Amerika

Originally published on Nationalist Party USA on July 25, 2005.

According to some sources, almost fifty-five percent of the American registered voters did not vote in the last presidential election. This suggests, once we compensate for the inevitable portion of slackers and those who are disinclined to vote as a practice, that for over half of the American people, there was not a candidate worth choosing. This is not surprising, given their options.

The differences between Republican and Democratic parties can be counted on one hand, and for the most part, comprise issues which are symbolic more than rational. Abortion, gay marriage, prayer in schools, ten commandments, reparations, drilling in national forests. These are issues in name only, as whichever way they are decided, there is minimal effect on the whole. For example, regardless of the legality of abortion, our population is declining and children will be murdered because of the reckless sexual behavior of adults.

While the two-party system reduces voting to a practice so simplistic that even a moron can do it, and many morons do (apparently), it is destructive in that the parties are so competitive they are barely different. Neither party would do anything to change the overall direction of our society; both focus mostly on issues of emotional significance to their constituencies, and defer big change indefinitely. It is not their concern, they say, because they satisfy those who support them.

However, because fewer than half of the eligible electorate chose to cast a ballot, this should tell us that there is a silent majority who are not being represented. For them, undoubtedly, the choice between two well-connected millionaires with cronies in multiple industries is moot. This silent group are probably well-adjusted, and have found ways to make a reasonable living, and thus are stable enough to need very little in terms of what candidates can deliver.

What this silent majority would find appealing is something the mainstream political system cannot bestow: a more sane living, a healthier culture, a safer way of life. Since the methods of making this happen are generally politically taboo, as inevitably they would involve sacrifices in personal freedom and lack of responsibility, no candidate who wishes to be elected in the popular system will discuss them. And thus the symbolic issues continue to be bandied about, and many of our country’s best citizens continue not voting.

Even more appalling is that the constant transfer of power makes it impossible to establish any kind of longstanding policy, because as soon as one party establishes a precedent, a new election comes along and blows it away. The population who do vote probably consider themselves “empowered” for being able to switch to the “other side” anytime things get rough with the current administration, but that practice is as effective as changing cell phone companies: sooner or later, the other guy gets enough power to begin abusing it, and thus you have to switch again, and again…

One could, as in the 2004 election some did, opt for a candidate like Ralph Nader. While even Nader himself recognized he would not win the election, and probably was not ready to be a president quite yet, it would have been smartest for Americans to vote for Nader so that they could have had a third party on the ticket. In fact, if Nader had cast aside the debate over his actual opinions, and said simply, “I’m running so that next election we can have third parties,” he probably would have doubled his vote.

Such things as third-party politics or a drastic change in our political system appeal to the silent majority. They are intelligent people, whether “educated” or not, and they are practical people, regardless of what economic stratum claims them. Their goal is to have a normal life, enough money to live well on, and they tend to have family-centric, traditional but not uptight “conservative” values. No candidate thinks like this, of course, because it’s too moderate and undramatic to be a good source of scrounging votes.

While these moderates are clearly apolitical in a two-party system, and often write off politics entirely as something beyond their control, they are not without opinions, and they are people of action who would participate if someone else got the ball rolling. In a way, they could be described as extremist moderates, in that while their views are moderate, they’re accustomed to getting things done by stepping over the ineffective, delusional, neurotic and defective people inevitably in their way (think about driving down a busy road on Saturday, and you’ll see what I mean here).

The silent majority, unlike the people who normally vote, does not need a dramatic celebrity-style president, but they will support any sane plan no matter how drastic it seems to normal voters. To this silent majority, if you have the right plan, there’s no reason to hold back from forcing it into place with maximum effectiveness; this is how they run their businesses and lives, and it is a more sane political view than believing we are “empowered” by a see-saw power struggle that makes long-term planning impossible.

Naturally, it is not in the interest of the oligarchs – the business owners, media magnates, and influence brokers behind the scenes in our society – to support such action. For one thing, it threatens to actually end problems such as organized crime, drugs, and ethnic tension from which a great deal of profit can be made. For another, it would literally end the power of the oligarchy itself, by removing the highly-visible but ineffective populist political drama and replacing it with a sensible and less ostentatious form of government.

Luckily for those who live in this time, the silent majority is gaining more power. The normal citizen, voter or not, is realizing, as oil runs out, as wars proliferate, as our society gets increasingly authoritarian, as pollution (and cancers) increase, that our civilization is not on a healthy path, and that we’ve been lied to, not by one party or even by both, but by the assurances that our system works at all. They’re starting to want change that isn’t necessarily radical or not radical, but effective.

In this they are delegating support to the Silent Majority, who are no longer as concerned with being painted as extremists, because the problems we face have now reached such an extreme that there is no way to deny them. As the two-party system thus fades in importance, third parties are gaining predominance, as unlike the visible political drama, these stand for change and a practical plan, which is something the Silent Majority and any other thinking citizen will now support.

Tags: democracy, silent majority