Editor's Note: I wrote this after watching the State of the Union Address two years ago. In this I say what I wish I heard from our Commander and Chief.
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, my fellow Americans:
We've experienced a tumultuous start to the 21st century: Witnessing terror turn to war, banking turn to gambling and then to bankruptcy.
Our nation may be strong, but the state of our Union is unacceptable. Though each branch of government is here tonight in a factitious display of solidarity, we are not representatives of the will of the people.
I stand before a Congress, ready to acclaim itself as the largest majority of R’s next to names since Herbert Hoover held my office. I've heard the sound bites claiming the American people spoke emphatically at the polls this past November, when nothing could be further from the truth.
Americans are tired of gridlocked party politics. Only 36% of eligible voters decided their voice mattered. This is unacceptable.
Most Congressional districts have been gerrymandered to death. They resemble shapes only found in Rorschach tests. This is unacceptable.
We are the only high income country to not provide maternity leave by law. This is unacceptable.
We have a security agency that won’t stop at any morality checkpoint. We chase the only one brave enough to shed light on the monstrosity that the NSA has become, insisting he’s a coward and a traitor along the way. This is unacceptable.
We have ambassadors who don't speak the language of the very people they are to engage.
We have a media, so hell bent on delivering an agenda that we have literal shouting matches in lieu of investigative journalism.
We have a government that can shut down by approving a budget but not the borrowing of funds needed to support said budget.
We don't have a manned space program. We treat politics like a sports game but worse, there's no salary cap, and the athletes don't have to be smart or talented or articulate or considerate.
The stock market proliferates dark pools where HFTs syphon liquidity out of the market and into the pockets of those wealthy enough to control them.
We treat corporations better than the people they employ. We need to be planning for the future, not just keeping par with the past. We aren't even keeping par with the past: The value of a house as a ratio of median household income has increased and the real minimum wage is down while the consumer price index is up. I am, quite frankly, astounded by the stigma associated with raising the value of an American life.
There are questions that need raising, problems that need addressing, but we're sitting here attacking across the aisle.
We're attacking across a SINGULAR aisle. There is no possible method by which two parties can represent 300 million people. There isn't a party that represents a woman who demands equal pay for equal work and believes life begins at conception. No party for the social libertarian that harbors hawkish foreign policy views, no voice for a mixture of perspective of any kind.
Our insistence on first past the post voting leaves us with the lesser of two evils rather than real representation. I am not content being the lesser of two evils, I am not content being a last resort. I, in the twilight of my presidency, will work to bring choice, civility, and honor back to our Union. And even if I am unable to overcome this bastion of belittling and bickering, know this, America, I've tried.
To those of you that voted for me as a last resort, not out of hope, but out of fear, I'm sorry. I am your president, and I know you exist. You matter, and you shouldn't have to feel so trapped in the voting booth.
We are better than the lesser of two evils. We're better than party politics, better than praying for a miracle to induce progress. We deserve better.