When it comes to politics, we are a fifty-fifty nation. It’s common knowledge. Everyone agrees. Except it’s not true. It’s a colossal lie. Americans actually agree on most of the major issues. When we are polled on the big questions, like healthcare, education, taxing the rich, even abortion! There is broad agreement: sixty, seventy, eighty, sometimes ninety percent, which by the way, is the result when Americans are asked about universal background checks for gun purchases. Over ninety percent.

It’s only when the pollsters attach their question to an individual politician or their Party, or some provocative jargon that’s already been weaponized – like “critical race theory,” or “wokeism” – it’s only then that Americans become divided.

The fifty-fifty split is manufactured. It does not reflect what the people want. You’ve seen Congress at work, right? There is virtually no correlation between what voters want and what Congress does. And what Congress does is basically nothing. Why? Because of the fifty-fifty gridlock, which in Washington is very real. And why is that? Because the news media benefits from us being a fifty-fifty nation and the political parties literally can’t help themselves from collaborating.

How the media benefits: It’s pretty obvious. For news media platforms to keep ratings high, the fight is the thing. The race is the thing. The nastier the fight, the better their ratings. The closer the race, the more exciting the race, the better their ratings. And ratings mean profits. Low ratings means low profits and pretty soon you’re out of business because the competition is fierce. As long as the media’s bottom line is based solely on ratings, we’re stuck with what we’ve got. The fight is gonna be nasty and the race is gonna be close.

Politicians know this. Being in Congress or aspiring for the Presidency, you’re gonna need media attention: eyes, ears, clicks, likes, poll numbers, and ultimately dollars. So everyone involved plays the game for their own interest. Lots of bombast, plenty of red meat for your base, and a concentrated effort for votes where it’s close (more on that in a second).

Now don’t think I’m accusing the political parties and the media of some big “conspiracy” (though you could make that argument, I suppose). No. The manipulation that creates the fifty-fifty divide is more what you would call a “natural conspiracy.” That is the conditions themselves – the natural interests of the two parties alongside the natural interests of a for-profit media – all coalesce into a series of inevitable decisions and outcomes.

This natural conspiracy to keep us divided is especially awful in presidential elections. Here’s how it works: every four years, based on the polls, at least forty of the fifty states are not in play. Typically, there are only about ten swing states. And within those swing states there are swing districts. Today’s campaigns are very sophisticated about this stuff. They know where they’ve got a lock, where they don’t have a chance, and where to fight. So, all of the really intense campaigning happens in the swing states, in the swing districts, even down to swing neighborhoods, while everyone else is mostly ignored. And that suppresses the vote, because when voters are ignored they stay home. Think Hillary 2016 in Wisconsin.

For the sake of this conversation let’s assume that the harder you fight for votes the more votes you’ll get. There’s no guarantee you’ll win of course, but I think that’s a fair assumption. The harder and smarter you work as a campaign, the more votes you’ll get. The natural result of this effort – by both the parties – is that the vote totals will be close. When the election is over and the votes are all counted, because of the resulting suppression of the vote in solidly red and blue states, and because of the intense attention given to swing states, the overall national total is going to wind up really, really close. Under our current system it’s hard to imagine any winning presidential candidate ever getting much more than fifty percent. Even though if every single eligible voter had voted, the national popular result might very well be pretty lopsided. We’ll never know. The photo-finish is baked into the system.  

So, even though we are not a fifty-fifty nation when it comes to the issues, we always end up with fifty-fifty presidential election results, manipulated, almost created out of whole cloth, by the parties and the for-profit media. How do we escape this cycle? I’ve got three suggestions:

First: take money out of the news media. It should be a completely independent public utility. No money. No profits. I know this is a very big lift, but unless we make this drastic step we’re gonna be forever screwed. The corporate media will never abandon their two greatest sins: one, emphasizing, even creating, greater and greater conflict between the candidates and the parties and two, the horserace coverage at the expense of covering actual issues which would be too nuanced and complicated and boring to have any curb appeal to their “consumers.” This is not to say everyone in media are evil people (though I’m sure some of them are evil people), it’s just that the system literally leaves them no other choice. If they try to buck the system, they’re out of business. And we can’t as a nation tell them how to do their job, it’s freedom of the press – you can’t legislate against it, and I wouldn’t want to. But you can publicly fund major media. The majority of nonevil journalists will love it. They’ll be free to actually do their jobs. Destroy the profit motive and you’ve solved most of the problem.

My second suggestion on how to eradicate the manipulated fifty-fifty political divide: Ranked choice voting. It’s already being done in some local and state elections. There a few different ideas about how exactly you implement it, but at its core the concept couldn’t be simpler: as a voter, you choose from a list of qualified candidates – any party, no party at all, doesn’t matter, they’re all on the same ballot. And, as a voter, you rank them. Number one is the person you really want to win the office. Number two on your ballot is your assigned second choice if your top choice doesn’t win on the first count. Number three is your third choice, and so on. 

So, now it’s time to count the votes. If one of the candidates gets fifty percent plus one. Boom. The election is over. Congratulations to the winner; everybody shuts up and goes home. But if no candidate reaches the fifty percent plus one threshold then you have a runoff. And with ranked choice voting you have what’s called an “instant runoff” because that’s exactly what it is. No need for voters to go back to the polls. You’ve already indicated your second and third choices on the initial ballot.

So, (again, the details might vary, but) basically you take the top vote getters – say four – and eliminate the rest and redo the count. Now the candidates left standing get their second choice votes counted along with their first choice vote. After this count – which could happen instantly because, you know, computers – the winner is announced as long as that winner has at least fifty percent plus one. If not, then you just go another round using the third choice.

Ranked choice eliminates the notion of voting for the “lesser of two evils.” That whole cockamamie idea is left for the history books. It’s impossible to throw away your vote. You like a candidate who’s low in the polls, maybe seems like they don’t have a chance? Go ahead – vote your conscience. So, for example, in the 2024 election. You really think Cornell West is the candidate you prefer and don’t want to vote for Joe Biden. But you live in a swing state, where it’s gonna be close and you feel you have to vote for Joe, otherwise you risk the chance of The Orange Menace in the Whitehouse for life. Cause you know once he’s back in, he’s never leaving. You really don’t have a choice. But if we had ranked choice voting, no worries. Just make Joe your second choice, or third behind Jill Stein if you want. Because if West or Stein don’t make the top tier, your vote automatically goes to Joe.

If we adopted ranked choice voting for the 2024 election a couple of things would be remarkably different. For one thing, voter turnout would be much higher because you’re allowing voters to express their true preference, without having to vote for the lesser of two evils, which voters hate, and so it severely suppresses voter turnout. Higher voter turnout is always better for democracy and, in our example, would be much better for Biden. It could make the difference in saving our democracy against The Orange Menace. In fact, I believe, with ranked choice voting in place, Biden would win running away, his margin of victory substantially higher than without it – by several percentage points.

Ranked choice is also better in the long run. Because election results are public. We would see instantly how many votes each candidate received and how many second or third place votes were needed to give the winner their margin. Over time – in just a couple of election cycles – the stranglehold that the Republicans and Democrats currently have on elections would evaporate. Voters would see for the first time, that they really do have choices. The Green Party already has a few local and state office holders. Ranked choice voting would usher in many more alternative and independent winners.  

So, first, get the money out of media. This is the tallest climb and I know it. But we have to continue to fight for it. Second, ranked choice voting. It’s already being done in some states. This is very doable.

And third: abolish the Electoral College. This is also very doable. The idea of abolishing the Electoral College has been kicked around for decades, and it’s even had pretty decent support in Congress at different times over the years. We’ve got to stay on this – we’ve got to demand the popular count for presidential elections.

The reforms I’m suggesting aren’t necessarily easy to achieve – especially the money part – but the popular-count/ranked-choice options are extremely simple to understand and to implement. If we can do it, the results of elections will actually begin to match what the voters want. Before long, the so-called “two major parties” will be just two among a long and diverse list of many parties. Or better yet, maybe someday, no parties at all! Something the American people tell pollsters they want. And we can put this fifty-fifty myth to rest once and for all.

Because regardless of what we are told we are not a fifty-fifty nation in any real sense. It’s a big fat lie created by the natural conspiracies of political parties and the for-profit media, and then manufactured and made manifest in a flawed election infrastructure. We the people can make the fifty-fifty lie go away and get down to running this country as the Democratic Republic it was designed to be. We can do it by creating publicly funded independent media and by implementing popular-count/ranked-choice voting. Boom. Fixed.  

– Charles Bursell