You’d have to be crazy

The phrase, “Elections are like the weather: Everyone complains, but nobody does anything about it,” is only half accurate.

The first half is true: People complain about the percentages of people who do vote in elections (mainly that seniors tend to vote in higher ratios than other people). People complain about the percentages of people who don’t vote in elections (mainly that young people don’t turn out in the numbers they should, since they’re avoiding making decisions that will influence their own futures). People complain about the kinds of people who do run for office (generally because they’re too rich, too uninformed or too eccentric). People complain about the kinds of people who don’t run for office (almost anybody with a lick of sense).

These days, even the people that the majority of people would say are the right kind of people to run for office—average Joes and Joannas who are educated, well informed and perhaps successful in private life—have got a lot to complain about.

For one, due to the stranglehold power of the two-party system, people for whom Democrat or Republican labels are wildly inaccurate are forced to falsely identify themselves as one or the other just to keep from being marginalized by declaring their true independence. Many Democrats are angry at what has happened the last two years in Washington, D.C. Many Republicans are angry at what happed during the previous eight. So in Nevada, what party represents those people who demand fiscal responsibility (which includes the “general welfare”)—and social liberty?

There is none, so we’ll have people voting along party lines and having no idea for whom they’re voting. It’s amazing just how screwed up our democracy is right now.

And in this primary season, when the truly independent voter should be able to help decide who makes it to the general election, the principled independent—who refuses to identify with one of the parties because a false identification is a lie—is frozen out of the process.

Now onto the second half of the statement: Nobody does anything about it.

We’d argue that many people have done a lot about it. They’ve worked very hard to make our elections more screwed up so that regular, sane people can’t afford to run.

For one thing, with the primary elections being moved further and further away from the date of the general election, regular people who choose to run must spend more time and money preparing for the election. That means greater expense for people—good, solid people—to run for office. The cost forces many to say, “No thanks.”

For another thing, with early voting, people must get their message out well before the primary, just to inform those people who vote early. That’s, again, more expense for responsible people, and more reason not to run.

It’s plain people have complained about elections, and some have done something about them: They’ve screwed them up in ways that favor rich people and encourage intelligent and responsible middle class people not to run.