{"id":18535,"date":"2023-02-20T16:39:46","date_gmt":"2023-02-20T21:39:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/2023\/02\/did-george-washington-predict-todays-partisan-divide\/"},"modified":"2023-02-20T16:39:46","modified_gmt":"2023-02-20T21:39:46","slug":"did-george-washington-predict-todays-partisan-divide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/2023\/02\/did-george-washington-predict-todays-partisan-divide\/","title":{"rendered":"Did George Washington Predict Today’s Partisan Divide?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Looks like we’ve completely forgotten our first president’s warning against the corruptive power of political parties…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey [political parties] are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government\u201d

~President George Washington<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It took the power of the Internet to push our government to the brink and back, but here we are. Partisan polarization is entrenched, supported by legalized bribery (aka lobbying) and corporate meddling. Our politicians have become an elite ruling class that routinely ignores the will of the People.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The solution is pretty simple:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • Publicly funded elections. No campaign donations allowed. NONE. Free and equal airtime given to ALL verified candidates, regardless of party affiliation…not just Democrats and Republicans. Issues, not party affiliation should matter again. The number of votes should decide elections, not the number of dollars spent to manipulate our opinions.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Term Limits. No one should serve in Congress forever. If our elected officials service is temporary, they can properly focus on making progress, rather than getting reelected. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Get rid of the filibuster. Give us true democracy, rather than oligarchy. Americans deserve a popular vote for President and majority rule in the Senate. Independent and Other Party candidates should not be discriminated against by a system that seeks to perpetuate the ‘Two Party tradition’.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Truth, Transparency, and Ethics. Politicians must be ethically above reproach, and should not be profiting on their votes. Bills should be simple, readable and single purposed, not 1000s of pages of unrelated legislation. CSPAN should broadcast EVERYTHING and the People should get to vote on the bills too. Then the popular votes can be compared to how our politicians voted. If they vote against us too often, make recall and replacement easy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    Of course it’s complicated. Nothing is just a simple answer. But…These are things that would make a BIG difference, but our politicians will NEVER consider because it upsets the status quo…and things are pretty fucking good for THEM<\/em> just the way things are. Trouble is, they aren’t so great for all of US<\/em>. It’s time for drastic changes, folks. Before it’s too late.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\n\n\n

    Authors Note: All opinions expressed here are just that: opinions. If you don’t like mine, I probably won’t like yours either. Let’s just nod, and walk away. Maybe come back with solutions instead of opinions. Because of the two, only solutions actually matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Looks like we’ve completely forgotten our first president’s warning against the corruptive power of political parties… \u201cThey [political parties] are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[582,756,645,587,588,585,600,622],"tags":[593,743,646,596,96,562,607,594,595,592,623,523,521],"class_list":["post-18535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","hentry","category-blog-2","category-elections","category-filibuster","category-moregray","category-myopinion","category-opinion-3","category-politics-2","category-vote","tag-editorial","tag-elections","tag-filibuster","tag-imo","tag-jamiegray","tag-jfs","tag-justthinking","tag-moregray","tag-myopinion","tag-opinion","tag-vote","tag-blog","tag-politics","post_format-post-format-image"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":16824,"url":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/2018\/10\/mcconnell-went-nuclear-to-confirm-gorsuch-but-democrats-changed-senate-filibuster-rules-first\/","url_meta":{"origin":18535,"position":0},"title":"McConnell went ‘nuclear’ to confirm Gorsuch. But Democrats changed Senate filibuster rules first.","date":"October 2, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Remember when Harry Reid and the Democrats used the #NuclearOption? It was that change that rendered them powerless to do anything about Trump's nominations. It was that bonehead move that allowed Mitch McConnell to stonewall for months and never call a vote on Obama's Merrick Garland. Good job Dems. The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "#blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18131,"url":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/2021\/03\/the-filibuster-must-go\/","url_meta":{"origin":18535,"position":1},"title":"The Filibuster Must Go","date":"March 30, 2021","format":"image","excerpt":"I can see why Democrats are nervous about killing the Filibuster. Why? Because it will be gone FOREVER. Permanently. No take backs. Both parties might have to actually have to start governing, instead of just blaming the other for everything. Don't believe me? 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The last time a party tried to shove it's agenda down\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "#blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18492,"url":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/2022\/10\/close-to-the-edge\/","url_meta":{"origin":18535,"position":3},"title":"Close To The Edge","date":"October 20, 2022","format":"image","excerpt":"America is on the edge. Many of the freedoms and the progress we've made toward civil rights are on the verge of being eliminated. I'm not trying to scare anybody, but the time for business as usual is over. Thanks to greed, lies and partisan politics, the Rights of Americans\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "#Abortion"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16137,"url":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/2018\/04\/the-political-potential-of-millennials-remains-untapped-because-they-dont-vote-will-parkland-change-that\/","url_meta":{"origin":18535,"position":4},"title":"The political potential of millennials remains untapped because they don’t vote. Will Parkland change that?","date":"April 3, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"America is ready for the Next Generation to break their silence and lead. Both parties of the old guard are so busy clinging to the old ways that don't work, and they refuse to try any new path. 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The more we want, the less\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "#blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/wp_story1660843353131_1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18535"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18535\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}