Throw Your Vote Away

In a post on 'Politics and Truth,' the Niagra Journal delineates the fault lines that structure our political landscape:

The Republi-crat duopoly . . . exists to control the mechanisms of power and domination of the New Class, i.e., the new political/financial class, that rules international capital and related policy. The real conflict and tension . . . is between the Republi-crats and the Client Class, i.e., the rest of us who are not in contention to get our hands on the reins of power and domination. The real political conflict is not that within the so-called Republican party nor that between the so-called Democrats and Republicans. It is between the capitalist interests of the New Class and the Client Class consumers.

This configuration, he argues, is sustained by the ignorance among large swaths of the 'client class' as to their own political interests and maintained by the distortions and deceits of the propagandists who reproduce and reinforce duopolist ideology. Though this thesis is widely accepted among third party and anti-incumbency activists, it is not entirely correct. Voters across the political spectrum recognize the two-party system for what it is, namely, a political straitjacket, and can see through the manipulations of politicians and their enablers in the corporate media. What they cannot see is the sense of voting outside the two party ticket. Americans love a winner. Why throw your vote away on someone who has no chance of winning? -they ask themselves. One potential response to such a question is: why throw your vote away on someone who does not represent your interests and may very well win the opportunity to thwart or otherwise undermine them?