A Possible Way Out?

WARNING: Political musings follow.

The US presidential general election of 2016 demonstrated the robustness of the existing 160-year-old two-party system. The Democratic Party and the Republican Party both managed to nominate unusually flawed candidates. Donald Trump would have lost against any other Democrat, and he was the only Republican that Hillary Clinton had a chance of beating. I said before Election Day that whichever won, the country would not be getting over it soon if those two were the only choice we were capable of giving ourselves.

But even with the opening provided by a pair of party nominees who enthused few and repelled most, no credible citizen jumped in as an alternative who the country would give their electoral college votes to. Eight years later, many Democrats now wish they had a different candidate than Biden going up against Trump, but in accord with the nominating process, Biden is their nominee unless he decides otherwise, and he is adamant that he is not stepping aside. Trump is not facing the same calls to step aside, but as a man with a self-centered orientation he has few allies within the Republican Party. We are all stuck with this pair.

I propose that the 30 most centrist Democratic US Senators and the 30 most centrist Republican US Senators meet to pick candidates for president and vice president who all 60 will endorse as write-in candidates. The Democrats and Republicans would separate into two rooms for a couple hours and pick the person in the other room who they are all willing to endorse. Then they would come together to announce that these two, a Republican Senator and a Democratic Senator, are the candidates they endorse for either president or vice president. Finally a public coin toss would decide which of the two will be their candidate for president with the other as running mate.

As I write this, though, it seems like a dream that the Senators could act as the wise older men leading the country that they supposedly are, and even if they did act to save the 2024 election, the elements that brought us here remain to continue vexing us.