"No Labels" Voting

Are you an American who feels that voting is an important responsibility of citizenship, but repulsed by having to choose between Biden or Trump for President in 2024?  You’re not alone.  A political group called “No Labels” is ramping up, and you are their target market. 

The group was actually formed back in 2010, then went dormant for a few years.  It has recently become more active in this era of hyper disunity.  They have already raised about $46 million for the 2024 elections.  However, their plans are to again go dormant if the two major parties nominate someone other than Trump and Biden.

There are both positives and negatives about the No Labels group.

On the plus side, it directly addresses the top two problems today in America.  Those two problems, in no particular order, are: the Republican Party, and the Democratic Party.  I’ve been preaching for decades that the two-party oligopoly needs to be trashed.  You got the Democrats, hell-bent on turning the United States into the next Soviet Union; and the Republicans, who go around saying they’re for “limited government” and “individual liberty”, but repeatedly prove that those are just empty words, never backed up with real action.

No Labels also has its shortcomings, beginning with the startling revelation that this movement is not actually for anything.  Their entire “platform” boils down to nothing more than being opposed to a couple of politicians that, admittedly, need to retire.  But they do not have a real agenda or platform or anything.  You could just as well call them “No Plans”, or “No Ideas”, or “No Clue”.  They’re flirting around with a few stances such as stronger borders, energy self-sufficiency, gun control, and “moderate” abortion policies (whatever that means).  It seems that their strategy is to first:  get organized, and then:  decide what to advocate.

Middle of the Road Politics

Now, there may be enough popular support out there for a political movement or party that I will call the “Centrists”.  This middle-of-the-road philosophy supports some governmental meddling in the economy, but not too much; some foreign military interventions, but not too much; and so on.  (As a hard-core libertarian, I personally don’t subscribe to the Centrist philosophy, but that’s a separate topic for a separate article.)  Anyway, they need to scrap the meaningless “No Labels” baloney, for gosh sakes, and just come right out and call themselves Centrists or something, and they’ll go a lot further.

The next big problem with the No Labels movement is that it’s trying to be a one-hit wonder:  one specific election cycle (2024) for one specific office (President).  Political history is full of these “movements” that generated some public interest for awhile, then fizzled away.  Most of then were formed around one single very charismatic individual.  The last one was the Ross Perot movement, back in the mid-90s.  To their credit, I suppose, No Labels is not formed around adoration of a single individual (although I suppose being based on opposition to an individual or two is not that far off). 

If the goal is to be a viable alternative to the two entrenched major parties, then go all the way:  call yourself a real live Political Party.  Run candidates all up and down the ballot, and plan on being around a long time.  And, as mentioned above, get a real agenda.  And a real name.

And finally, you No Labelers, realize that you’re not the only non-Republican non-Democrat game in town.  There are other political parties that exist here in America, and most have been around for many decades.  You got: the Libertarian Party, the Green Party, the Socialist Workers Party, the Communist Party, and … I’m not sure, but is the Prohibition Party still around?  That would make No Labels something like the eighth (8th) option, not the “third” as they try to claim.  Voters looking for alternatives already have a pretty diverse smorgasbord to choose from - but the news media needs to do its job and at least occasionally mention their existence.

Choices

Bottom line is:  I hope No Labels succeeds.  No, I won’t vote for them – at least not under their current agenda, or lack thereof.  But I do hope they get enough support to get some attention, and make folks realize that we’re all tired of Republicans and tired of Democrats.  And boy oh boy are we tired of Trump and Biden.