Years ago it used to be that car companies only cared about selling you a car, and once you were off the lot, they didn’t really give a hoot if you had a bad experience going to get your car serviced after the fact.

Then one day someone got the bright idea that if they start caring about the “after sale” experience with maintenance visits, etc, they would get better reviews and positive word of mouth would spread about their particular brand or dealership. They could now keep customers for life. And guess what? It worked!

The two-party system tries to work in the same way, but as we all know, it is broken. Their version of the “after sale” experience traditionally has been what they do while in power to earn our votes again in 2 or 4 years.

The duopoly is betting on us all going back to sleep for a couple of years, allowing them to do their thing in the sausage factory with a minimum of fuss. Then, we have to repeat the cycle of another divisive, negative, fear-filled campaign making the other party and other guy out to be evil incarnate.

If you’re like me, you have tons of friends on social media that have been saying they can’t wait until the election is over for all the political posts to go away. And I sympathize with them -- I really do. I have to say I’m one of them too a lot of the time, wishing I saw less political posts and negative or hateful posts and comments.

But we must not go to sleep!!! NOW is the time to act if we want to change the system!

Shame on us, the citizens of our nation, if we allow another divisive election cycle! We are in control, not the two-party establishment!

We independents need to be organizing right now, now that the election is over, to fix the electoral system so that it isn’t broken still by the time the next election comes around, and it will be here before you know it.

The worst thing we can do is sit back and do nothing! Because guess what, if we do, you know what will change by the time the next election comes? NOTHING.

Below are the specific changes I believe we need to make as soon as possible to truly fix our system of government:

• Nonpartisan redistricting of all legislative branches at all levels of government;

• Ease ballot access for new political parties and make all primaries “open”;

• Constitutional amendment taking money out of politics;

• Eliminate the Electoral College, or at least study ways to ensure that we stop having split decisions between the popular vote and the electoral vote;

• Line-item veto constitutional amendment;

• Congress itself must abide by all laws that effect the rest of the nation — no special healthcare, retirement, or other programs that regular Americans do not have access to.

• Congress may no longer vote to give raises to itself, POTUS, or SCOTUS. It will rise by the lower of the CPI or 3%;

• National Primary Day in the Spring, with national runoffs as necessary to reach 50%; and

• All current federal elected officials (Congress and President) are barred from running for re-election if:
  • The Federal Budget Deficit exceeds 3% of GDP for 12 consecutive months; and/or
  • The National Debt exceeds the GDP for 12 consecutive months; and/or
  • The % of the national debt that is foreign debt exceeds 33%

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