Leid Stories - 11/04/14

Selection Day: After the Charade, What Are We Going to Do?

 

Well, it’s here. Selection Day. The day the nation gets to “elect” people they had no part in selecting as candidates. By day’s end, some new face cards will be added to a trick deck loaded with Jokers; the Democratic-Republican duopoly will win; and party statisticians will run the numbers a thousand different ways for clues to victory in The Big Race two years ahead.

The tragedy is that third parties and many grassroots efforts will have little, if anything, to report in the way of victory at the polls, and this, says Leid Stories, will be the most troubling “Selection Day” outcome of all. The usual impediments to free and fair elections aside (big money, pro-duopoly media, state crimes against democracy) aside, the question must be asked: Why aren’t third parties and grassroots politics gaining ground, especially at a time that seems tailor-made for them to do so?

Listeners offer their opinions and ideas about what is to be done in the aftermath of today’s national charade.