In many ways, money equals power. You don’t need to look further than our orange Julius to find a rich bully that uses every lawyer, every lacky, and every penny he can scrounge to force his ways onto those he thinks are below him.
But in certain cases, money and the things it can build collide with what could be considered an immovable force. Often times this force is represented by mother nature – no amount of engineering money saved the Titanic against that iceberg and the cold ocean, no amount of money and mirrors can build a 100-mile city through the desert, and seemingly no amount of money can build a humanoid robot that can do even 1/100th of what a normal out of shape human can do.
The eternal over-promising Elon Musk represents this generations “limitless money” type. This south-african golden child leveraged his family’s ill-gotten wealth into stock market dominance, making his poorly-run Tesla motor company more valuable than the planet. He now owns most of what NASA used to do as he plots his escape to Mars, leaving us with his crappy robots, self-crashing cars and thousands of satellites watching our every move.
But besides the massive elegance of mother nature, there’s other immovable forces in this world. These are usually the strongest scams running, locked in place after decades of writing the rules to make sure they stay in power…. US democracy, organized religion, organized crime, war profiteering, the idea that sex sells. These are scams or hacks that are so strongly entrenched that all the money in the world can’t make them go away.
So what happens when limitless money runs into the perfect scam known as the two party system running in the USA? What happens when the richest man in the world becomes so frustrated with Republicans and Democrats that he says Fuck it, I’ll start my own party!? He appears to have limitless funds. He’s a young man. What’s stopping him?
It’s the 2 party lock. It’s been around going on 100 years now. It’s quite strong. Both parties, while opposing each other on headline grabbing social issues, agree with each other on several critical points: 1) this is all about money, and 2) we can’t ever let anyone else into this 2 sided, perfectly balanced scam.
Two sides only represent a false choice. Name a single, complex issue and try to boil it down to two outcomes only. You can’t run your life making everything A or B. You can’t do your job A or B. You can’t survive breaking every issue down to A or B.
This is known as the Either Or fallacy. Present two options as the only ones available, forcing people to choose between extremes instead of considering all possibilities.
Is every day at work work as hard as possible, every second, or get fired. No middle ground? No balance? Nope, just 2 options here, only 2 results. You are either the top worker or you are fired. Nothing works like this. This company would be out of business quickly.
Is every day at home an absolutist adventure with only 2 outcomes? Love your wife or file for a divorce. Make your house the best looking on the street or give up. Drive top speed to get around town faster, or follow all traffic laws. Hate your neighbor and threaten deportation or go over every night with fresh cookies and beer.
Again, no one lives like this. It’s psycho. To actually get through a day, a job, a life, we compromise. We speed up and slow down. We collaborate. We work the problem to the best solution available at that moment. We live and learn.
The fuel that powers the two party lock are called wedge issues. The following words will get an average american fired up and cursing, a reaction based almost entirely on being sold false choices with false solutions:
Welfare, Birth Control, Abortion, Slavery, Racism, Minorities, Hiring, Citizenship, Gender, Religion, Gay, Trans……
The two party system wants you to believe there’s only one right way to handle these complicated issues: one right way, one wrong way. But this is not true. This is the fatal flaw. It’s the Either Or fallacy.
Other, better-functioning democracies, allow for multiple parties. This forces compromise on complicated issues. You can’t be sold “all or nothing”. You need to build a coalition to get laws passed. There are fewer wasted votes. You have to address other parties’ priorities to get your law passed. This is called compromise. It most elegantly represents progress.
So, what happened with Elon said I’m starting my own party? I have enough resources to break this 2 party lock in america. So far, nothing. No amount of money in the world can break up the scam that is the american 2 party lock.