The Republican Party is Dead. The US Needs Democracy.

By Roger F. Gay

I'm an old guy. This isn't the first time I've mentioned that. Being an old guy means that I've seen, tried, and experienced a lot of things; more things that my younger colleagues. When I first heard of the plan to rebuild the Republican Party from the ground up, I sighed a bit. Then I promised myself to write about it after everyone else could review the experience in hindsight.

Congratulations, first of all, for the successes that took place during this election period. Local party officials were ousted and replaced with honest conservatives, worthy opponents of the two-party collusion. The success was powerful enough so that there was even a little bleed through at the Republican National Convention. After being manipulated, Maine's delegation walked out. And then there was this: Minnesota, where we are very proud of our state Republican Party, which runs a fair convention with integrity, casts 33 votes for Ron Paul, 1 vote for Senator Rick Santorum, and 6 votes for Governor Romney.

But those of you who have been paying attention (and I'm guessing that includes many who will read this article) know that most local and state conventions were not held with the same level of integrity as the Minnesota state convention. (related article: Romney Nomination May Be Contested)

Established local officials in many areas refused to hold legitimate conventions. We'll never see an honest poll on whether any of them gave a hoot about getting Mitt Romney elected or stopping Ron Paul. One thing we can be sure of is that they were unwilling to give up their own positions in the party. Under threat of being voted out of office, they cheated the process and remained. In some areas, Romney opponents were arrested. At the Louisiana state convention for example, a Ron Paul supporter suffered injury from his arrest after he had been properly elected and tried to take over in his official capacity. After Ron Paul won a majority of delegates in that state, Romney and the RNC conspired to replace many of them with Romney delegates.

Romney's argument against Ron Paul's delegate majorities was his own self-fulfilling prophecy. He claimed that the nomination belonged to him, therefore delegates should be selected to assure his victory. The only evidence supporting that claim is that they said so on TV. Romney does not in fact have a single confirmed win in any state. Entry and exit polls show much different results than those reported by local officials, the same ones who cheated to keep their own positions. In Ron Paul's home state of Texas for example, party officials reported that Romney got 72% of “live votes” and Ron Paul received 15%. Review by Travis County (Texas) election judge Anne Beckett raises the possibility that the names were switched; with Ron Paul actually having received 72% and Mitt Romney with 15%.

Congratulations to those of you who caught misreporting early and were able to get it corrected. I don't want to dampen the spirit and I'm not going to tell anyone to give up the effort. Political corruption should be rooted out everywhere, in every party, all the time. In my view, the fact that Paul supporters exposed corruption in the GOP was important. I hope you will find the following suggestion constructive in addition to the actions you have already decided to undertake. In support of additional action, I will say this. You are playing in a rigged game. Partial success is not success. Mitt Romney has been given the nomination and new rules have been adopted to further ensure establishment control in the future. You've accomplished something quite significant, but we're all still short of the goal and the goal posts won't stay in the same place long enough for you to get there.

Now let's just say, for the sake of argument, that I'm not the first guy to have become an old guy. Throughout history, plenty of guys have lived longer than I have and have seen some of the same things I have seen. Let's just imagine for a moment that I do not need to rest my case entirely on my own personal observations and wisdom, but that what I am about to suggest is something that has been recognized around the world for quite some time. That something I'm about to suggest is democracy; the only mechanism found so far that allows transition of power in response to The People without violent revolution.

Does the US have democracy? No, obviously not. If this wasn't obvious to you before, it should have become obvious once you realized that there's no character or political difference between Romney and Obama and became irritated by all the fraudulent pretending that there is. Is it supposed to have democracy? Yes; you're pretending that we have a democratic system every time you vote. You now know that your vote doesn't count. It's not the two-party rhetoric against voting “third party” that rules here, although that should matter to you. If you like a so-called “third party” better than the ruling two, why shouldn't that count? But what I mean in the immediate sense is based on what those of you who have been paying attention have recently experienced. People in power do not want to lose power. They want to hold onto their power no matter who you vote for, and they cheat to remain in power. This is not a new phenomenon.

A system that is in fact limited to one or two parties has never succeeded in democracy. That's a fact. What is needed is a system that facilitates a shift from any set of ruling parties to another set of ruling parties. Could the Libertarian Party, the Constitution Party, a coalition between them, or some other emerging party be better for the US than the current Republican or Democratic Parties? In a democracy, that is up to The People to decide, not the people who have become established in control of the Republican or Democratic Parties. In order for your vote to actually count, you need to be able to vote them out of power.

In a multi-party system, there is no such thing as a “third party” because it is not rigged to keep two of them in power. In response to the Republican Party's obvious corruption, it could simple be moved out of power for lack of support, without the threat or “throwing the election” to another undesirable party. The vote can be “split” in as many ways as there are voters with different views on which party is best.

This is the challenge I propose. Give the United States a multi-party system. Free it of the corruption of the two-party system. Consider the success you had during this election and start imagining movement toward constitutional amendments in the states and to the US Constitution.

To help get things rolling, I've created a Google discussion forum: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/multipartyamerica and am building a project website: https://sites.google.com/site/multipartyamerica/home. Please not that I created the forum and website just now and will continue to develop them. Feel free to join in.