Looking for a third way
Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton became their parties’ nominees by hostile takeover. Hopefully, the wisdom of the electorate will not allow that to happen to our presidency. Every four years, voters “hire” the person who will be the president. It is a job too important to be decided by popularity contest or dueling.
In this peculiar election year, common sense leads us to a third-party choice for president. Political divisiveness is threatening the equilibrium of the federal government; we need a competent, committed patriot as president. Gov. Gary Johnson, an experienced neutral-party chief executive, has the know-how to work cooperatively with Congress to end gridlock and restore sanity and integrity to D.C.
Voters have a serious obligation to vote for the individual best-suited. The job description for chief executive is found in the Constitution (Article II, Sections 1-3.) The founders envisioned the president as a problem-solver who will work to keep all three branches of the government operating in a coordinated pattern to provide effective government service to the people. The balance of power in the federal government is designed to work for us, not the other way around. No doubt the founders relied on our judgment to choose a president who reveres the constitutional limitations of the office yet has the wisdom, experience, and maturity to steer the ship of state successfully through turbulent political waters.
Abraham Lincoln is said to have been the most recent successful third-party presidential candidate. Perhaps this year’s troubling times require another one.
—Jane Kenny
Helping to destroy First Amendment
Amendment I: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion … or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press …
Donald Trump is “abridging the freedom of the press” by barring certain reporters from his public meetings, yet he is running for President of the United States. Khizer Khan was correct when he said, “Trump has never read the Constitution.” The press should be livid, not cowering in a corner.
John Higgs writes in Stranger Than We Can Imagine (2015) that neoliberalism/Reaganomics has ruled in the U.S. since the 1980s, which began the corporatization of the media, particularly the press. He writes, “By the end of the 20th century, neoliberalism had become orthodoxy. As corporate power grew, its influence over politicians and media companies increased, in no small part because of their need for corporate money. There may have been widespread concern that a profit-led society was fundamentally inhuman, as well as depressing and unimaginative, but there was no way to express that opinion at the ballot box” [until Nov. 8].
The Republican Party exists in name only; the tea party, with the aid of Fox News, overthrew it at the GOP Convention. Otherwise, how would Trump become its standard bearer?
Ronald P. Formisano writes in The Tea Party: A brief History (2012), “Intertwined as the Fox News Corp. was with the Tea Party during its explosive growth in 2009, when the 2010 midterm elections approached Fox News became as much or more integrated with the Republican Party. The mission of Fox, indeed, appeared to be to fold the Tea Party into the GOP.”
We the people are aiding and abetting Trump in destroying the First Amendment.
—Mary Gravitt
