Join the new world

In a couple of days Americans, as well as most citizens of eRepublik, will vote in the monthly Party President elections. Of the three elections each month the PP elections are almost always the least interesting and get the least attention. Most parties have decided on their party forums who will take over as PP next month, and the only other candidates on the list are players who don’t know any better than to run for no real reason. The vote on election day is a mere formality. In a sense the PP elections are lost elections because of how often they lack competitive races. However I think that PP elections should get a lot more attention than they do because of the political climate in the eUS right now, and what I suspect that political climate is going to look like in the coming months.

In The Shadows
When the eUS was invaded by PEACE a few months ago partisanship got a de facto permaban from the American people. Whether you were a part of the liberal USWP, the centrist UIP, the conservative CVP, or any of the other parties meant nothing in comparison to what you were doing to help protect the country. We had come a long way from the days of Presidents insulting and questioning the patriotism of specific political parties. Sadly I now realize that partisanship hadn’t really gone away, it was just hiding in the shadows. Instead of discussing grudges against political parties out in the open, people were doing it behind closed doors, with many political parties scheming about how to get more members and more power the whole time. Things had gotten a little better, but they weren’t as good as we all tricked ourselves into believing they were.

If you have any doubt about partisanship still being alive and well in the eUS then just watch the last 20 minutes of a Congressional election. You’ll see the new form that partisanship has taken in the dozens of votes that are being cast in close races, either that or I’ve vastly underestimated the number of people awake at that time of night. Of course I’m talking about vote moving. Every party does it, and for those of you who don’t know what it is I’ll briefly explain. Vote moving is a practice of just about all of the political parties where they save party members’ votes for the last few minutes of the election so that they can have those voters move to races that are close or that they really want to win. That way they can get the last second wins that make the difference between having 5 members of your party win and having 8, 9, or 10 members of your party win. This is the new form of partisanship in America. Last minute sniping on election night for candidates who may not even be qualified for the office they’re about to hold.

Which gets me to the point of this article, the Party President elections. As I’ve already said, PP elections are usually ignored because most people think they don’t mean much. They aren’t sexy elections that give people actual power like Congressional or Presidential elections are. However, in my opinion they are much more important than people realize. Party Presidents have the final say about who runs for Congress, who runs for President, and though they won’t admit it, who a party moves votes for. They’re the men and women behind the curtains pulling the levers that decide the fate of our nation. Yet we ignore the election that gives them this ability.

Now I’m not here to tell you who you should vote for in the PP elections in a couple of days. I’m not saying that the Party Presidents are all a bunch of partisans plotting against the country for the good of their party. But what I am saying is that we should think hard before we cast our votes for Party President the same way we think hard before we cast our votes for Congress or President. We should think hard about what kinds of people we want running our nation’s parties, and if we don’t like the options we’re being given we should do something about it. Today’s eUSA still has a shady underside. All too often that underside takes the face of partisanship that hurts our country by electing people who have no business being elected. So next time you’re on your party’s forum talking about who the next PP should be don’t just ask what they’ll do to help the party get more people in office, ask what they’ll do to make sure the right people get in office no matter what party they belong to. But then, that’s just what I’d like to see for America.

Tomorrow I resume the eWorld Tour by heading to my next destination. I’ve decided that there are just two more stops before I end the series, and they’re both going to make for some pretty good articles, so be sure to check them out. Some of you might like a hint about where the next stop is (You thought I forgot in the last article didn’t you?). Well here it is. The next country I visit is one of the most hated by its enemies and most loved by its allies in all of eRepublik. It’s a country that I’ve never visited before, and I’m not sure what to expect when I do. So until then, thanks for reading.