What matters: You have 2 options for president. That’s.

HOGAN: Well, I think I’m just going to let the American people make that decision. The election is 100 days away. I think early voting starts in 60 days or less. So we are getting very close for the American people to make that decision. I think frankly that many people, like me, are frustrated with division and dysfunction on both sides and don’t feel like we have two great options.

That idea is true. Many Democrats who supported other people in their primaries are probably not overly enthusiastic about Joe Biden. And many Americans are likely concerned that Democrats are moving too far to the left, even when they are scared by Trump.

But Hogan went a little further in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt:

“I mean, there are other options. I didn’t make that decision between Hillary and Donald Trump the first time. I did a writing for my father, for whom I had a lot of respect and for which we could probably play with your Nixon fund there. But, already you know, it’s not a black or white decision. “

Technically speaking, you are right. You can write to someone or choose one of the other presidential candidates who are likely to appear on your ballot. The Green Party has Howie Hawkins. Libertarians have Jo Jorgensen. Neither one is going to be president.

But he is also totally wrong. And this is where Hogan veers into political nonsense. Your 2020 vote is entirely a black and white decision.

If you don’t support Trump, you’d better vote that way. Because he is on the ballot and despite those polls, he may end up with four more years of him.

That is as binary a decision as possible. Except for an unforeseen calamity, Donald Trump or Joe Biden will be sworn in on January 20 at noon. It will not be the father of Larry Hogan, who died in 1975.

The subtext of Hogan, a Republican, who does not vocally support Trump is that he opposes Trump but does not want to reject all the Republicans who do. Hogan has this luxury as he is the governor of a state that will almost certainly cast his electoral votes for Biden. And it will remind everyone of that if you run for president in 2024!

But the effect of Hogan’s words It’s the idea that it doesn’t matter which candidate wins and that another option is worth considering. The time for other options, in the electoral system that has grown around us, was during the primary season.

R or D for 150 years. It is a fact of American life that the two sides have had deadly control over the White House since the Civil War. And they will keep it unless or until the entire system is changed.

The last electoral votes of minor parties were a long time ago. Despite offering frustrating options, the main parties have only become more dominant. No one but a Republican or Democrat has obtained an electoral vote in more than 50 years, as Wallace, promising to maintain segregation, won five southern states in 1968.

Change agents run in the party primaries. The power that parties have over the American system is the reason that Bernie Sanders, who is not a Democrat, ran as a Democrat twice. That is why Ron Paul ran twice as a Republican. That’s why Trump, who has not always been a Republican, ran as a Republican in 2016. Remember, he dabbled in a reform party in 2000 only to realize that there was no path to victory.

In November, until the country changes the system, it is R or D at the presidential level.

A bad year for a protest vote. Presidential candidates try to sell each presidential election as the most important, but this certainly has some importance in real time.

Put aside the more political divisions of the Trump presidency:

Focusing alone on his administration of the country in the midst of a pandemic:

Americans have seen, under Trump and during the pandemic, that whoever sits in the Oval Office really has a relationship to everyday life. And for that reason, in 2020, there are no other options.