takes to register as a Democrat or Republican.

Then there are the voters who think that voting for an Independent is wasting their vote. I say voting for Democrats and Republicans who like to start fires is wasting a vote. People are tired of the two parties unwillingness to work together, now 10,000 people a day are switching to Independent voters.

Actually the answer might be in the candidates themselves. We are in full swing of the 2026 election cycle. Some states have already had or will soon have their primary elections. These are more important than the general election in November. By then, 90 percent of the races will be decided thanks to the Democrats and Republicans starting the gerrymandering fires trying to tip the scale of Democracy in their favor. In other words they want to pick the voters, not the voters picking them.

How many candidates are telling you they want to work with the other party? Most just tell us what’s wrong with the other side. We are left going to the polls voting for the lesser of two evils. That is no way to run a country, but it is the way to ruin a country.

There is a reason why our Founders warned us that forming parties would put the power of the people into the hands of party leaders, which is why the Founders purposely kept any mention of political parties out of our Constitution. 

You see, the two parties are afraid of challengers to their duopoly club. But we can change that too. We need ranked choice voting where we vote for our first, second and third choice. We need Top-Two voting where the top-two primary winners face off in the November general election. This year, for a change, instead of the candidate telling us what they are going to do, let’s tell the candidate what they are gong to do, and hold them accountable. They do work for us, right?

But most of all we need open primary elections where EVERY candidate’s name is on EVERY primary ballot so EVERY registered voter can vote the candidate of their choice.

We could call it… DEMOCRACY!

How can we get a Congress that is willing to work together to get the people’s work done? Share you suggestions with me at gregawtry@awtry.com