In an interview with the Wall Street Journal last week, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan argued that young Americans in particular should appreciate the power of choice:
Well said. Why would anyone, young or middle-aged or old, yield to those who seek to circumscribe rightful choices that would improve Americans’ lives? So why is Paul Ryan unwilling to step up to provide us a third choice to the unpalatable alternatives of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton? He ran for vice president in 2012. He could quickly assemble the resources and organization to compete as an independent in 2016, on behalf of the principles and standards he fought for only four years ago.
And if Paul Ryan finds it too burdensome to run, why has he, in concert with so many other “leaders,” gone out of his way to discourage others from offering the American people another choice? Because it’s admirable to challenge taxi oligopolies but not the oligopoly of the ossified political parties and their eccentric nominating processes? Because it’s important to take on the teachers’ unions but not the party structures? Because it’s praiseworthy to fight against the duopoly of Fannie and Freddie but not against that of Hillary and Donald?
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are manifestly among the worst presidential candidates ever to be presented to the American people by their respective parties. Yet our politicians are paralyzed, the donors are uncertain, and the smart set in general looks on with world-weary gaze and looks down with disdainful aspect at those who would like to provide the American people with a better alternative.
The American people know better. A high-quality national poll conducted recently by Data Targeting finds an astonishing 58 percent of the public very dissatisfied (34 percent) or somewhat dissatisfied (24 percent) with the current Republican and Democratic presidential candidates. By contrast, only 9 percent of respondents say they’re very satisfied and 21 percent are somewhat satisfied. If you add the 11 percent who are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied or who are unsure to the 58 percent who are dissatisfied, you get 69 percent of the public as a pool from which an independent candidate can prospect. And indeed that’s why 65 percent of respondents say in answering another question they are very willing (22 percent), pretty willing (10 percent), or somewhat willing (33 percent) to support someone who’s neither the Republican nor the Democratic party’s nominee. Furthermore, in a ballot test, when given a choice between Trump, Clinton, and an independent candidate, the independent gets 21 percent support, within hailing range of Trump’s 34 percent and Clinton’s 31 percent—which makes it very likely the independent candidate could get into the fall debates with the two major-party nominees. And possible that he or she could go on to win the presidency.
It’s unclear whether a credible independent candidate will choose to step forward. But there are many more such candidates than are dreamt of by conventional commentators and operatives. Recent attempts to write obituaries for the Never Trump/Never Clinton effort are wildly premature. Something new and different can be difficult to imagine for the old and tired. And our political class and pundit elites are nothing if not old and tired.
So we who refuse to acquiesce in this horrible choice, we renegade citizens who put country and not party first . . . in this respect, and only in this respect, we echo an earlier renegade: We disdain to conceal our views and aims. Let the ruling parties tremble at a popular revolution. We have nothing to lose but our partisan chains. We have a nation to win.
