The Two Most Important Issues You Will Never Hear About

Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart

If you participate in political polling, I do not, the first question you are likely to be asked is: “what issue is most important to you?” The economy is most frequently the number one answer. I believe there are two issues you will never read about on the internet or see on the evening news. If both were addressed, our government could be saved.

Our government is completely dysfunctional. An insanely small number of pieces of legislation were passed in 2023, and the pattern is continuing in 2024. A democratic republic cannot succeed without honest and sincere deliberation and eventual compromise. The parties are at war with each other in the 21^st century, and very little has been accomplished.

TERM LIMITS

Our Founding Fathers were not psychics and did not foresee what would happen within our government over the next 200+ years. If they could have imagined what is happening in Washington today, the first thing they would have done is set term limits on all three branches of government. Power corrupts, and the longer an elected official or Supreme Court Justice is in office the less likely they are to listen to the people they were elected or chosen to serve. Politics became more important than good government.

EVERY VOTE SHOULD COUNT

Another issue our Founding Fathers could not have imagined is how the Electoral College has eliminated the ability of our nation’s people to choose the man or woman who will lead them for the next four years.

The states choose our presidents, and millions of votes have no importance in the outcome of the election. They simply don’t count. Reporting the results of the popular vote has no purpose other than information for the curious.

The proof is undeniable. If the people elected our presidents, not a single Republican would have held the office of President since 1993. However, the Electoral College has decided the victor in every election.

Only George W. Bush won both the Electoral College vote and the popular vote as a Republican. This occurred in 2004 when he won a second term, a term he would not have sought if the popular vote decided the election in 2000. Ending the existence of the Electoral College would also end the existence of “red and blue states,” forcing the candidates to campaign in all 50 states, and not focus primarily on states which traditionally vote for Democrats or Republicans.

I don’t pay any attention to arguments supporting the Electoral College because I believe every voter should know that his or her vote has value.

Vice-Presidential candidate, Tim Walz, agrees with me.

“I think all of us know the Electoral College needs to go. We need, we need national popular vote, but that’s not the world we live in. So we need to win Beaver County, Pennsylvania. We need to be able to go into York, Pennsylvania, win. We need to be in western Wisconsin and win. We need to be in Reno, Nevada, and win,” the Democratic vice-presidential nominee told supporters gathered at Gov. Gavin Newsom’s private residence in Sacramento, according to the pool report.

Finally, Republicans fear the idea of repealing the Electoral College and making the popular vote the only vote which counts. It has been proven time and time again that the people support more liberal policies, not the policies of the past which prevent our nation from moving forward.

Op-ed by James Turnage

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Source: https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/08/politics/walz-electoral-college-needs-to-go/index.html