What's with registered Republicans?

There has been a grimness about politics which is hard to escape for me lately. Seems so gloomy with good reason, and here in the US looks like some political candidates seem to be doing their best to repudiate, well, seems like they keep looking for any number of things.

Where that seems to be something that describes Republican political candidates trying to get elected to be president. But why can they be so, well...can I characterize them as a group without sounding prejudicial?

In any event, one of those odd things in the United States which politically we are told splits Republican against Democrat is that MOST voters aren't registered as EITHER.

So let's say about 25% of the electorate is registered Republican, which is only 1 in 4.

Now have that 1 in 4 choose between a group of possible candidates, and you have an even smaller percentage with a HUGE say based on which of those possibles has the majority, especially with quite a few of them.

Which can lead to all kinds of wackiness.

But even if the MAJORITY of registered Republicans were united behind one person, which presumably will happen eventually, you'd still only have the opinion of 1 in 4 of the electorate!

That means 3 out of 4 Americans still aren't being represented yet, with the Republican nominee. Is it much better with the Democrats? Not really. There it's a bit under 1 in 3 of the electorate, so more than 2 out of 3 Americans are still not represented by the Democrat nominee.

But by the time of the election, the ENTIRE electorate must pick between a person chosen by about 1 in 4 for the Republican side, or a bit under 1 in 3 for the Democrat side, or go for some other candidate unlikely to win given historical perspective as registered voters tend to pick a side.

And given historical perspective--which doesn't mean it has to be--roughly fifty percent of the registered voters are likely to vote for a Republican or Democrat!

Such a wacky thing when you look at it that way, where the early choice is to minorities of the electorate.

And those people picking may pick for all kinds of reasons, as so many things can seem like good ideas until you try them, where in politics that can have such huge consequences.

Well, one thing we know is that the nation will choose.

And am thankful for perspective given the history of the nation with its highs and lows. The trendline has given us a modern America with lots of freedoms.

So this Thanksgiving when so many will be considering the history of this nation anyway in terms of stories way back, that can be a comfort I think.


James Harris