The political clock is a tool to visualize political positions.
Me? I’m about 6:00. I’ve mostly been a Democrat and am now. I’ve done short stints as an Independent and Republican. I’ve seen that over time platforms and party values shift. The people that show up determine them and the people currently showing up for the parties are extreme.
The problem is exacerbated by vast nationwide vacancies in the elected positions to represent 500 – 1000 of your neighbors otherwise known as Precinct Committee Officers. PCO is an elected position that few know anything about anymore. In Washington, they passed legislation to stop putting the races on the ballot if they only had one candidate, making them further invisible.
They used to be competitive races. Effective, sane, grassroots politics was achieved, but right now nearly 85% of the positions are empty in both parties across the country. Few run anymore and they’re mostly political fundamentalists. No wonder things have gotten crazy.
Moderates are MIA. This is by design. The political fundamentalists make it rather unpleasant for moderates to participate, thus they reduce their participation so as to limit and concentrate the political power to their own people. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Yup. Left-wing and right-wing political fundamentalists are currently having their way with the parties. We need to dilute them. That can be achieved by electing people between 3:00 and 9:00, encouraging moderate voters to run for PCO and join partisan political groups, and urging moderates to volunteer and donate to their preferred candidates and causes.
The vast majority of Americans are between 4:30 and 7:30 politically, but they stopped participating in politics. Sitting out won’t fix it. Joining the Bipartisan Wing movement could.
The Bipartisan Wing is a vast pool of liberals, conservatives, and hybrids. Between 4:30 and 7:30 voters are hybrids of liberal and conservative values. We don’t want changes that throw the babies (freedom and equality) out with the bathwater. We just want to get along and fix things by making practical, agreeable and effective reforms over time.
That’s not what the politicos before 3:00 and after 9:00 want to do.
70% of Republicans identify as MAGA, but it’s from Noon to 3:00 that it becomes first mildly, then decidedly politically fundamentalist. After 3:00, stability, safety, tradition, family, and freedom are the platform.
Many Democrats call themselves progressives without knowing the political meaning of that term. That is alarming. Progressive, politically speaking, is a progression toward greater and greater government control. Think progressivism, not progressive.
Like the Noon to 3:00 problem on the right, the after 9:00 illiberalism and political fundamentalism on the left are just as useless. The goals of socialism and communism prevail, but it’s mostly unspoken and referred to under the code word “progressive”. The values and strategies are often un-American and unconstitutional. No matter.
At the zero-hour, or high noon, anarchists and nihilist from the left and the right become the same dreadful thing, a concept referred to as the horseshoe theory.
The current political fundamentalists of both parties represent a minority of voters, but they show up and have an outsized influence.
On the left, it’s curious how the after 9:00 crowd even got into the Democrat’s tent. They’re so loud and authoritative. Freedom of speech is only supported if your speech follows the narrative. They control our K-12 schools, the universities, the mainstream media, entertainment, many churches, and more.
Voters should usher them into their own illiberal party with a label that says what they are rather than a word that tricks people like “progressive”.
As a bipartisan wing Democrat at about 6:00, I could be a bipartisan wing Republican and have briefly been. Many moderate Republicans, like moderate Democrats, have given up on participating because they’re turned off by the fundamentalists.
It’s lonely at the center, especially in progressivist-dominated cities like Seattle. We need moderate Democrat and Republican voters and candidates back in the game and differentiated from political fundamentalists and extremists. The political clock will make that easier.
When you know where you are on the clock and where candidates and electeds are on the clock you can pick and choose where to put your support. Without the clock, extreme partisans can find cover in the broad partisan labels of Democrat and Republican. With the clock, we’ll see where they’re at which should come in very handy.
A graphic that further describes the political clock will be published here at The Seattle Journal soon but consider for now that before 3:00 and after 9:00 offers increasing more intense political uselessness. This is where people promote more and more expensive failed theories that use all our money and make our problems bigger at great expense to our society, our businesses, our communities, and our families.
Conversely, the vast unrealized political power of moderate voters and moderate electeds – the bipartisan wing – will be unleashed once we connect on a sensible like-minded level and re-engage in politics.
Recently, The Bipartisan Wing launched Meetups for Moderates. It’s a bottom-up way to rebuild the political center by bringing people with politics between 3:00 – 9:00 together for political strength, sanity, debate and sensible, incremental, and accountable change.
Reform, not revolution. Bring it on!