In March 2021 I decided for my own mental health to start writing about ideas that have been dammed up inside my head for over 15 years. As a Father, Husband, Army Vet and Programmer I need to vent!
In 2005 I registered NowEnoughsEnough.com and AllUpToUs.com. As a full-time web app developer I intended to publish websites identifying social and political problems, then find solutions to cure them. Those domains are still on the back burner. It was a strange time. I was trying out my hand organizing taxicab drivers in Las Vegas, by going to the Taxicab Authority and Nevada Transportation Authority to complain about drivers inability to earn minimum wage during most shifts. As can be imagined, getting that group organized was difficult. There were many immigrants and most drivers were scared to complain for fear of being fired. Even so, it felt right to help. Even when I was complaining to the United Steelworkers, that negotiated away the right to minimum wage for about 800 drivers at three companies. Often, I found myself in a room where everyone there hated me, while I told the truth about how fucked up they are.
The final room was Judge Jackie Glasses’ 8th District court two weeks before she tried the OJ Simpson robbery case. Where, as one of the 26 opposing lawyers representing each Strip Casino corporation and Limo company told to the clerk while checking in, “I’m here for Hynes versus reality”. When it was time, Judge Glass asked me if I had anything to say, expecting to simply proceed with my argument, I said, “No, your honor”. She pointed to the seats full of lawyers on the other side and said, “Look what you’ve done, Mr. Hynes”, then threw me out on my ear. Almost literally. Because I was in such shock I could only carry myself to the closest seat in the gallery. The judge told the bailiff to tell me to leave.
I’m now ten years from retirement as a Senior Cloud Programmer and have committed to spending my days finding a way to give my young kids a country that works the way that it was originally intended, through true representation in Congress.
I registered the Middle Party as a Nevada non-profit, because I believed that organizing another party that represented most Americans was the likely path to success.
Some forty articles and 3200 Tweets @MiddlePartyUS later it became clear that the problem and the solution were a lot simpler than I expected. Now comes Rampart Caucus, instead.
I like lists to talk things through, so here goes.
Lessons Learned:
Neither the blue or red party represents most Americans. Gallup says in an on-going poll since 2008 that each represents around 26% of voters. Most people are unaffiliated. Gallup Poll >
With only a red or blue label to choose from, voters select their label and Congress People go to Congress and vote collectively by label. The party with the most seats in each chamber is called the majority, despite #1.
There are hundreds of “bridging organizations” that bring Americans together to show them American values transcend a red or blue label.
Being organized as a political party made approaching these other nonprofits awkward. Even though the Middle Party claimed to want to represent the majority of Americans who have been silent and forgotten, it was difficult to sell as a partisan campaign.
On top of that, bridging organizations largely were geared toward getting red and blue Americans to talk and learn that American values do create common ground. The bridge concept wasn’t working for me. Red and Blue is the known minority and building a bridge ignores the middle.
Examining the failure of third party efforts in the past revealed to me that third parties were either too extreme left or right to gain enough support, two narrow in their goals, or completely lacked a coherent message. So, my focus then became to create a message, a standard, a party-style platform that would reasonably represent the priorities of the Majority. The idea was to set the standard first as an additional consideration for voters, and not to wait for Congress People to be elected, then later expect them to do anything other than vote party line.
I intentionally stopped using words like, conservative, silent majority, majority, third party, right of center.
I decided that the Middle Party wouldn’t endorse any candidates until there was majority support. So, continuing as a party lost value.
I intentionally avoided reacting with groups that endorsed ambiguous messages from Black Lives Matter, UBI and Ranked Choice Voting. I learned that it’s difficult to say the right thing when discussing race. I learned that broad-based UBI is unaffordable, but direct payments make sense when they reduce administrative overhead of the government, like Social Security payments. I’ll leave RCV to other advocates.
I tried to make a case in favor of the climate crisis, not wanting to be on the wrong side of that issue. I studied it hard, but couldn’t find compelling science to support temperature changes by anything but the ever changing cycles of the Sun. The CO2 volumes are tiny in comparison to the massive atmosphere. Just 0.00042 of the atmosphere, up 0.00014 since the 1800s. The steady increases in volume worked, until they didn’t for 14 years. Studies of Sun cycles could demonstrate an influence on temperatures.
I decided to put the Middle Party on hold and organize as nonpartisan Rampart Caucus to do two things that I’m exceptional at, digital publishing and app development. The idea was simply to create a party-style platform outlining a couple of clearly “affordable priorities”—BUDGET INNOVATION & MINIMIZING POVERTY. Then start a list (I love lists) “Visions of what could be” that could be socialized. The app would support polling to learn the yea/nay position from verified voters.
After the mission of Hope from bridging org conversations, there seems to be a disconnect. Like some of the information about what we see as common ground may have been undocumented. And that further inspiration, a vision of the way that things could be, and something to drum up enthusiasm was needed to mobilize the middle. It’s the H plus I.V.E., Hope, Inspiration, Vision and Enthusiasm that Rampart Caucus will strive to fulfill.
The problem is simple, Congress People no longer truly represent their constituents. Party labels have doomed us to a perpetual cycle that only the American people can cure.
How do we fix it? By publishing a party-style platform that reasonably outlines the affordable priorities of most Americans.
That standard will be an additional consideration of whether a Congressional candidate will go to Congress to represent most of us, or if they’ll go there to represent a red or blue label only.
Candidates from red, blue, minor or independents will endorse the Real American Majority Platform—RAMP and present a plan. The endorsement will give voters another factor to consider, and their plan to succeed with RAMP priorities will set them apart from other candidates.The result of a Congressional majority that doesn’t represent most Americans has resulted in a complete absence of accountability. Since the end of 1999 Congress has spent $81 Trillion with nothing to show from it. It has funded a highly inefficient monolith and compiled a nearly $29 Trillion debt.
Gridlock in Congress has stopped basic ideas from even being considered when innovation and ingenuity is what the American people want and deserve for the massive amount of $4 Trillion we send every year.
The Gaslighting is ever present and it’s working. Americans believe the hype and are distracted from what’s going on in Congress. Politically active red and blue Americans believe the other side is evil, and that losing the chamber majority is the end of civilization.
I believed, and said aloud, that everything is alright and that nothing that occurs really matters.
We just have to replace the Congress People.
That was until the government surrendered military control of Afghanistan before getting all Americans and allies out. I was sick about it and was inconsolable after 13 troops were killed on a mission to make up for the blunder.
An unforgivable choice.It seems that most Americans are fed up with the way the country is being governed.
I suggest that Rampart Caucus, or any other effort to give American voters an additional factor to consider on top of a red or blue party label, will help move the country forward one election at a time and perhaps give our children a fully representative government.
I really believe that we can get it all done by leveraging the Internet available to us and with no dollars. Zero Dollars versus Billions of Dollars usually isn’t a good bet. I’m always up for an overwhelming challenge. Are you? Spend two minutes to tell a friend that we’re trying to set an additional standard to elect Congress people no matter what party. If you’re like me, and I don’t wish that on anyone, you won’t be able to shut up about it.
Starting a Political Party Was Easy...