Curley: This could have been the year of the third party

This could have been the year of the third party. We could have won. Shoulda-coulda-woulda.

I lean Libertarian. Basically, I want the government to leave me alone. If we’d had a decent third-party candidate other than Gary Johnson — who had a remarkable inability to name a foreign leader that he respects or identify a particular city in Syria — maybe we could have shocked the masses. Or, maybe, if the media had allowed a third-party person on the debate stage and point out the major differences between the two primary candidates, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Problem is, the media doesn’t cover moderate.

Video: (Fake) Trump, Clinton swap compliments on Election Day

David Brooks is a moderate Republican that I respect. He’s more reflective than he is political. His New York Times piece “Let’s not do this again” paints a picture of where we are and where we’ve been. He says how this has been a nasty two years and describes what he hopes the future will be.

He’s right when he speculates the wacky Trump wing of the Republican Party will continue to dominate. The white working class that feels they’ve been left in the weeds while everyone else prospers. Then there are the Democrats, who basically will be pulled further and further to the left by the Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warrant crowd.

This was a summons for a true third party. Brooks says it would consist of the elite class that has been running things but would actually acknowledge the difficulties of the white, working-class and minority voters. An upstanding, righteous and open party that is open to things like free trade and isn’t anti-immigrant. You know, someone in the middle who says, neither one of these are good solutions but we could borrow something from Trump and borrow something from Hilary. We put those two things together and I would be this option for you.

But who knows? Nothing happens in a vacuum. Like an old homeless woman, Hillary Clinton will be carrying around a giant shopping cart of controversies that will plague her for four years, to the point that people will be so sick of it that it will open up an opportunity for a third-party candidate.

Until then, the fault lies with us. The media. Because nobody cares about a dumpster until you set it on fire.

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