Prologue: The Position
I am a right-of-center libertarian who practices conscientious non-voting. I reject the standard left-right political paradigm, viewing it instead as a circle where the extremes meet in their shared authoritarian enforcement mechanisms. My position is characterized by the following observations:
Political Identity: I identify as a right-of-center libertarian, favoring individual liberty, personal responsibility, limited government, and free markets that are not captured by cronyism.
Conscientious Objection: I view the act of voting in a "busted" two-party system as an immoral act of feeding a machine I fundamentally oppose. I liken this position to Vietnam-era draft resisters who refused to participate in an immoral system.
Structural Skepticism: I contend that the U.S. political system is a "rigged theater"—a closed loop of management controlled by a donor class, corporate interests, and foreign lobbies—regardless of which party occupies the White House.
Critique of Conformity: I observe a direct parallel between the progressive mob that targeted me in Shelburne Falls and authoritarian "MAGA" or left-leaning mobs; both utilize identical mechanisms of social enforcement to silence dissent and demand conformity to their respective "sacred cows."
Rejection of Tribalism: I explicitly reject being labeled a "Trumper" or "MAGA" supporter. I analyze systems from the outside rather than aligning with any "team," as both wings are constrained by the same underlying power structures.
I. Introduction: The Conscientious Non-Voter Position
I have never voted in my life. Not once. Not for president, not for senator, not for governor, not even for local dog catcher. I am now in my late fifties, and I have never pulled a lever or filled out a ballot.
People call this irresponsible. They say I’m throwing my voice away. They say if good people don’t vote, the bad ones win. They say I have no right to complain if I don’t participate.
They are wrong.
I didn’t start out this way because I was lazy or apathetic. In my twenties I was deep in horticulture and landscape design. I was learning how to build things that last — stone walls, benches, fountains, living systems that people interact with for decades. Politics felt like noise. I figured if I didn’t understand the issues deeply, I had no business putting my name on a ballot. That seemed like basic intellectual honesty.
As I moved into my thirties and forties, I started paying closer attention. The more I looked, the clearer it became: the two-party system is not broken. It is working exactly as designed. It is a managed illusion of choice that keeps real power circulating among the same donor class, the same foreign lobbies, the same entrenched interests, no matter which puppet is paraded in front of the cameras every four years.
I am a right-of-center libertarian with a strong conscientious non-voting stance. I believe in individual liberty, personal responsibility, limited government, sound money, and free markets that are not captured by cronies. I also believe the current system is a theater production designed to make people feel like they have a voice while ensuring they never actually threaten the machinery behind the curtain.
My position is the political equivalent of the Vietnam-era draft resisters. Those men looked at the draft as an immoral machine and refused to feed it their bodies. I look at the voting booth as an immoral machine and refuse to feed it my consent. I will not grant legitimacy to a process that offers the illusion of choice while the real decisions are made long before any ballot is printed.
I do not vote because I refuse to be hoodwinked.
The two-party system is not a contest between competing visions for America. It is a closed loop of management. Both “teams” serve the same donor class, the same foreign lobbies, the same military-industrial interests, and the same financial powers that have captured the regulatory state. Red team, blue team — they meet in the middle on endless spending, endless wars, endless surveillance, and endless protection of the powerful. The average citizen bouncing between cable news channels is being kept angry, tribal, and distracted from the actual machinery.
This essay is my explanation of why I have never voted, why I never will, and why I believe the vast majority of Americans who proudly wear their team colors are participating in one of the most successful cons in modern political history.
The correction would have been free.
Participation is not.
II. The Historical Architecture of the Duopoly
The founders knew this danger intimately. In his Farewell Address of 1796, George Washington warned the young nation against “the baneful effects of the spirit of party.” He called factions “the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party” that serve to “distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration.” He saw parties as engines that would prioritize loyalty to faction over loyalty to country, leading to “the alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge.”
They didn’t listen.
What began as loose factions — Federalists versus Democratic-Republicans — hardened into a permanent two-party system. By the 1830s the Democrats (Andrew Jackson’s party) and the Whigs had locked in the basic structure. When the Whigs collapsed over slavery in the 1850s, the Republican Party rose to replace them. Since 1854, the same two parties have dominated American politics without interruption. No third party has ever displaced either one.
This is not democracy evolving. This is a cartel forming.
Key moments cemented the lock-in. The 1824 election — the so-called “Corrupt Bargain” — saw Henry Clay throw his support to John Quincy Adams in exchange for the position of Secretary of State, denying Andrew Jackson the presidency despite Jackson winning the popular vote. The public outrage helped birth the modern Democratic Party, but it also showed how insider deals could override the will of the voters. The system learned it could manage outcomes.
After the Civil War, the parties realigned around Reconstruction, tariffs, and industrial power. The Gilded Age solidified corporate influence. Then came 1896 — the election that marked the triumph of corporate interests. William McKinley, backed by industrialist Mark Hanna and massive corporate donations, crushed William Jennings Bryan’s populist campaign. Bryan warned against the “cross of gold” and the power of Eastern bankers. McKinley represented the new corporate order. The corporate wing won decisively. The two-party system had found its permanent financial backbone.
The Progressive Era tried — and failed — to break the grip. Theodore Roosevelt’s Bull Moose run in 1912 was the high-water mark for third parties. He won 27.4% of the vote and 88 electoral votes as a third-party candidate. It was the best performance by a third party in the modern era. He still lost. The system absorbed the pressure, made cosmetic reforms, and continued.
Since then, no third party has come close. The structural barriers are too high: winner-take-all districts, restrictive ballot access laws, campaign finance rules that favor the major parties, and media gatekeeping that treats third-party candidates as curiosities or spoilers.
The data is brutal. Since 1856, only one third-party candidate (Theodore Roosevelt in 1912) has won more than 20% of the popular vote. No third party has won the presidency since the Republicans replaced the Whigs. Modern attempts — Ross Perot in 1992 (18.9%), Ralph Nader in 2000, Gary Johnson in 2016 — all ended the same way: they were accused of spoiling the election for one of the major parties. The system protects itself by turning any challenge into a moral failing.
This is not accidental. It is architectural.
Winner-take-all elections punish third parties. Ballot access laws in many states make it nearly impossible for new parties to even appear on the ballot. Campaign finance rules and the post-Citizens United explosion of Super PACs give the major parties overwhelming financial advantages. Media outlets treat the two parties as the only legitimate players, giving third-party candidates a fraction of the coverage.
The result is a closed loop: two teams, massive funding from the same donor class, and a public trained to believe that voting for anyone outside the duopoly is “wasting your vote” or “helping the enemy.”
I see it as a sophisticated con. The two parties fight viciously over cultural issues — abortion, guns, trans rights, immigration rhetoric — while agreeing on the fundamentals: endless deficit spending, endless foreign wars, protection of the financial sector, maintenance of the surveillance state, and shielding the donor class from real accountability.
Red team, blue team — they meet in the middle on the things that actually determine the direction of the country.
This is why I have never voted. I refuse to participate in a system that offers the illusion of choice while ensuring the real power structures remain untouched. I will not lend my consent to a managed duopoly that has successfully excluded every serious challenge for 170 years.
The founders warned us.
We didn’t listen.
The system they feared is now fully mature — and it is working exactly as designed.
III. Corporate Personhood and Citizens United: The Money Takeover
The real operating system of American politics isn’t red versus blue. It’s money. And the legal architecture that made money the ultimate sovereign was built deliberately, case by case, over more than a century.
It began with a railroad.
In 1886, the Supreme Court decided Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. The case was technically about taxation, but the Court’s headnote (written by the clerk, not even part of the official opinion) declared that corporations are “persons” entitled to protection under the 14th Amendment — the same amendment passed to protect freed slaves after the Civil War. With one quiet procedural move, corporations gained constitutional personhood rights. The floodgates opened.
By the 1970s the transformation was accelerating. In Buckley v. Valeo (1976), the Supreme Court ruled that spending money on political campaigns is a form of protected free speech. Limits on independent expenditures were struck down. The logic was simple and devastating: if money is speech, then restricting money is restricting speech. The wealthy and the corporations suddenly had a constitutional megaphone no ordinary citizen could match.
Then came the explosion.
In Citizens United v. FEC (2010), the Court went all the way. It ruled that corporations and unions could spend unlimited amounts on independent political expenditures. Super PACs were born. The flood of dark money that followed was immediate and massive. Outside spending in presidential elections jumped from roughly $300 million in 2008 to over $2.6 billion in 2020. That is not democracy evolving. That is democracy being auctioned.
Dark money — the truly toxic part — flows through 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organizations and donor-advised funds. These groups don’t have to disclose their donors. Billions move through them every cycle with zero transparency. The biggest players — Sheldon and Miriam Adelson on the right, George Soros on the left, Michael Bloomberg, the Koch network, unions, tech billionaires — fund both sides. They aren’t ideological. They are investors. They buy access, influence, and policy outcomes no matter which team holds the White House or Congress.
The real-world consequence is grotesque. Members of Congress now spend between 30% and 70% of their time fundraising. Not legislating. Not studying issues. Fundraising. They are professional beggars in $5,000 suits who spend more time dialing for dollars than reading the bills they vote on. Policy follows the money, not the voters. The donor class gets what it pays for — tax breaks, subsidies, favorable regulation, wars, bailouts, trade deals. The public gets spectacle.
This is why I have never voted.
When the game is rigged at the structural level by corporate personhood, unlimited dark money, and a donor class that hedges its bets on both parties, casting a ballot is not participation in democracy. It is participation in the illusion of democracy. You are choosing which puppet wears the team jersey while the same hands pull the strings behind the curtain.
Look at the top donors across recent cycles (OpenSecrets data). The same names and industries appear at the top of both Republican and Democratic contribution lists. Defense contractors. Pharmaceutical giants. Wall Street banks. Tech monopolies. Foreign-linked lobbies. They don’t care about culture war theater. They care about contracts, subsidies, regulations, and access.
The red team and blue team fight viciously over abortion, guns, and pronouns while agreeing on the fundamentals that actually shape the country’s direction: endless deficit spending, protection of the financial sector, perpetual military commitments, and shielding the donor class from real accountability.
This is not a conspiracy theory. This is documented political science. It is why third parties die, why genuine reformers get primaried or defunded, and why the same failures persist no matter who occupies the White House.
I refuse to legitimize that system with my vote. I will not grant consent to a process that has been captured so thoroughly. I will not pretend that choosing between two pre-vetted, donor-approved candidates represents self-government.
The founders warned us about the “baneful effects of the spirit of party.” They feared exactly this outcome. We didn’t listen. We built the machine they feared, gave it constitutional armor through creative Supreme Court interpretations, and then acted shocked when it worked perfectly.
The money takeover is complete. The illusion of choice remains the most effective marketing tool the system has ever invented.
I do not participate.
IV. AIPAC, Foreign Lobbies, and Dual Loyalty Questions
If you want to understand why the two-party system feels like theater, look at who writes the biggest checks and who gets punished for noticing.
AIPAC — the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — is one of the most effective and feared lobbies in Washington. It spends tens of millions per election cycle. It maintains detailed voting records on every member of Congress. It mobilizes donors, organizes trips to Israel for politicians, and coordinates primary challenges against those who step out of line. This is not a secret. It is openly documented.
In 2006, two prominent academics, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, published The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. Their central argument was straightforward and data-driven: a powerful pro-Israel lobby, led by AIPAC, has disproportionate influence on U.S. Middle East policy, often pushing positions that are not in America’s broader strategic interest. The book was attacked as antisemitic in many quarters. The data was harder to dismiss. AIPAC and aligned groups function as a de facto veto on significant criticism of Israeli policy in Congress.
Specific patterns are clear. Benjamin Netanyahu has been warning that Iran is “weeks away” from a nuclear bomb since the early 1990s. The timeline has slipped for over thirty years, yet U.S. policy remains locked in a confrontational posture that includes massive military aid. America sends Israel approximately $3.8 billion per year in military assistance — more than any other country receives — with very few strings attached. This is not charity. It is policy continuity across administrations.
Politicians who openly challenge this arrangement pay a price. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) spoke critically about AIPAC’s influence and lost her seat. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) faced intense backlash, including from her own party, for remarks about AIPAC. Thomas Massie (R-KY), one of the few consistent voices against foreign lobbying influence, is regularly targeted and isolated within his own party. The message is clear: you can disagree on taxes or abortion, but certain foreign policy sacred cows come with career consequences.
The counterpoint is important. Lobbying is legal. Americans have the right to advocate for policies they support, including strong U.S.-Israel relations. Many Jewish Americans and evangelical Christians view the alliance as a vital strategic and moral imperative. Legitimate advocacy is not the same as foreign agent activity.
The real question is one of transparency and accountability. The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) requires individuals and groups acting on behalf of foreign principals to register and disclose their activities. AIPAC has never been required to register as a foreign agent, despite its close coordination with the Israeli government. Critics argue this creates an uneven playing field. Other foreign lobbies face more scrutiny. AIPAC’s influence operates with a unique level of insulation.
Donald Trump provides a useful case study in continuity, not disruption. His administration recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, moved the U.S. embassy, recognized the Golan Heights, and brokered the Abraham Accords. These were major pro-Israel moves. They were also consistent with long-standing bipartisan policy. Trump was not an outsider on this issue — he was an unusually effective executor of the same pro-Israel framework both parties have supported for decades. The donor class that backed him on this (notably Sheldon Adelson and later his widow Miriam) got what they paid for, just as previous administrations delivered for their donors.
This is the deeper problem with the duopoly. Foreign lobbies, corporate interests, and wealthy donors do not have to choose one party. They hedge across both. The public is given the illusion of fierce disagreement on culture war issues while the permanent foreign and financial policies remain remarkably stable. Challenge that stability too directly and the system — left, right, or center — moves to neutralize you.
My refusal to vote is not ignorance of these dynamics. It is a conscious rejection of participating in a system where foreign influence, corporate money, and donor priorities consistently override the interests of the average American. I see the machine clearly. I will not oil it with my ballot.
The two parties fight like gladiators for the crowd while sharing the same owners backstage. That is not democracy. That is professional wrestling with nuclear weapons and trillions of dollars at stake.
V. Trump as Exhibit A: Outsider Theater
Donald Trump is the perfect case study for why I have never voted. He was marketed as the ultimate outsider, the wrecking ball who would drain the swamp and smash the establishment. In reality, he was a different flavor of insider — louder, more entertaining, and ultimately useful to the same financial and donor networks that have controlled American politics for decades.
Look at the bankruptcies. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Trump’s Atlantic City casinos, the Plaza Hotel, and other ventures filed for Chapter 11 protection multiple times. He didn’t go down with the ship. Banks and investors from the same financial class that always gets made whole stepped in, restructured the debt, and let Trump keep playing the game. This is not the story of a scrappy outsider fighting the system. This is how the system protects its favored players. Trump learned early that leverage, branding, and connections matter more than balance sheets.
The donor reality confirms it. Sheldon Adelson and later his widow Miriam poured hundreds of millions into Trump’s campaigns and aligned Super PACs. They were not gambling on a revolutionary. They were making a calculated investment. Trump delivered: moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing the Golan Heights, brokering the Abraham Accords. These were major pro-Israel policy wins. They were also broad continuity with decades of bipartisan policy, executed with more showmanship.
On the structural issues that actually shape the country, Trump changed very little. Military spending increased. The surveillance state remained intact. The Federal Reserve kept printing money. The revolving door between Wall Street and Washington continued. He staffed key positions with establishment figures — Goldman Sachs alumni, former lobbyists, and insiders. The “drain the swamp” slogan was powerful branding. The reality was business as usual with better ratings.
My personal observation from friends on the right is revealing. Many treat Trump as a savior figure. When I bring up the bankruptcies, the Adelson funding, the staffing choices, or the policy continuity on foreign aid and deficits, the response is rarely a factual discussion. It is usually team loyalty: “At least he fights,” “He’s better than the alternative,” or personal attacks. The left does the exact same thing with their own sacred cows. Both sides have largely abandoned rigorous analysis in favor of tribal signaling.
Trump is not uniquely bad. He is uniquely transparent about how the game works. He never pretended to be a principled small-government conservative. He was a New York real estate developer who understood spectacle, leverage, and media dominance. He played the system better than most politicians. The system, in turn, used him as a pressure release valve — a way for angry, working-class voters to feel like they were striking back without actually threatening the underlying power structure.
This is why the “outsider” narrative is so effective and so dangerous. It channels legitimate rage into a candidate who ultimately reinforces the machine. The donor class gets what it wants. The public gets entertainment and the illusion of rebellion. The permanent government continues uninterrupted.
I refuse to participate in that theater. I will not vote for the loudest actor in a scripted drama. I will not pretend that choosing between two pre-approved, heavily funded options — even one as entertaining as Trump — represents genuine self-government.
The two-party system doesn’t need reformers. It needs customers. Voting makes you a customer. I opted out.
Trump proved that even the most flamboyant disruptor ends up serving the same interests once inside the machine. The branding changes. The ownership does not.
VI. The Local Mirror: Shelburne Falls as Microcosm
What happened to me in Shelburne Falls is not a random small-town grudge. It is the national disease in miniature. The same enforcement mechanisms, the same language of moral superiority, the same refusal to engage with evidence — just wearing local progressive clothing instead of national MAGA red hats.
In June 2020, local progressives used every fourth-wave tool available. A selectively edited video was posted and went viral. A Change.org petition gathered hundreds of signatures before being removed for defamation. Social media threads exploded with accusations: I was a KKK member, a child-torturer, a Grand Wizard channeler, an antisemite, a woman-hater. The Greenfield Recorder ran two front-page articles without ever interviewing me. Secret Zoom meetings were held by the Bridge of Flowers Committee to coordinate the removal of my public art. False police reports were filed. The campaign was swift, coordinated, and ruthless.
The mechanism was identical to what we see nationally. Break ranks and we will destroy you. Question the approved narrative and we will make you an example. The tools were digital, the language was “anti-racism” and “protecting the vulnerable,” but the outcome was the same as any authoritarian enforcement campaign: social and economic destruction for the dissenter.
The deep irony is that many of the same people who spent years railing against MAGA authoritarianism, “cult-like behavior,” and “threats to democracy” used identical tactics in their own backyard. They mocked people for using the internet to find information while running a digital mob. They demanded “listening” and “stories that have not been told” while refusing to listen to a single word from the man they were trying to erase. They carried signs that said “Silence is Violence” while enforcing silence through social and economic violence.
Both sides meet in the middle on the only thing that actually matters to power: conformity enforcement and protection of sacred cows.
Nationally, the right protects its sacred cows (unquestioned support for certain foreign policies, police worship in some circles, resistance to any challenge to traditional hierarchies). Locally, the progressive left protects its sacred cows (the Bridge of Flowers Committee’s unaccountable governance, the soil fiasco that was never acknowledged, the right to destroy a man’s reputation without evidence). The tactics are the same. The slogans are different. The psychology is identical: we are the good people. Therefore anything we do to the bad people is justified.
I became the local embodiment of the “bad person.” I asked questions about a pandemic road closure on a public bridge. I documented what I saw. I refused to apologize for existing in public space. That was enough. The machine activated. The same machine that nationally turns anyone who questions endless foreign aid, endless deficits, or certain lobbies into a traitor or a bigot activated locally to turn a working artist into a pariah.
This is why I see politics as a circle rather than a line. The far right and the far left come around the back and touch each other in authoritarian enforcement. They both demand loyalty tests. They both punish deviation. They both use moral language to justify destroying individuals who step out of line. The only difference is the costume and the sacred cow being protected.
In Shelburne Falls, the sacred cows were the Bridge of Flowers Committee’s unaccountable power, the right of certain women to make accusations without evidence, and the protection of the local progressive narrative. Nationally, the sacred cows are different, but the enforcement mechanism is the same.
My case is small. One man in one small town. But it is a perfect microcosm. It shows how the tools of fourth-wave activism — rapid digital amplification, moral framing, institutional capture — can be used to reproduce the exact social control mechanisms that earlier waves of feminism claimed to oppose. It shows how people who genuinely believe they are fighting for justice can become the enforcers of a new conformity.
I did not break ranks with any team. I simply refused to join one. That was enough to make me the enemy.
The local mirror reflects the national reality with perfect clarity. Both sides are running the same software with different branding.
VII. The Fifth-Wave Question and Conscientious Objection
Politics is not a straight line from left to right. It is a circle. Go far enough in either direction and you meet the same authoritarian enforcement mechanism wearing different slogans.
The far right demands loyalty to tradition, nation, and strongman figures. Step out of line and you are a traitor or a RINO. The far left demands loyalty to equity, identity, and institutional narratives. Step out of line and you are a bigot or a threat to democracy. Both punish deviation with the same tools: social ostracism, reputation destruction, institutional pressure, and — when they can get away with it — raw coercion.
This is the fifth-wave question: how does a liberation movement avoid becoming the very enforcement apparatus it was born to oppose?
In Shelburne Falls in 2020, a group of local progressives used fourth-wave digital tools to run a classic second-wave enforcement campaign. They did not debate. They did not present evidence. They amplified, isolated, and destroyed. They wrapped it in the language of justice while reproducing the oldest trick in the book: break ranks and we will destroy you.
Nationally we see the same pattern on both sides. The right cancels anyone who questions certain foreign policies or challenges party loyalty. The left cancels anyone who questions certain sacred narratives on race, gender, or institutional power. The psychology is identical. Only the sacred cows change.
My position is simple. I am not on any team. I analyze systems. I document what I see. I support truth-tellers wherever they appear — left, right, or neither — and I refuse to grant legitimacy to a fraudulent duopoly by voting in it.
I am a conscientious objector to the entire game. Just as some men refused to participate in an immoral war, I refuse to participate in an immoral political system that offers the illusion of choice while protecting the same power structure no matter who wins the spectacle every four years.
I will not be hoodwinked. I will not wear the jersey. I will not pretend that choosing between two donor-approved candidates represents self-government.
To anyone still trapped in the team mentality: stop feeding the machine. Demand transparency. Reject loyalty tests. Focus on documented reality instead of tribal signaling. The archive is open. The record is public. The evidence is there for anyone willing to look.
The fifth wave, if it ever arrives, will be defined by people who refuse to become enforcers — on any side.
Conclusion
I have never voted and I never will.
I do not vote because the system offers the illusion of choice while protecting the same power structure. The two parties fight like gladiators for the crowd while sharing the same owners backstage. Corporate personhood, unlimited dark money, foreign lobbies, and entrenched interests write the real policy. The culture war is the entertainment that keeps the audience distracted and divided.
I am not a MAGA supporter. I am not a Democrat. I am not a team player. I am an analyst who stands outside the machine and calls it what it is: a sophisticated con that has successfully convinced millions of intelligent people that their vote matters in a system designed to make sure it doesn’t.
My politics are straightforward: maximum individual liberty, minimum coercion, radical transparency, and skepticism toward any institution that demands blind loyalty. I support truth-tellers, not parties. I support documented reality, not tribal mythology.
The complete record of what happened in Shelburne Falls — the edited videos, the false reports, the collapsed court cases, the assault, the novel released on arraignment day, the institutional silence — is all at johnsendelbach.com. No login. No fee.
I have been waiting six years for basic accountability. For someone, anyone, with institutional voice to look at the evidence and say: this was wrong.
The correction would have been free.
Participation in the fraud is not.