There is a popular “ice-breaker” game, typically used to better get to know someone, that rose to popularity among Generation X, and has continued sufficiently to now have an app on Android phones called Would you rather?
I have noted, particularly in the play of younger Gen-Z participants and related TikTok videos, that the choices often take a darker, more dystopian path, with very little optimism about our future, such as “Would you rather have to live without electricity and your mobile phone, or lose a limb?”
However, as we look ahead in this increasingly anti-climactic election year and presidential election cycle, neither primary“Would you rather?” candidate option is apparently palatable to millions of American voters.
Yes, millions strongly support President Joe Biden, as well as those who support former President Donald Trump, and they all believe that each candidate deserves a second term. Yet, there are almost as many independents, non-aligned, Libertarian, and other potential third-party voters second-guessing if this might be the election that allows a path for a party or candidate who does not lead with an R or a D beside their name.
For some Democrats, there is unease with Biden’s foreign policy with Israel and related civilian casualties in Gaza, as well as promises made, yet not kept, to various constituencies during the 2020 campaign. And given additional concerns about Biden’s age and health, cognition, and apparent frailties in public, his base also seems a bit more wobbly.
Trump, meanwhile, has had his series of misstatements or apparent short-circuits on the campaign trail, as well as growing legal challenges, fines, fees, and pending property liens. These challenges may help Trump go down in history as our most prosecuted president. Though Trump much prefers the term “persecuted.”
Despite these facts, post-Super Tuesday and the Georgia Presidential Preference Primary, each likely nominee has won sufficient delegates to claim their respective party nomination. And yet, the enthusiasm in each camp is more than a bit underwhelming.
For Republicans, there are suburbanites, large blocks of women voters, and a large number of more centrist GOP voters who will not support Trump as nominee. Judging not only by votes for former South Carolina GovernorNikki Haley but also by declarative statements made by GOP primary voters during exit polling in nearly 20 states, roughly 20 percent of the GOP voting base is not with Trump and claims they will not support his re-election.
Additionally, under the Promises Not Kept banner, Biden’s support is much softer among Black voters, a demographic he needs to win by more than commanding percentages to retain the White House. Black men in particular, again in exit polls, have shared that the incumbent president is not who they consider their party’s best hope. And many younger Democratic voters simply are wary of having an ailing octogenarian carrying their banner.
Georgia’s presidential primary followed Super Tuesday, with both party nomination outcomes becoming more clear, yet nearly 500,000 Georgia voted early or via absentee. That said, Georgia has more than 7.5 million registered voters, and the combined GOP and Democratic Preference Primary vote was roughly 862,000 ballots ... a turnout SPLIT between the two parties of just over11 percent.
Yes, Biden and Trump won each contest by vast majorities, but there were multiple other candidates on each ballot in the event voters chose to express or ACT ON their discontent with their weak upcoming “Would you rather?” options. This of course means that nearly90 percent of Georgia voters expressed no preference for either party or candidate.
In November, I suggest that EACH voter participate, vote their conscience, and not feel bound solely to select from the lesser of two “evils.” Do this if for no other reason than sending a message to both major parties that there remains a political center in this nation, and that voters deserve candidates with common sense, focused more on the common good and solving the nation’s problems than getting their way, blocking the other party, or settling political scores.
At least, that’s what I would rather.