Postcards from the Empire
A Locked-Down Political System.
Following 9/11, the Permanent Regime moved methodically to tighten its control over all institutions as well as engaging in mass surveillance of its “subjects,” to protect “freedom” and “democracy” of course. Observers accurately referred to this increasing domination as the emerging “unitary” system, one at surface level continuing to offer different consumer and media choices but which was united as one on all important matters and agendas.
But when it comes to politics the U.S. system long ago, 162 years to be exact, locked into place just two choices, Democrat and Republican, whose elected politicians emit much anger and fury toward each other but who are always as one when it counts, thus they have been correctly dubbed the “uniparty,” which is a nicer way of saying the United States has a one-party system. Isn’t that what only dictatorships are supposed to have?
Well, what’s stopping other parties from forming and stepping forward and challenging the Republicrats, some might argue. Plenty.
With very few exceptions, all elected politicians are either Democrats or Republicans, as are judges. The fedgov and the 50 state legislatures craft election laws, and guess what they don’t want? Competition.
A system that routinely rages over any and all cases of alleged “discrimination” couldn’t be any more unfair when it comes to ballot access for “third” parties.
Robert Kennedy Jr. ran for President in 2024 as an independent, but even with his name recognition and financial backing he could only get on a handful of state ballots before ending his campaign. In the other states he couldn’t get enough signatures or was knocked off by court challenges.
And it’s far more difficult than that for “third” parties who lack a well-known national leader. In nearly all states, non-Republicrat candidates and parties must collect many times the amount of signatures as the Democrats and Republicans need to, which is an all but insurmountable roadblock in those states from the get-go. And if they do manage to get on some state ballots, it takes a combination of a small army of volunteer signature gatherers, and money, as those collecting names often must be paid, a process that exhausts small parties when it comes to financial resources and morale.
Ballot access laws should be fair and equal – it should take only as many signatures for someone from say the Libertarian or Green parties to get on the ballot as a Democrat or Republican. Anything else is discriminatory, which is by design.
There are a few states that are relatively easy for a minor party or candidate to gain access to, but it’s impossible for an insurgent party to do so nationwide without a household name as its leader along with many millions of dollars to devote just to ballot access.
Billionaire Ross Perot gained ballot access in every state in 1992, but he was a flake who quit halfway through the presidential campaign that year. His Reform Party existed for a while after Perot’s departure but quickly diminished into irrelevance due to factionalism and lack of resources. By the time Pat Buchanan accepted the party’s presidential nomination in 2000 it was little more than a bad joke. Though it did receive over $12 million in federal matching funds that year due to its previous widespread appearance on state ballots, Buchanan did nothing with it and that was the effective end of the Reform Party.
Donald Trump (who briefly flirted with running against Buchanan for the Reform Party nomination in ’00) had the name recognition and resources to achieve ballot access in all 50 states as an independent in 2016 but chose to go the GOP route, which made sense given the hurdles even he would have faced running outside of the two monopoly parties.
There are three minor or “third” parties with a longstanding presence on the U.S. political scene – the Libertarian Party, the Green Party and the Constitution Party. The Libertarians have been around since 1971 and still run a presidential candidate every four years who is on every state ballot or nearly so, but have made no real inroads into the two-party monopoly. Their highwater mark came back in 1988 when the great Ron Paul ran for President as their nominee. However Paul drew less than one-half of one percent of the national presidential vote that year. The Libertarians have always been afflicted with a goofy wing of elderly hippies that has held them back, and now the party also has a strong Zionist faction, which is against the party’s stated position of neutrality in foreign affairs.
Ron Paul was the presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party in 1988.
And while the Libertarian philosophy sounds good in theory, it’s useless when it comes to dealing with a country over-run by people from alien cultures and traditions, not to mention a dumbed down “native” population, much of which has been reduced to relying on government subsidies of one kind or another.
The Greens are a staunch leftist party which has never gained traction despite continuing to run presidential candidates and other balloted candidates. Their philosophy is already greatly reflected in today’s crazy communistic Democrat Party, which makes their task of challenging a closed political system that much more difficult.
The Constitution Party also still faithfully runs a presidential candidate every four years, but the party has always reflected a reactionary, backward thinking type of “conservatism” promoted by charisma-free people that will never get anywhere. It’s essentially the political arm of the John Birch Society, which these days is about as relevant as phone booths and manual typewriters.
Even when minor parties get on the ballot, they are studiously ignored by the system’s corporate media arm, which again is comprised of nothing but Democrats and Republicans dedicated to protecting the status quo. Left wing candidates and parties sometimes get a positive article or two as long as they’re perceived to be no real threat. Right wing candidates and parties receive no publicity unless it is in the form of smears.
So ballot access is insurmountable in many cases, followed by media blackouts or smears when access is achieved. The third leg of the “big three” ways the uniparty maintains its total control is through election finance laws.
Election finance laws and regulations are different in every state, and it often requires people who have a legal background or otherwise know how to plow through and comply with a bewildering array of regulations along with dealing with the bureaucracies that administer them, a daunting task and one which many otherwise motivated people don’t want to deal with for fear of inadvertently violating one or more “rules” and ending up being fined or worse.
At the federal level there’s the Federal Election Commission (FEC), a large bureaucracy that examines the filings of independent candidates and third parties with a fine-tooth comb, and it of course has the requisite innumerable rules and regulations to attempt to navigate through.
Supporters of third parties are greatly restricted when it comes to the amount of money they can contribute, usually maxed out in the low thousands, while of course the two arms of the uniparty rake in endless millions of dollars from oligarchs and also operate PACs (political action committees) that have hundreds of millions of dollars to disperse to “loyal” Republicrats.
The system can’t be anymore rigged than it currently is other than by the outright banning of all other political parties.
The two monopoly gangs also tightly control their parties at the state level. Ron Paul was beginning to upset the status quo applecart when he ran for President as a Republican in 2008. He and his organization tried very hard to take over the GOP in states like Nevada where he was the most popular candidate, but he was rebuffed at every turn.
That’s why the Republican Party even in the most solid “red” states consistently recruits and runs the most weak candidates possible, RINOs whose allegiance is to the Chamber of Commerce and/or grifting and not the American People.
To see just how shockingly weak the GOP is at the state level when it comes to having committed America First politicians, read more here: https://donwassall.substack.com/p/postcards-from-the-empire-c6c
So what is to be done? While the Greens and Libertarians are free to operate from the fringes as long as they don’t get any further than that, as can the Constitution Party as it represents a hopelessly archaic form of 1950s kosher conservatism, genuine right wing third parties cannot at the present time, at least as a national organization.
The Populist Party of America operated from 1987 until 1995 when it was sabotaged by Willis Carto. During that time period, the party ran hundreds of balloted candidates in all parts of the U.S. along with presidential campaigns in 1988 and 1992, achieving ballot access for presidential candidate David Duke in 13 states in ’88 and 16 states in ’92 when the recently deceased Lt. Col. James “Bo” Gritz was the nominee.
While the Populist Party often faced protests and a hostile media, today’s environment is far worse. Antifa stormtroopers are now far more common and violent than they were then, and of course Trump has done nothing to strike at the roots of their financing and organization. To do so would involve actually holding George Soros and other far-left Zionist oligarchs responsible for their crimes, and that’s just not going to happen under the Trump-Epstein administration.
The American Freedom Party did manage to gain ballot access in three states in 2012 while running Merlin Miller for President, who was a very good nominee, but that party was doomed from the start due to having too many hobbyists among the leadership. The American Freedom Party is still around and from what I can glean has better leadership than before, but is limited in the current environment to being little more than a website and a presence on some social media apps.
The National Justice Party brought together some of the top minds of the Alt Right several years ago, but it quickly fell apart due to factionalism and other problems and disbanded. The NFP was holding enthusiastic and well-attended “beer hall” type rallies in various locales for a while, but it too was unable to be little more than a website before its quick demise despite the talent it had collected.
Additionally, independents and third parties in general can quickly be derailed and ruined by provocateurs and lawfare, lawfare being the most effective current weapon of the regime to use nominally private channels to go after challenges to it through the political system.
With Trump and Congress both unanimously goose-stepping to Netanyahu and Israel’s orders (except for Thomas Massie, Rand Paul and a few other notables), the need for a genuine unyielding, hard-core America First political movement is greater than ever. But those who want to go that route — and to me it’s still the best choice among a bunch of bad choices as there isn’t going to be a “civil war” and if there is the “rebels” will quickly be slaughtered — need to be very wise in how they go about it.
Forget about a top-down new third party. The roadblocks mentioned above rule that out. Maybe Tucker Carlson and Tom Massie will start a new party or organization. Not likely but if so, great, but the way to go for patriots is to “think nationally while acting locally.” A sprinkling of independent or “third” party pro-American anti-communist candidates getting elected in a few counties in a state as school board members or small town mayors and councilmen, or getting elected in a few states or even a region of the country, would have tremendous ramifications and might spark a national movement. And even if it’s not powerful enough to directly challenge the uniparty, whatever it can do to help usher in its decline and demise is a huge advance toward returning freedom to Americans.
Insurgent parties can have a different name in each state and must remain decentralized.
Of course, this would entail a lot of volunteer labor and both short- and long-term stick-to-itiveness at all stages even at the local level – obtaining ballot access and then funding and running a campaign – something right wingers certainly aren’t noted for. But at some point, and maybe that point has been reached, the legitimate alternative media and the many brilliant minds behind it, have to leave the comfort of their keyboards and organize in real life in their communities in pragmatic ways and build from the grassroots up.
Otherwise the powers that be continue to win and win decisively by default.
https://donwassall.substack.com/p/postcards-from-the-empire-bb4