I really don’t understand anyone who plans to vote Republican in the general election this year.
Not that I particularly understand them in any year.
Even a brief perusal of this blog should make it pretty obvious that I am personally quite a way off to the left of the Democrats, who I mostly think of as being equivalent to Reagan (or possibly Nixon)-era Republicans.
And that’s fine; it’s not like we all have to agree on everything.
It’d be a pretty boring country if we did.
But seriously, folks.
How the hell can you vote for a political party that cancelled it’s own primary election?
Cancelling an election is a cardinal sin in a democracy; I can’t come up with a good example of something that’s more antithetical to a democracy than that, actually.
Maybe assasinating the opposing candidate? Burning down opposition facilities?
It says something that those are only kinda in the same league as cancelling an election.
The closest I can come to for an example of something that’s as anti-democratic is an outright coup.
Because that’s almost what cancelling an election is.
It is outright denying the electorate its most fundamental right: an equal vote in the running of the State.
This should offend the political sensibilities of every American citizen.
But is should especially offend all y’all who harken to the image of America as the bulwark of democracy; democracy’s rock.
‘Cause cancelling an election goes against everything that a democracy is for.
The fact that it’s even possible to cancel a primary shows a fundamental rot in the Party.
That they would do it shows how deeply that rot goes.
But this is a blog about solutions, isn’t it?
So, the short solution is that the parties should absolutely be required to hold a primary election to choose their candidates. No party that doesn’t practice the forms of democracy internally should be allowed to compete in the general elections.
(And I’m fine with parties advocating for non-democratic forms, actually; they should push whatever political agenda their members support. But to demonstrate that their voters actually support their goals they should have to hold a vote.)
The larger solution has to be expanding the number of viable political parties, which I talked about in Third Party Time: Two, Three, Or Many Political Parties.
