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This column was written before the results of Tuesday’s elections were known. I’m sure I will have plenty of opportunities to comment on election results and ramifications in the weeks and months to come. For now, I want to talk about our elections in general. In short, they are downright depressing.
In the first place, on average, less than half of eligible voters bother to vote. This means that about one-fourth (or less) of the voting-age citizens of this country are electing our various representatives. That, by itself, is a depressing thought.
Most people glibly dismiss the fact that about half of our fellow Americans are staying home from the polls by simply chalking it up to “apathy.” Of course, many people who don’t vote can be described as apathetic. But the real issue is what made them apathetic.
In my interaction with tens of thousands of people from every part of the country and from virtually every ideological and political perspective, the number one reason that I hear explaining why people don’t vote is because they are convinced that voting makes almost no difference—especially in Washington, D.C. And although I don’t think I’ve missed voting in an election, I share much of these people’s frustration.
At the national level, it truly has not made a dime’s worth of difference who sits in the White House or which party controls Congress (that’s not always the case, thankfully, in local and State elections). And Donald Trump is no exception.
On the issues that truly preserve liberty and constitutional government, most “liberals” and “conservatives” are singing from the same hymnbook. Oh, they argue and fuss about a lot of parochial and particularly partisan issues, but on the fundamental issues that protect our liberties, i.e., the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights and the Natural Laws of our Creator—the Natural Laws upon which America’s founding documents were birthed—there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between Republican and Democrat congresses or between Republican and Democrat presidents.
Many of the people who stay home from the polls do so because they observe that the things that motivate most voters are things that have almost nothing to do with the things that really matter. In other words, the shallow, robotic groupthink of most voters is a huge depressant that causes millions of people to lose interest in the election process.
Listen to or watch or read the campaign ads from almost every political candidate—from both the right and the left—and what do we hear? Nothing but attack ads about how evil and rotten their opponent is. Almost no candidate talks about the Constitution, the freedom principles of the Declaration, the protected liberties in the Bill of Rights or the Natural Laws of God upon which all of Western Civilization was built—or their commitment to them. I would dare say that the average political candidate is no more knowledgeable about these foundational freedom principles than the average fifth grader.
But worse than the ignorance of our political candidates and elected politicians is the ignorance of the voting public. For most of them, it’s all about political partisanship. Or, in the case of this latest election, it was all about supporting or opposing President Trump.
The Republican senatorial candidate here in Montana built his entire campaign on the promise, “I will stand with President Trump.” Since when are we supposed to elect anyone based on their commitment to stand (or not stand) with a president? When a congressman or senator takes the oath of office, what do they promise to do? Do they promise to support the president? No! They take an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Why couldn’t the wannabe senator promise, “I will support the president as long as he supports the Constitution. But if he ignores or transgresses the Constitution, I will oppose him vigorously”? Why not? Because 1) the candidate himself has no commitment or fidelity to the Constitution, and 2) the people who will be voting for him have no commitment or fidelity to the Constitution. All they know is “I’m for Trump” or “I’m against Trump” and “I’m for the Republicans” or “I’m for the Democrats.”
I’ll say it straight out: Voters who go to the polls with the express purpose of trying to elect people who they believe will be faithful to the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence and God’s Natural Law are as rare as hens’ teeth.
A couple of years ago, I was eating lunch with a man who had been elected to county office. During the course of our conversation, I asked him, “To what did you take your oath of office?” He paused for a minute and then replied, “I don’t remember.” When I reminded him of his oath to the Constitution, he said, “Oh, yeah. I forgot.” I submit that the vast majority of people who have been elected to public office have likewise forgotten their oaths—and flat don’t care that they’ve forgotten. For most of them, their oath to the Constitution means absolutely nothing.
So after going out and working for a candidate, or at the very least voting for a candidate, you learn that the guy doesn’t give a tinker’s dam about supporting and defending the Constitution (translated: he doesn’t give a rat’s rear end about our freedoms and liberties; he is only there to enrich and empower himself). Yeah! That really motivates people to go vote, doesn’t it?
Secondly, people stay home from the polls because they have seen how the Party establishments (both Democrat and Republican) dominate and manipulate the elections to make sure that a true constitutionalist does NOT get elected. (And, again, Donald Trump is NOT an exception to this rule). Anybody who thinks that we have free and fair elections in this country is as blind as a bat.
I got an up close and personal glimpse of how corrupt our elections have become back in 2008 when I campaigned for Congressman Ron Paul and then when I ran for POTUS on a third party (Constitution Party) ticket after Dr. Paul had been defeated in the Republican primaries.
I watched as Republican Party leaders hassled and harangued Dr. Paul’s supporters; I watched as they broke their own rules and cheated in order to deny Dr. Paul’s delegates fair and equal access to GOP assemblies and conventions; I watched as they manipulated the forums and debates so as to diminish—or even destroy—Dr. Paul’s access to and influence with GOP voters. (For all of their rhetoric against Trump, the GOP establishment did NOTHING to sabotage Trump’s campaign as they did Ron Paul’s. Just another indicator that Trump was never an outsider.) And, as to any semblance of fairness and equality regarding third party candidates, forget it. It doesn’t exist. Only the two major parties are given an equal footing upon which to participate in America’s elections. Ask any of us who have been there: me, Cynthia McKinney, Bob Barr, Michael Peroutka, Darrell Castle, Virgil Goode, Gary Johnson, Ralph Nader, et al.
In fact, as I look back at the 2016 Republican primaries, I seriously wonder if Trump wasn’t the establishment’s pick to knock out Senator Rand Paul from the beginning. Granted, I thought Rand opened the door for Trump by the way he seemed to want to appease the GOP leadership and not tackle issues head-on. Rand is not Ron; that’s for sure. But Rand was still the most constitutionally literate and constitutionally principled of any one of the rest of the GOP presidential contenders in 2016. No one else was even close. The establishment had to make sure that Rand lost. Enter Donald Trump.
And the establishment-controlled mainstream media played right into Trump’s hands (and still do) by all of their feigned opposition to him. All this does is make Trump more popular with his conservative Republican base, while making him more hated by radical Democrats at the same time. This was the game plan all along. The Trump phenomenon is nothing more than the Hegelian Dialectic worked to perfection.
The success of constitutional republicanism depends on people who are astute and knowledgeable enough about the Natural Law principles of liberty and who are committed to the principles of constitutional government and the Natural (“Natural” meaning “God-given”) rights of man that they are able to identify those who would protect these liberties from those who would destroy them. For the most part, this constitutional acumen does not exist in the minds of most Americans. All they seem to know is Democrat vs. Republican or Trump vs. Obama (or Clinton or whomever). With the vast majority of voters today, it all comes down to partisan politics. That’s it.
That’s why, when a Democrat president betrays fundamental constitutional principles, Democrats overlook and justify it; and when a Republican president betrays fundamental constitutional principles, Republicans do the same thing. Or worse, neither Democrats nor Republicans know enough about constitutional government and the Natural Law principles of liberty to even KNOW when their president, congressman, senator, governor, State legislator, mayor, sheriff, county commissioner, etc., is in violation of said principles.
And this is why, no matter who wins an election (especially at the national level), nothing significant changes, and many people don’t even bother to vote.
Given the vast ignorance of America’s voters to these fundamental principles, the best we can seem to hope for (at the national level) is GRIDLOCK. We lose more liberties when one party (EITHER PARTY) has total charge of the federal government. If nothing else, if all of those people who do not vote would go vote just to make sure that neither party has a monopoly on government, we would be ahead of where we are now.
But the better solution—and the more necessary solution—is that voters immerse themselves in the principles of constitutionalism, republicanism and Natural Law, so that they might truly begin electing men and women who are capable of and committed to preserving our liberties—and unelecting the ones who aren’t.
Of course, it would really help if we could get some true spiritual leadership from America’s pulpits. But, alas, that seems far too much to ask. They are having too good a time feasting at the king’s table.
P.S. We now know that the GOP held the Senate and the Democrats took the House, just as I predicted. I wrote this on my Facebook page on November 2:
There simply isn't much more I can say about the upcoming elections. The Elephants will keep the Senate and the Donkeys will take the House. But it's all moot. Deep State elites are manipulating all of it to accomplish THEIR agenda—and that agenda is PERPETUAL WAR abroad and PERPETUAL CONFLICT at home.
Looks like I nailed it.
And I wrote some initial thoughts regarding the outcome of the elections on my Facebook page early Wednesday morning. I supplement my weekly columns with regular posts on my Facebook page. I invite readers to wander in every once in a while. And be sure to “Like” the page while you are there.
© Chuck Baldwin
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