Nation's two-party system isn't working anymore
Our country is locked into a two-party system that only serves as a virtual monopoly for the Democratic and Republican parties. This system blocks challenges from new, spirited conversations and restricts the electorate to narrow views.
The Democratic Party has lost the dynamic imparted years ago by Franklin Roosevelt. He understood the plight of millions of disadvantaged people of this country in the Great Depression of the 1930's needed a party that would help them in their great need. He used this need to make the Democratic Party dominant for over 40 years. But that legacy was frittered away by the party's leadership looking for its ill-advised focus on city voters. These American people are still there in the so-called Rust Belt states and other impoverished states like Montana and Georgia. The Democrats try to capitalize on this preposterous Republican President Trump by running against him in states that have numbers of disadvantaged American's who are allied to Trump. The Democrats keep losing in these by-elections because they have abandoned the legacy of Roosevelt. Their most recent presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, lost the election when she called these Americans "a basket of deplorables." She did not mean this as a blanket statement, but it came across as such. I'm sure her husband, Bill, an astute politician, knew the minute it came out of her mouth that the election was lost. This party will continue to be a "political dead letter" until it returns to its roots set out by Franklin D.
The Republican Party defeated its Democratic opponent, gained control of both Congress and the executive posing as "populists." They are anything but that, but they have sold that to key elements of our electorate that Clinton alienated by her hubris. It is clear they are an "elitist" bunch of folks that make it clear in what they do that they don't give a "fig" about much of the America's electorate. Their attempts at killing Obamacare results in the message to that electorate, "You are a bunch of undeserving freeloaders and we don't care about you." They do that in legislation and in each protective regulation they repeal. These creatures of the "rich and comfortable' have no interest in the American electorate except at election time!
Both parties have locked out any competition and are guaranteed continuing control of the United States Government. It is time for this two-party system to go. What this country needs is a dynamic that was demonstrated in our sister republic France. France's system allows a third-party candidate like Emmanuel Macron to offer an alternate choice to the far left and right that left France not much to choose from. Is this third way better? Remains to be seen but it does offer another opportunity for the French voters to decide. I think the American electorate deserves no less.
It is time for change!
Tom Clark
Fayetteville
Editorial on 07/08/2017