Pictured are some past candidates for the presidency. No one can accurately predict who the most viable candidates will be in 2024. Unfortunately, we can predict a partisan slug fest overflowing with negative campaign ads.

Three weeks ago, I wrote part one of this post. In that post I chose to praise some of the conservative pronouncements of ex-president Reagan, pronouncements that illustrated his belief that government is often the cause of people’s problems rather than the solution.

Time out for some clarification! “Government” is the name we give to the accumulation of Representatives we elect to determine how our money gets spent. In general, it is not the resultant government services that need reform unless spending on those services becomes exorbitant and excessive. What needs reforming is the infrastructure of government, often referred to by both sides as “The Swamp”.

Last time, I also stated my pessimistic belief that the best candidates do not stand a chance of being elected, because the best candidates could not today, like Reagan once did, bite the hand that feeds them by expressing the need for governmental reform. The Democrat and Republican National Committees that truly wield the power and pull the strings and ultimately decide who gets elected will not allow it.

As I have often said, government must be a neutral arbitrator in our lives, not a chooser of winners and losers. Today we are hampered by two entrenched political camps, two camps constantly sniping at each other from behind well demarcated party lines.

It’s not even the politicians who are to blame. They are, for the most part, well-meaning and thoughtful until they get elected. After the elections, they are immediately co-opted by the all powerful party machines that helped put them in office.

Which well-meaning candidate, affiliated with which outsized political agenda, will I choose to honor with my vote in 2024? The one who most impresses me with his or her sincere belief that there could and should be a better way.

The current gigantic wave of partisan rancor is sure to break on the beach someday.

Proposed: Let’s make it happen sooner than later.