When I was growing up and did something foolish, my mom would sometimes scold me. “What, do you have rocks in your head?” But I was a child. I was learning and growing, and, eventually, I smartened up — somewhat. Mom would call absurdities in the news she couldn’t relate to “nonsense.”

The United States just celebrated its 247th birthday. But for the last decade or three, a lot of nonsense has been going on. January 6 was perhaps one of the high marks for us, but the two-party political system has been ailing since at least the early 1990s when Newt Gingrich aligned the Republicans hard against the Democrats. 

President Bill Clinton followed suit by disgracing the Oval Office with his sex scandal.

It seems Republican and Democratic leadership have had “rocks in their heads” for a while. It has gotten to a point though, that the trends may lead toward a critical mass of nonsense for next year’s presidential election.

The top Republican contender is a two-time impeached politician who may be behind bars when voters go to the polls a year from November.

The top Democratic contender, our current president, is struggling with a  gathering storm of international and domestic challenges. If spending money was going to restore America to being the city on a hill, we should have accomplished that $10 trillion or $20 trillion ago.

Instead, we are $30 trillion in debt, increasingly armed and isolated from one another. Be it caused by political disagreements or personal technological dependence, we aren’t as neighborly as we used to be. Some of us feast on the latest media tragedy, and perhaps many choose to ignore it.

But here we are. And it needs to change.

Some hope to provide alternatives to Joe Biden and Donald Trump. They need your help or at least the chance to be heard by you.

No Labels is proposing a unity ticket. The political organization created the Problem Solver Caucus, which somehow helped get some major legislation done in recent years on Capitol Hill. They work from the middle out. They don’t scream from the extremes.

That was refreshing. But more important, they’ve shown themselves to be effective. Which is why I’m a member. To No Labels, recapturing America’s common sense is a numbers game. No Labels does a lot of polling that, leadership maintains, shows there is a middle-way for America in 2024.

But they’re not committed quite yet. In fact, No Labels leadership says it may bow out of the 2024 race if a more open-minded and good-hearted candidate emerges from the right or left; or if the mathematical stars don’t align right.

We are working to get on the ballot in all states — five down, 45 to go. What No Labels lacks in passionate rhetoric, it makes up for with a return to reason, logic and what it calls a return to common sense. If that includes less nonsense, I’m all for it.

Andrew Yang and Christine Todd Whitman’s Forward Party also proposes to offer Americans an alternative at the polling booth. Yang and Whitman are sketchy on policy positions on their website. The Forward Party is a bottom-up effort at a third party focusing on local, regional and national challenges.

And then there is the American Resolve Party. Not really a party, it represents a half year of putting my thoughts into an independent platform. Unlike the other two efforts, it takes positions on serious issues for a new independent conservative party. I’m not running for office. The American Resolve Party doesn’t propose to be a new third party but a new second party, remedying the Republican disgrace.

So far, it has made all the noise of a tree falling in the woods or one hand clapping. If, in 2024, there are fewer rocks in the head of the Oval Office occupant, I don’t mind. There will be other options in 2024. All I am saying is to lend them your screen for a few moments to see if there may be a better way forward.