Third-party candidate must play to win

Joe Biden, fourth in the 2020 Iowa caucuses, likely will face Donald Trump, second in the 2016 Iowa caucuses, in the 2024 election. Only ardent partisans want this matchup. The time is ripe for a third party that combines the best of Biden and Trump and discards the worst. Both will conspire to suppress that third party option. The real threat to American democracy is as it has always been — the two major political parties. The left and their lap dogs in the media elevated Biden as an alternative to Trump. And before, the media — in order to sell airtime — created Trump by giving him unlimited access to a microphone.

A third-party candidate is not a solution unless that candidate is playing to win. So third party candidates talk about getting on the ballot, getting their name out there, almost as if they expect to lose. No American is going to be drawn to losers, and what is needed is a third-party candidate who has mapped out a believable path to victory and has the gumption and grit to make it happen. When the people are drawn away from the grip of the two political parties, which do not value engagement, only acquiescence, there will be a renaissance of American democracy. The path that Biden / Trump lead to is increased disengagement, which is the real path to authoritarianism.

David Sheets

Marion