The Three Blind Mice want to be your President in 2024
Yes, I know it says 2022. THESE ARE THREE BLIND MICE.
Issue #395 OpEd October 9, 2023
As we move ever closer to what will be The Most Consequential Presidential Election Of Your Life Part 2 (Part 1 was in 2020 when Trump got tossed), I should begin by saying that this is a column that should not have to be written. And yet, here I am writing it.
By now, the dangers this country faces should be obvious to anyone with the ability to discern truth from fiction. Admittedly, that number does seem to be shrinking by an alarming degree these days, but I’m holding out hope that the alarms being sounded about the problem presented by too many willfully uninformed and misinformed individuals are actually louder than the actual problem itself. In short, I prefer to believe there are more intelligent people in this country than whack jobs, and not by a small margin.
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But the point is that this country is in trouble. We’re in trouble to the point where if President Joe Biden is not re-elected then we face the very real possibility of watching our democracy - what’s left of it - be dismantled before our very eyes, probably never to be rebuilt within our lifetime. If ever.
Aw c’mon. Really?
Like I said, pay attention. And I don’t have enough time to recite all the headlines or facts and figures all over again. What I will say is that none of us have time to be bothered with third-party candidates. No time for Cornel West. No time for Marianne Williamson. And no time for Robert Kennedy Jr. Not in 2024.
And this isn’t something I thought I would ever say, because I am one who actually believes in the right of people to vote for whoever they want. I also believe that we probably do need more than the two political parties we have right now. There are some strong arguments to be made for more diversity of choices, so I don’t mean to belittle anyone who is a strong advocate of third-party candidates, no matter what I happen to think of these candidates.
But this is a time to get real. And the reality, first of all, is that none of these third-party candidates stands a chance. Even the candidates know that. Cornel West, Marianne Williamson, and Robert Kennedy Jr. are only in the way - of Biden. And in normal times that shouldn’t matter if they meet all the required criteria to get on the ballot. At worst their long-shot candidacies could be written off as simply a nuisance. So why not let their voices, and those who believe in them be heard?
But in these times, it is literally a life-or-death situation. Either we keep the country or we lose it.
That was the same choice we faced in 2020. Biden won, and so now we’re holding on by a thread and potential disaster is being held at bay. The rest of the world is literally waiting to see which way America goes in 2024 because whether or not our democracy survives will determine the actual fate of the entire world. And I know Hitler gets overused as the boogeyman for all things evil, but just stop and think if he had won the war. And then think about how close that came to being true.
Now consider that in 2020, Trump won 74,222,958 votes or 46.8 percent of all votes cast. That is more votes than any other presidential candidate has ever won, except for President Biden who surpassed him with a record 81,283,098 votes cast. Sure, it’s good that Biden won. But it should have been by a landslide. Instead, Trump received the second-highest vote total of all time. And that should scare the hell out of all sane people.
Biden needs to win again, and not for Biden. For the rest of us. This is not the time for alternative candidates to throw their hats in the ring just to shake things up. The only contribution their candidacies are making is contributing to the possible unraveling of the nation. If our system was truly a system of one person one vote, then this wouldn’t be an issue. But when you factor in gerrymandering, the perverse workings of the Electoral College, and all other forms of electoral malfeasance we are faced with, not to mention the intimidation of poll workers, the unthinkable could become The Day The Earth Stood Still.
What are your thoughts about third-party candidates? Let’s discuss this in the Substack Notes feature!
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