Why third parties don't work

This is not going to be about the numbers.

I am writing this because a local church member (and locally fairly prominent) is running as an unaffiliated, non-partisan candidate, despite being a lifelong Republican.

In the past, it has not been unusual for a certain percentage of Mormons to not want to be Republican like everyone else. Usually the answer to that was to say they considered themselves more Libertarian.

I had seen the signs around town, and then I saw that he was one of the sponsors for the non-partisan gubernatorial candidate; none of that was surprising. 

I was a little surprised to see a postcard addressed to a household member from someone we know, encouraging her to vote for him, as he is what the community needs.

That is why I have been thinking about it more.

Usually when I write about the problems with third parties, it is pointing out that people on the left cannot downplay their interest in racial equality as a way to appeal to conservatives because we will never sound as reliably racist as the Republicans. If that is the voters' issue (disappointingly, it plays a prominent role), our efforts there won't work.

Perhaps not surprisingly, some Republicans now find themselves in a similar boat. If they are not wholly in the cult -- where the open racism, projected fraud claims, and insurrections seem a bit far -- they are still surrounded by cult members in their party.

The apparent solution then is to try and lure people who aren't steeped in QAnon over to their side.

In much the same way, it is not going to work. We know that your hearts are still conservative; we can tell by how much of your focus is on crime, which is not nearly as rampant as you keep saying it is. We know because when you refer to the Republican candidate being too extreme, you don't specify what level of extreme would be okay for you. 

We know.

This is not to put Democrats or liberals or especially Progressives on a pedestal; we have the same problems with racism. That is a feature, not a bug.

Today isn't about Democrats, though; it is about people who have been very comfortable being Republicans until the dog whistles turned to fog horns. This is about people who were okay with rumors of police brutality because that is just criminals, and then you keep seeing different videos and you can't deny that it looks wrong.

As people of faith, believing in the priceless value of truth and the worth of souls, going back to the dog whistles should not be sufficient. If it was comfortable then because of what you did not know, this is time to move past ignorance. There's a saying that when you know better, you do better. Well, not everyone, but we should.

For this election, I hope that Oregon is still liberal enough that the Democrats will win. Not because they are perfect, but because they will still be better. 

I honestly don't know. Last time around things worked out for the Hillsboro and Beaverton school districts, but they sure didn't for Newberg. Those repercussions are still happening.

The past few years have given ample evidence that the two parties are not the same. If you find that you are unable to stand up to your party and exert an influence when they veer badly off the rails, spend some time pondering that.

Dear conservatives, please consider what it is that you are trying to conserve.

I try and hope for the future, but I would sure love to stop seeing people I know from church being in the vanguard of the problem.