Our Entrenched Political Duopoly Must Go

by Leah Watson, Breaking News Reporter, The Kennedy Beacon

I am a Gen Z reporter at The Kennedy Beacon, and I’ve covered many of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s ballot access achievements. I’ve learned about the nuanced ballot access laws that are upheld in every state and the seemingly orchestrated idiosyncrasies that differ from state to state. If more people were aware of just how impossible it is for an independent presidential candidate to get on the ballot in these states, they would see how corrupt the system is and how it entrenches the endless cycle of Democrats vs. Republicans. 

Politics is always a difficult subject. We have a clichéd rule, “no talking politics at the dinner table” when the holidays roll around – in order to avoid uncomfortable conversations with stubborn relatives. And of late, I can’t help but notice how even more difficult it has become for people to have civil conversations with each other across today’s splintered political table. 

Little do many people realize that, save for a few hot-button issues, the Democratic and Republican parties are practically the same. 

The Democratic Party has shifted considerably since its formation. In the 1830s, the issue that defined the Democratic Party was its advocacy for the forced removal of indigenous people along the Mississippi River. By the 1850s, the Democratic Party had become an institution that strongly supported slavery. Only years later would the Democratic Party come to be known as a peace and anti-war party.

But the party’s identity has shifted again. On many issues, such as foreign wars and the national debt, Democrats talk and act like Republicans. 

There is a massive psychological play in place that leads the public into believing that one side is worse than the other, reinforcing a stark division between the two, establishing a groupthink that couldn’t be further from the truth. 

By focusing on the minute differences between the parties, people are blinded from recognizing that the two parties are actually similar, that both are war-mongering, power-hungry organizations driven by corporate interests and supported by deep-pocketed donors. Hot-button issues and divisive personalities distract the public from this truth. That doesn’t make these issues any less important, but they serve as a distraction nonetheless.

As Caitlin Johnstone, a favorite Substack author of mine, writes “If Americans started to notice that the US government behaves more or less the same way regardless of which party is in power, the illusion of the two-party puppet show would be shattered, and empire managers would lose a crucial means of social control.” 

Our political environment is a good vs. evil charade that is spoon-fed to the American public year after year. The resulting polarization blinds us from the reality that the two parties are in bed with one another, supporting the same murderous policies and aiding and abetting each other in a shared agenda.

However much the current two parties resemble each other, they are still fundamentally built on antagonism. We are encouraged to pick sides and bicker. Our endless attacks on people who think differently than we do seep into the American psyche and foster a culture of hate. Such incessant, personal conflicts hinder people from making meaningful connections to others with different perspectives than their own. We are living as antagonists and protagonists instead of friends and fellow Americans. 

Third parties offer voters a different perspective, an existential choice to choose to live outside of the two party’s angry bubble. Choice represents a threat to the duopoly’s ability to keep people fighting against one another. Democratic and Republican parties both benefit when third-party candidates are blocked from the ballot, a disturbing feature of this election’s landscape.

This is why the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which begins its convention in Chicago on August 19, won’t back down on its agenda to block Kennedy from states’ ballots, nationwide. They are at war with Kennedy, launching frivolous legal attacks at the candidates’ earnest and honest ballot access drive. 

The DNC couches its attacks as efforts to “save democracy,” when in reality they are trying to limit voter choice. By meticulously collecting signatures, state by state, Kennedy is the one preserving our democratic system. And he has called out both party’s ruthless and corporate self-interests.

The acrimonious banter between the two parties, as well as between individual voters, maintains a stagnation that benefits the uniparty. We’ve become so entrenched in the two-party system that we’ve come to believe that there’s no other option. Mainstream media presents a bleak political landscape as if it defines a gleaming example of democracy, and we fall victim to this fiction and believe in it.

However this election ends, Kennedy is paving the way for future independent candidates to successfully overcome the anti-democratic ballot access requirements that they will face. As members of the duopoly waltz into power, Kennedy is empowering the next generation to continue to expose our deeply corrupt political parties – and the donor class that keeps them in power and us at each other’s throats. 

Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, Kennedy’s campaign manager, said in a recent press briefing that the only reason they’ve been able to succeed at the painstaking task of ballot access is because of dedicated volunteers – volunteers who, uniquely, span the political spectrum.

“If we had said ‘We only want Democrats, we only want Republicans, you’re not welcome to volunteer with us…go back to your corner,’ there is no way we would have gotten this done. This is a testament to what we can achieve (the impossible) as Americans when we come together,” said Amaryllis Kennedy. 

It’s easy to say that as a collective we need to put an end to the division, especially when we’ve been programmed to do quite the opposite. But the division within our country and within ourselves is now, perhaps more than ever in our American experiment, preventing us from moving forward as a nation.