It is barely a week until the 2026 midterm elections. What’s on the ballot? Well, in my very personal opinion, I’d say, generally, nothing much new. That is to say, with some rare exceptions, a voter will be given the usual choice of a Red or Blue party candidate. That is certainly, absolutely, “business as usual” in our clearly entrenched two-party System. What is otherwise new about this same old same old offering to the electorate is an urgent sense of resistance needed to stop our democracy from eventually, completely, bleeding out and being formally pronounced deceased. That assertion might seem hyperbolic but only to those who choose not to submit to reality.

Allow me to elaborate, thank you.

The midterm is the same as usual and is simultaneously wildly different than usual, all at once. The Red and Blue monopoly on ballot access has been quite long in standing. The path for any 3rd party to appear on a national ballot within this System is not smoothly paved to allow direct access. In fact, the road is completely rocky, rutted and a dead-end which leaves its desired destination farther ahead, offering no exceptions for any non-members who may somehow manage to reach its doorstep. Ah, but of course!, flash enough cash and its door may reflexively open enough to gain some measure of entry. However, that price of admission is substantial. 99.97% of the populace cannot pay the price of admission. The most recent example of this was Mr. Ross Perot, a billionaire from Texas who spent tens of millions of his wealth to buy enough media bandwith space for his voice to be heard via print, television or radio (remember, it was 1992, the pre-historic version of mass media compared to our current back pocket ability to check a screen and get news in real time, anytime, all the time). The System, then as now, required any potential presidential candidate to poll at a minimum of 15% approval to be allowed on the debate stage, and that takes a lot of media exposure to possibly qualify. He did crash the debate party by reaching that polling threshold, forcing Red and Blue to have that extremely rare (and unwelcomed, I am certain) outsider, 3rd party person to voice alternate ideas to either Frick or Frack. Ross made enough of an impression on viewers on that very significant debate stage to get 18.9% of the popular vote. Quite impressive, but still not enough for victory. And again, he had to spend tens of millions of his money to still be rejected by the electorate, it being so beholden to the two established parties to dare roll the dice on an outsider.

Yes, the System, the Duopoly is a very, very exclusive club.

Money greases the gears to how this political machinery works. Perot did provide evidence of that. To invite an even more corrupting layer to this “pay to play” modus operandi, in 2010, the Supreme Court, in the Citizens United case, ruled that essentially “corporations are people” and “money is free speech.” So, whatever amount of money one has, be it a pittance or a prodigious figure, the US government then declared out loud that formally and effectively our government was literally For Sale. Even on the most local level of elections, as with candidates running for national offices, their primary means of possibly winning is based on taking in as much of a “war chest” as possible. The more moolah, the more media exposure. Pay-to-play. How can anyone hope to run for any office without being able to be seen or heard? The amount of media exposure is in direct proportion to the size of the war chest. For better or worse. And with the two Establishment parties each always having gigantic amounts of money, their candidate’s presence in ads eventually can flood the airways, from Podunk, USA to any Mega Metropolis.

Here, in the USA, this very expensive two-party System, especially over the last half-century, has produced one of its two member parties to run the show, with the dystopic dogma we have now as a result. How did this happen? Who voted for this? This must be stopped. Yes, indeed, so it has to be the other of the two member parties within the Duopoly who will stop it right? Well, maybe. Even without the flooding of the airwaves by opposition party candidates, polls indicate a strong desire for the fast approaching midterm to enact a major course correction. So, it has to be Blue to the rescue. There’s no Perot-like outsider to offer an alternative. Oh, there are those independent voices out there but the Duopoly muffles their messaging and and make any such person virtually invisible. Not enough money to crash the party. So, hurray for Blue. Go get em!

But wait…

…wasn’t it was Blue that lost to Red in 2024? With all the money that Blue has, how did it not connect with enough people to prevent Red from coming back into power? It was a massive constitutional dereliction of duty! The Reds literally stated–if elected–its intent was to do what they have now done as far as the above noted chaos, cruelty and calamity du jour. Blue enabled this situation to become a crisis. How do they lose to a lunatic-led Red party that should have been easily landslided?? Red flags everywhere leading up to 2024, but never mind. Was it completely Blue’s fault that they lost? People did have a choice, and they chose Red.

Maybe no matter how much money is available (kudos to our Supreme Court for inviting the richest of the rich to buy access) it comes down to basic common sense on the part of the voter. Many DID vote for this. Millions did. They saw the ads, heard the candidates and said Red sounds better than blue. Now, there are millions literally screaming that Blue is party that will make this all better! Uh, okay. Then that means in less than two years Blue has transformed from a very incompetent, even indifferently lazy “opposition” entity into a real fighter for democracy, truth, justice and that common good mentioned in the preamble to the Constitution.

Really? Seriously?

Getting back to the idea of any 3rd party being systematically kept from gaining traction against Red or Blue, it was both Red and Blue that produced this mess, so now what chance is there of any actual long term change for the better? Over decades now, it would seem that no matter which party is in power, it is really just the Duopoly in power. Otherwise, how can one logically expect a different result regarding the well being of We, the People? Since 1980 it has been Red, Red, Blue, Red, Blue, Red, Blue, Red. That’s Red and Blue. Rinse and repeat. And just look around.

We need a complete re-set. A plague on both their houses? A purging of each? But this posting is not blaming Red and Blue exclusively for our crisis, though of course each must share much of the blame. Red or Blue each need votes to be in control. That outcome is the responsibility of the public. But is has only been since 1980 that this descent into self-serving, dangerously greedy governing has evolved. It may take a few more election cycles for the public to at last change their behavior and demand better. Really demand more choice. But until that happens there will be no progress. Hearing the attacks on anyone who dares declare the need for 3rd party options to be seen or heard–without having to be a Ross Perot billionaire–is not encouraging. These robotic rooters for a clearly corrupted status quo are as much a danger to what is left of our constitutional norm as the Duopoly itself. Keep voting against your best interest. Get nothing back for your vote and become consistently less safe and secure with each political cycle–now even including possibly losing your life for no damn reason other than hate, power and control. Again, that both parties enabled.

Yeah, get WOKE John and Jane Doe. Right now, even that admonishing reminder that “If you don’t vote don’t complain” is rendered meaningless. There’s so much to complain about, but that is because of the people who did vote! Yet, their vote brought us this mess. Gets rather confounding and confusing, eh? That’s the System causing it. The System that wants your vote, but won’t democratically allow more choices than A or B, but the voters keep feeding it, and even shout about a 3rd party vote being a wasted vote or a “spoiler” vote. It rigged. And the voting public helped to solidify the rigging by their lack of political elasticity.

The more things “change” the more they stay insane owing to such a pervasive self-defeating approach to politics. But that’s where we are. We’ll soon see where it goes from here. I would advise one to not hold one’s breath waiting for the Cavalry to save the day. It’s more like waiting for Godot, who is certainly going to show up in the next election, or the one after that or the one after that or absolutely the the one after…