Welcome to episode six of We Don’t Talk About P-word. 

I know what you’re thinking. You are saying to yourself, “He promised us answers. He promised to provide solutions. He is only rehashing the problems. He is telling us what it should be, but not how to get there.”

I have to say you’re right. So far, all I have given you is a history lesson and more reasons to hate politics and corporate elites. God knows we don’t need more of those. There is still much more to understand about what is wrong with our political system. But today, I give you a little taste of solutions.

I warn you; you may not like it. Not because it won’t work or because it’s hard. You’re not going to like it because it requires effort. You’re not going to like it because it requires dedication. You’re not going to like it because it’s a bit scary. If I have learned anything in my study of politics, it’s this.  Anything that requires any extra effort is all too often rejected. 

I know people that want to see change and agree it’s a good idea. But then when it comes to putting in the actual work, they don’t have the time. This is exactly why our political system is broken. It gets a little tough or it makes you work more than your nine to five. When it requires dedication, we decide it’s not worth it. That is exactly what the political and corporate elites count on. They rely on the personal costs being more than we are willing to pay. This is how they maintain the illusion of universal access to the political process.

In fact, it is another way that corporations maintain control. It is how political parties stay in power. They count on us being too exhausted from our nine to fives to put in the necessary time to change the system. It is a perfectly symbiotic relationship between politics and corporations. 

Politicians need money to run for office. Corporations provide that money in exchange for political loyalty. Working Americans recognize exploitation and look for an answer. They realize that, like all things if you don’t have the money to compete, you need the time. 

If you are a gamer (or ever played a phone game), you can think of it as a free-to-play game. If you can’t afford the microtransactions, you must put in the time to grind. Like free-to-play games, corporations rig the game. They ensure you are exhausted or forced into overtime. They ensure you never have enough money to feel secure. All so you can’t (or won’t) put in the time and effort to change the system. Politicians stay in power. Corporations' control is never put in jeopardy. It’s a win win… for the elites. 

That’s why I say you may not like it. The answer is a grind. It isn’t hard work, but it does need effort, time, and dedication. The most important and the hardest aspect: you must be willing to see it through, even if it seems impossible.

So having given you a full warning, I now give you the solution. The answer is a political reset.

What is a political reset you ask? Well, I’m glad you did. 

In episode one, I referenced political realignment. If you understand that concept, this isn’t that; but let me give you a quick explanation for those who don’t understand that concept. Over our history, we have had more than the two political parties we have today. Because of our ‘winner-take-all' system, there can only be two major parties at any given time. Sometimes the ideologies of a particular party splinter and another party emerges. 

The election of Jefferson ended the power of the Federalist party. Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican party later splintered over support for presidential candidates. The Whigs favored J.Q. Adams and modernization. The Democratic party evolved from supporters of Jackson against the national bank. 

Slavery was the death knell for the Whigs. Rather than take a hard stand, the Whigs were more indifferent as a party. With the oncoming storm of civil war, they ceased to exist over abolition. This resulted in the birth of the Republican party. 

From here, we have the basis for what becomes our modern parties. We have seen limited-run parties emerge, but they disappear almost as fast as they appear. Instead of splinters dividing, factions began to emerge within the parties. Some led to political realignments within these parties. 

Lincoln changed the Republicans into a more civil rights-focused party. McKinley and T. Roosevelt moved the Republicans to focus on regulating businesses. Following the Great Depression, F. Roosevelt changed the direction of the Democratic party. He led them to favor labor and modernization. This is where the liberal-conservative split started taking shape. Kennedy and Johnson turned the Democratic party towards a focus on civil rights. Nixon led the Republican party to a sharp U-turn. He focused them away from regulating businesses and against civil rights. Currently, we are witnessing what could become a new realignment. What I call the GOP sect and the MAGA sect are vying for control of the Republican party.

That’s a quick down and dirty on our political party history and political realignment. Now, back to political reset. This is the answer to the stifling of our political system. We can’t replace the parties and we have no real say over their agendas. If working Americans can only sit on the sidelines and watch, we must force them to reset. We must let them know that they are not working for the People. We must remind them that the power rests with us, and we must do it before it’s too late. 

Today, neither party has an identity. They both work for corporate America. Yes, despite their claim to the contrary even the MAGA sect. They claim to champion working Americans, but it is all propaganda. Their leader has abused the corporate political agenda for the better part of 50 years. You can be sure where those loyalties lie. One side may talk about the People’s rights, but it’s all theater. The other doesn’t even hide it. The tenant of their platform is pro-big business.

Both say they believe in something, but when they get elected do nothing. Well, they do only as much as the corporate elites will allow them. We must force them to work for the People once again. We must remind them that capitalism is a tool to make the People’s lives better, and not the other way around.

I know what you are thinking. “You make it sound so easy. You make it sound like all we need to do is unplug and plug it back in again. How could we ever do what you are suggesting? How do we force them to reset? Where do we get the power to do that?”
The truth is we already have the power. 

Remember when I said the answer is a grind? Yeah, this is where the grind STARTS. Let me reemphasize that. This is where the work BEGINS. This isn’t THE answer; this is only the beginning. The grind will last long past this initial achievement. To force a reset, the People must be in it for the long haul. 

To force a reset, we must make a statement on a national level. We must show collective support for a reset. We must demand as a group an agenda that focuses on the People’s rights. We must demand the government work for our safety and happiness. There is only one way to do that.

The United States has very decentralized national representatives. This is by design and the hallmark of a republican form of government. We vote on Senators by state. We elect Representatives by district. The President appoints judges and cabinet members. The only national political representative elected by the nation is the President. Even that is complicated by the archaic, slave-state favoring Electoral College. 

Did I offend you with that descriptor? Sorry, not sorry… I’m pointing out a fact. Facts aren’t meant to make you feel good. 

John Adams said it best, while in court defending British soldiers of the "Boston Massacre." 

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”

It is a fact that the Electoral College is a holdover.  It came about during a time when slave-holding states feared the abolition movement. It was an effort to gain advantage over the election of the President they should have never had. It was a way to take advantage of the 3/5 compromise itself the result of a temper tantrum. Slave-holding states threatened to abandon the Constitutional Convention without it. The Electoral College's purpose was singular. It was to make it difficult for a President hostile towards slavery to get elected.

I could spend an entire episode on the Electoral College, and maybe I will, but now is not that time. Suffice it to say that the Electoral College makes presidential politics difficult.

If you are putting the clues together, I'm sure you can see the linchpin to a political reset. It is the election of an independent president. I don’t mean a third-party president; an independent.

I can already hear you laughing. If I hadn’t done the research and realized it was possible, I would be laughing too. But remember, I warned you this wouldn’t be easy.
For longer than I’ve been alive, people have dismissed independent candidates. I've heard write-in, third party, and independent candidates are a wasted vote. It is very important to understand that a vote cast is never wasted. Any vote cast is a statement. A statement to let the one(s) you didn’t vote for know that their agenda isn’t acceptable. The problem is that we concern ourselves more with winning than making a better nation. We ignore that the only winners are the parties, and the People always lose. We lose a little more each election.

The parties count on us to buy into the propaganda that they perpetuate. The propaganda says a vote outside of the party system is a waste. The fact is the person who wins 270 electoral votes wins the presidency. This happens whether they belong to one of the two major parties or not. The only deciding factor, at least as of today, is our vote. This is what the parties don't want us to realize. Many are working hard today to invalidate this fact.

There are two reasons that third party or independent candidates fail. They are propaganda and their lack of widespread appeal. It has nothing to do with their lack of party affiliation. Most of the time, these candidates only appeal to a small niche audience. When the appeal is smaller, it is easier for the major parties to discredit them as either crazy or fringe. To be successful, an independent must embrace an agenda with widespread appeal. That, and the People must be willing to see it through even when you are scared you might lose. Remember: this will be a grind and require dedication.

The truth is that the ruling parties encourage the propaganda. They keep us convinced that electing an independent president isn’t realistic. They do their best to ensure the status quo is maintained. They do their best to keep us thinking it is impossible, and they do their best to make it impossible. The fact is that is the only way to overthrow our plutocratic dictators. 

The Constitution specifies very minimal qualifications to run for national office. There are only three requirements: age, residency, and citizenship. That's it. At no point does it say there is a need for party membership. States can make it hard for non-party candidates to run (and they do) but it is not impossible. 

Let’s start with how this would work…

To get on the ballot across the United States in 2020, it took less than one million signatures. That’s the not so bad news. The bad news is that number will be a lot more in 2024 because of the amount of people that voted in 2020. The signatures are spread, and not evenly, across all 50 states and DC. Besides the signatures, it will also cost about $50K in filing fees. (Are you starting to see where the grind comes in?)

And that’s it. That is all it takes for an independent nominee to get on the ballot nationwide. I realize I say that like it’s a walk in the park. I get that it’s not. Like I said earlier, it isn’t hard but it’s a grind. There are some finer details, including more measures by the states to make it harder.

Most states only give an independent candidate a very small window to do these things. They only give you a few months to achieve this everything; some give you as short as two months. That’s why we don’t see it happen often. To get on the ballot in most states, you would need a literal army of volunteers to get signatures. (This is where the dedication I talked about comes in.) You will also need people willing to serve as electors in each state. 

To be fair, a few states make it a little easier to get on the ballot. All you need is money. One example is Louisiana. As of the 2020 campaign, for $500 you too can be a candidate for president in Louisiana. There’s also a tougher way to go in most states. It’s easier to get ballot access, but trickier to get elected. This option is the write-in candidate. All but nine states have provisions for write-in candidates. 

Because of propaganda, getting voters to write in a candidate is hard. It’s even harder than getting them to pull the lever for an independent. People are so afraid that the other party will win, even when their preferred party does nothing for them. People worry more about losing than voting for their own safety and happiness. That’s why I make a point to say it takes dedication. If the People aren’t committed to making their lives and our politics better, it can never succeed. 

In a nutshell, that’s all it takes: signatures, money, and the People’s dedication to voting. Oh, I almost forgot the most important aspect: a candidate with an agenda to unite the People. 

In future episodes, I plan to discuss what that agenda might look like. For the rest of this episode, I want to talk about WHY this works. It’s one thing to tell you that it can work, but the most important aspect is to explain why. This takes a lot of dedication from people who may never even meet the candidate. The only way it works is if people not only believe in the agenda but also believe it will make a difference. The People must believe accomplishing the agenda is possible. They must trust that the result will be the political reset we need. 

So, let’s explore the “WHY” ...

The first step is getting on each state’s ballot. When that happens, it will serve as the first shock to the party system. We have had third-party candidates in most presidential elections since 1996. The way most states run their elections this was achieved with minimal effort. They do not need the number of signatures required of an independent.  Most need nothing more than a recognized third party’s nomination. 

There hasn’t been an independent on all state ballots since 1992. Many even believe Ross Perot could have won had he not dropped out and returned to the race near the end. The reason we have seen so few independents is because of the difficult path I have outlined.

The number of signatures and the effort needed in such a short amount of time is formidable by design. An independent candidate achieving them would be unsettling. Having lived through the 1992 election, I can tell you that it was quite a shock to the system. This would be the first sign to the parties that something is different. This would be the first sign that people demand something different. Momentum would grow each time they achieved access to a state ballot. With each state, apprehension in the parties would grow. Each domino that fell would be a statement to establishment politics.

The next aspect is winning the election. At that point, the dedication of the People to change would be undeniable. The number of votes cast outside of a party to elect an independent could not be ignored. It would be what politicians refer to as a mandate by the People for change. It would be a clarion call from the People to embrace this new president’s agenda. It would insist that they move past party politics. I would demand that they enact legislation to affect the People’s safety and happiness.

Again, I can guess what you’re thinking. “What makes them listen? They can wait four years and move on. They’ll do nothing, or worse pass laws to stop it from happening again.” Remember when I said earlier that getting elected was only the beginning? The grind goes on past that initial achievement. If you think back to episode two, I talked about altering our government every two to four years. That’s the answer.

We give them two years to work with the President to enact our agenda, and if not, we replace them. If they choose not to listen to the People, the true power in this nation, we replace them. We replace them with elected officials who will enact the People's agenda. The key is not to tell them how to do their job. It is to provide them the People's agenda and then demand they work together to enact it.

It is imperative to talk about a worst-case scenario as well. What happens if the independent president doesn’t do what they said they would? This is the beauty of this plan. If this President doesn’t follow the will of the People, they now have two parties eager to make them look bad. The members of Congress would have no loyalty to a president that defies the will of the People. In fact, you may even get them to work together to discredit this president. This means there is no downside to electing an independent president. They do what they promised. Or they spend four years with Congress working together against them. Actually, that doesn't sound too bad. Congress working together for anything would be a positive change.

There is one other worst-case scenario I would be remiss to not mention here. What if an independent candidate causes and indecisive election? In other words, what if no one receives the required 270 electoral votes? Since our beginning, we have had only two indecisive presidential elections. The House of Representatives had to decide the 1800 & 1824 elections. 

This would be the ultimate test of our elected officials. The effort required by the People to get an independent candidate to this point would be immense. It would be a sure indicator of the Will of the People. The House would face a choice: select an independent supported by the People or choose party. Choosing party would prove that they are not working for the People. It would provide a clear view of the motives of those elected officials that need to be replaced. Selecting the independent candidate is the only appropriate compromise in an indecisive election. Not doing so would make that parties intentions known. There could be no clearer sign of party over the People. If this happens, it would be on us to replace these political elites. 

In the second episode, I said people focus too much on the abolishment of government as the answer. They do this to the detriment of the easier-to-achieve altering of our government. You believe the work involved to elect an independent is overwhelming? It would be nothing compared to forming a new government. We must give the government our founders envisioned a chance to thrive. We must do this before we ever consider dismantling it.

We must do more than protest. We must do more than talk. We must do more than hope. We must embark on a political reset a bloodless revolution if you will. We must remind the corporate and political elites where the power resides in this nation. We must put our support behind an independent president with an agenda based on the rights of the People. We must do this, and then dare them to defy it.

Maybe you’re still questioning that what I say is true. If you still wonder if all our elected officials are the same, I’ll give you a way to test it. It’s a simple way to separate the wheat from the chaff. Go to an event where they are speaking and ask them a simple question. Make sure you film it, too. 

Ask them this question. “If the People were to elect an independent president, would you support their agenda?” 

You’ll probably get a chuckle, indicating how little they think of that possibility. But their answer means everything. If they say yes, great. They are at the least giving lip service to their oath. They swore to support and defend the Constitution by supporting the power of the People. If they say no or evade the question, then you know they aren’t in the job for the People. You know they are in the job for themselves. 

It’s that simple. They can’t say it depends on the agenda, because that’s not adhering to our Constitution. We the People do ordain and establish the Constitution of the United States. We only allow Congress to legislate our power not to set the agenda. That power lies with the People, and only with the People.  Our power has gotten murky with our continued election of partisan presidents. 

But here’s the kicker… Once you elect an independent president, you must hold them to their answer. Don’t elect anyone that says no and be prepared to replace anyone that says yes and doesn’t follow through. This is the only way we reset our political system. This is the only way we return the power to the People. This is the only way we ensure our Life, our Liberty, and our pursuit of Happiness.

Remember this very poignant quote often attributed to Einstein. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Whether he said it or not doesn’t make it less true. We must break the cycle. We must stop listening to the parties that do nothing but spread propaganda. We must understand that what they tell us is only to benefit the party apparatus. We must not be afraid to change our mind. It is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of growth. It is a sign that you have taken the time to understand a problem. It shows you are not closed minded. 

Benjamin Franklin once said: 

"Having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information or fuller consideration to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise."

In episode two, I also referenced a quote by George Washington. I am paraphrasing here. He said if the People of the United States are not completely free and happy the fault is entirely their own. 

There is an answer to the partisanship that plagues our nation. There is an answer to moving our nation forward. There is an answer to achieve our safety and happiness. I have shown you how to get there. It is up to us to put in the work, to make the effort to achieve it. If we lose our Republic, the fault is entirely our own.  

Always remember, We the People are the power. 

Oh… and if you do get one of those videos send it to me, I’ll find a place to post it for all to see.