Imagine a world where people have to cooperate with each other even if they don’t agree. That was the idea when the Founding Fathers created the country.
Originally in Presidential elections, the person who finished first became the president. Just like now. The difference lies in who finished second. That person would then serve as the Vice President. The idea here was not only to give a parting gift to the runner-up, it was to represent a majority of ideas in the executive branch of government.
Now let’s be honest, the idea was abandoned pretty quickly in the grand scheme. Nobody alive, hopefully, has ever experienced this in practice. Can we just imagine for a second, if every president didn’t just get to cherry pick who their Vice President would be.
The idea of cooperation in American politics isn’t even a pipe dream. THis country has been divided so badly for so long that we can hardly remember a time when we have even been close to togetherness. Both sides have offered changes that the other can’t even come close to agreeing with. One simple change in how we elect our president and vice president could begin to mend the gap in our country. Eventually getting rid of the overpowered two party system should follow, but starting small makes things easier to swallow for opponents of new ideas.
This idea won’t make things perfect in our country. No country can be perfect, especially one as geographically and politically diverse as the United States. This idea will simply force the Leader of the Free World to have a voice of dissent in the oval office. The best solutions don’t come from people who all think alike. There needs to be someone with direct access to the President to tell him or her that an idea is bad, good, or simply right. Whatever happened to the old saying, “a good idea is a good idea, regardless of where it comes from?” We could use some of that in our country right now. Who cares where a good idea comes from, if it’s good and can help, let’s get after it.
Just for fun, let’s go back in recent history and look at some notable administrations that could’ve been if this idea wasn’t abandoned.
Bush/Gore- Florida may have had the right idea in 2000/
Clinton/Dole- Would’ve made the Clinton sex scandal a lot more interesting.
Trump/Hillary- Whoa. Just whoa.
Trump/Biden- I think there is a bridge team in every nursing home that looks like this.
Obama/McCain- Now here is a team that could’ve done some great work together. Two centrists on both sides of the aisle.
All kidding aside, this simple idea could really make some waves in the pursuit of bipartisan politics and cooperation that will make the United States a little bit better and more cohesive to run.