Third Party Conspiracy

It is obvious to many Americans that the differences between the Democrats and Republicans are minor, at best. Many of us, throughout the nation, are frustrated and angry with the established parties’ transparent devotion to big business and Wall Street, and would prefer to vote for a third party rather than any candidate put forth by the Demo-Republicans. However, the leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties have been engaged for years in a strategy that all but ensures they will never face a challenger from a third party candidate.

The Demo-Republicans have introduced laws throughout the country that limit the ability of any third party candidate to get on the ballot for an election. Republican and Democratic candidates are automatically added to the ballots, while potential third party candidates must collect truly enormous numbers of signatures in each state to be put on each state’s ballot, which means that anyone who hopes to run for national office requires an organization of staff or volunteers on a nationwide scale that only the established parties could hope to achieve.

This provides a disincentive for the media to cover any potential third party candidates. Why would they devote coverage to a candidate who is extremely unlikely to win since he or she does not have the support to get on the ballot in every state? This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, since without mass media coverage, it becomes nearly impossible for those candidates to attract volunteers to do the work of fulfilling each state’s ballot access requirements.

Furthermore, all the major media outlets are owned by the same giant corporations who fund the Republican and Democratic parties. These corporations obviously have a vested interest in keeping their chosen parties in power, so even if individual journalists want to cover third party candidates, they are forbidden to do so by their corporate bosses. As a newspaper reporter personally told me during the 2012 election, “As a condition of my employment, I’m not allowed to engage or assist in any independent political campaigns, and covering an independent campaign is a way of assisting it.”

Or as Paul Singer, the politics editor for USA Today, was quoted as saying in the American Journalism Review, “I’m sympathetic to [candidates'] concern that they can’t become major candidates without coverage, but it’s not our job to help them become major candidates.” He’s right, it is not the job of the media to promote specific candidates – however, it is the job of the news media to provide the citizens of this country with the information they need to make informed choices, such as who they have the option of voting for in elections, and what the candidates’ platforms are. He goes on to say, “It’s simply a factor of what do you feel are the important things to tell readers about the presidential campaign.” Apparently, Paul Singer felt it was more important for his newspaper to devote column inches to Mitt Romney’s boyhood pranks or which celebrities supported Barack Obama than to inform its readers about alternatives they would have on Election Day.

Our democracy is a farce. We are living in a one party state, with national news media owned by the same people who fund their parties, and where the only priorities of our rulers is to make themselves and their friends wealthier while regular Americans are left in the dust. The Demo-Republicans and their Wall Street masters have created a system that virtually guarantees their continued domination of the American political landscape for the foreseeable future. It is time for Americans to stand up and demand an end to the domination of our political system by Wall Street and their bought-and-paid-for parties. With the advent of the Internet and social media, we no longer need to rely on what the richest people in the country choose to spoon feed to us. We can take back our country, and I invite you to join me in 2016.

http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=5448
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/story/2012-05-13/Mitt-Romney-bullying-1965/54946718/1
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2012/10/19/obama-september-money/1645007/