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OPINION — Political talk is unavoidable these days.

You can be anywhere, any time, in any company and somehow, some way, politics always seems to work its way into the conversation.

Conversation: “(Fill in the blank with your favorite liberal’s name) says all Republicans are racists. I’m a Republican and I’m not a racist.”

Conversation: “(Fill in the blank with your favorite conservative’s name) says all Democrats are weak, unpatriotic slobs looking for a handout.”

Of course, neither is true.

But the fact is, well, there are racist Republicans and there are slob Democrats.

I’m not quite sure, but I think we have seen the complete dismantling of our traditional party system.

Both parties have splintered so severely that it is impossible to determine the true nature of either, and the so-called third parties are so radically cast that the splinters from the left and right have overtaken them.

I mean in all honesty, radical liberals and conservatives have embraced the Libertarian Party, claiming a strange allegiance that puts some very different people in the same political camp. It has served to water down the Libertarian punch and further widen the chasm between traditional Republican Party members and those who claim allegiance to the Democrats.

We would be hard-pressed to find a true Republican in the Dwight D. Eisenhower mold or a solid Democrat who espouses the Franklin Delano Roosevelt ideology.

From Carter to Reagan, Palin to Sanders, Clinton to Bush, Obama to Trump, we’ve moved far from the essence of politics, U.S.A.

A lot of it is geographical.

A Utah Republican is much different than one grounded in New York.

A California Democrat is nothing like his or her counterpoint in Georgia.

And this business of independents trying to align with political contemporaries, whether for congressional expediency and succor or, as Bernie Sanders did, for a shot at the brass ring, isn’t helping.

Abraham Lincoln would not recognize his party if he were alive today. Of course, neither would John F. Kennedy.

There is no longer much middle ground, not that the center position is much to be admired anyway because of the watering-down effect of compromise.

That’s why we really need term limits.

No, we really, really, really need term limits, because once these guys are entrenched, we are stuck.

We had eight years of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama. While this may be satisfying to some, I think eight years is quite enough.

In fact, if the longest anybody could serve in Congress was only eight years, I would be ecstatic.

Over the years, we have had more than 100 members of Congress serve 35 years or longer, with some stretching their tenure to nearly 60 years.

If you ask Sen. Orrin Hatch, who has served in the Senate for more than 40 years, he will tell you that his tenure and experience allow him to better represent the people of Utah, even though he really hasn’t written a Utah-centric piece of federal legislation in quite some time. The same goes for Chuck Schumer. Nobody gets a pass in my book.

It can also be argued that we have the power to impose our own term limits each time we go to the ballot box, but the truth is – particularly in the case of Utah – there is no real formidable opposition, meaning the “ins” remain “in” and the “outs” remain with their noses pressed against the window.

This idea of term limits should not be restricted to the White House and Congress. It should be implemented through our state and local governments, from the governor’s office on down to our city councils.

In fact, if anywhere, it should begin locally, because those are the people who have the most direct impact on our daily lives.

People are always quick to criticize their local and state governments, but what do they do to change the situation and bring in fresh blood?

Not much.

Municipal and state elections don’t attract nearly as many voters as those times when we elect a new president, and even then, the numbers are puny.

That’s because so many have checked out of the system.

Now, with the parties so badly splintered, you can expect even more dissatisfaction as voters search for somebody who shares their voice instead of having to settle for whoever has temporarily hijacked their party.

I’ve crossed party lines many times, casting Republican and Libertarian votes in the past.

I can truthfully say, however, I don’t see anybody out there for whom I would offer my vote.

Not now.

Not from either party.

Not in the foreseeable future.

This idea of holding your nose while voting is purely repugnant to me, even though I have done so on several occasions because of an overwhelming dislike for certain candidates.

But I surely was not satisfied.

It would be nice, but impractical, to believe that a much-needed third or fourth party could become viable, but our system is simply not built to accommodate that. So we hope that our interests are somehow, some way eventually represented.

And while we are at it, we also need to overhaul our system by dumping the antiquated Electoral College, a function that has far outlived its purpose. As the last election proved, it clearly does not give a mandate. It becomes a matter of math rather than ideology and principle.

As we have seen – twice during our lifetime – it allows for certain states to wield much more power than others. I mean, truly, if you are a Democrat in Utah, what is the point of casting your vote for the White House? It’s an exercise in futility.

It is not apathy that keeps voters home on election day, it is frustration, the frustration that comes when you finally realize that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.”

Ed Kociela is an opinion columnist for St. George News. The opinions stated in this article are his own and may not be representative of St. George News.

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