Normally in a democracy, the most important issues for citizens are the facilities that make our everyday lives easier and richer. We want to wake up to a warm house, take a shower or bath in plenty of water, have our electrical and gas appliances provide our essential comforts as we prepare for a workday.
We want to have transportation that drives over roads without potholes to a work environment that we can enjoy and a job that we are qualified to do because of our education and training. We want to have the ability to meet friends, go to community meetings and contribute to causes that better the lives of everyone.
Those immediate things are what motivates us to invest in our leadership and that of others. That is why, the essence of politics for most of us, is what makes sense in our everyday lives here, at home.
It is when those things are disturbed to a point of creating concern that we look outward to find the cause of our apprehension. Although we live in the great State of Colorado that offers a natural as well as an intellectual landscape for success, there are forces outside our borders that seek to make us less than what we are or can be.
The strongest efforts in this regard are connected to the midterm elections of 2026. Plans are being executed by both major political parties to prematurely redraw the congressional districts in a number of states.
Our congressional districts are supposed to be redrawn after every 10-year U.S. Census. Although it is technically legal, redrawing the boundaries in the middle of that period with the intent of gerrymandering the voting map in order to put a thumb on the scale that determines political winners and losers amounts to a hypocritical approach to the fundamental right to vote.
Although the initiatives in this regard began with President Trump’s visit to Texas, it is now spreading across the political terrain of the country like wildfires initiated by both Republicans and Democrats that seek to carve more winning districts and diminish other voices and opinions. In reality, the losers continue to be the very political parties that are authoring these initiatives.
The Republican Party has pretty well lost its ideological mantra as a conservative, small government institution to become an extension of President Trump and his family. The Democratic Party political support is limited to less than one third of the country that feels that the marginalized should be our number one priority.
Independents are now the plurality and should be the most important political block in making decisions about representation at the highest level. Yet, they do not have the franchise and a formal seat at the table that helps set the direction for America’s future.
There was a time when the Republican and Democratic Parties generally stood for “haves” and “have nots.” However, times have changed and with the exception of a small percentage of the very rich, most of the rest of the country are or are aspiring to a middle-class tradition.
Since most Americans generally tend to be in the same socioeconomic class, one would expect that the major political parties would reflect those interests. Not so, as both the Republican and Democratic Parties are going out of their way to take extremist positions at the margins.
Preparation for the vote in 2026 is becoming a run that exacerbates our divisions. It is a missed opportunity to move toward a more perfect union.
The views expressed by David Conde are not necessarily the views of LaVozColorado. Comments and responses may be directed to News@lavozcolorado.com.
