I’ve always liked a challenge. It doesn’t matter much to me if the challenge is mental, physical or some combination thereof. Challenge transforms the world from ordinary to interesting. Challenge sharpens skills and builds character. Challenge elevates and improves.

About the only thing wrong with a challenge is when you come across one that you know you are not up for. Not up for today, not up for tomorrow, and next week’s not looking too good either.

My failed challenge has been making any sense out of the monumentally, prodigiously, seraphically awful choices our country’s current two-party system keeps churning out during each new election cycle. It’s like trying to juggle tiki sticks while undergoing a root canal with needles for an anesthetic.

The last time I was enthusiastic about a political candidate was almost all the way back to the last century — and that was an anomaly. Since I’ve been able to vote, back when “The Rockford Files” debuted on TV, I’ve had to agonize over who was the least bad choice almost every time.

Neither of the two current political parties in this country comes anywhere close to representing what I, and I daresay many of you, consider a completely rational vision of the future. You can get your fantasy in blue, or you can get it in red, but it’s mostly nonsense no matter the color.

I agonized, publicly, over the choices in the last presidential election. Which was the least awful choice: the delusional megalomaniac in chief, or the guy who’s screwed up public policy for over four decades as a lifetime member of Congress? And whichever one I chose also meant a vote in support of the BS being served up by the party that nominated them. That was an even worse outcome of a lousy choice.

I keep hearing a lot of gack about how there are no true middle-of-the-road independents left in this partisan age. That, my friends, is a crock of poo. Most people that I know are all over the place when it comes to how they think about political and societal issues. It’s a square peg in round hold type of problem.

Most people I know possess very conservative views on some issues, liberal views on others and are somewhere in between on everything else. Their views average out to middle of the road. It’s uncommon, at least in my experience, to encounter those who strictly abide by a party line. The sole reason that the equally inept Democrats and Republicans run the show is that there are no other serious options.

Politically we live in a binary society, where the powers that be have no intention of losing whatever grip they possess on the levers of power. That’s their raison d’etre. Well, that and shoving their view of the world, via the power of government, down the throats of everyone who’s not an acolyte.

The politically ubiquitous “least bad choice” we are saddled with is a damning indictment of our political system. It’s probably not sustainable in the long run, and I’m more than reasonably sure that it’s not in the best interests of the country. The question is, What do we do about it?

Nothing easy, that’s for sure. If easy solutions were floating around, this problem would be in the rearview mirror by now. Since anything done to improve our choices would require the cooperation of both political parties, I wouldn’t be holding my breath — unless some benevolent dictator shows up with a magic wand. But I do have an idea of what it might take short of that.

The first thing we need to do to clean up our binary mess is to reform our voting system so that political parties have nothing to do with who votes. All primaries should be open to any registered voter who wants to vote. Even voter registration should occur sans any political affiliation. You vote as a citizen of this country, not as a member of a political party.

The next thing that ought to be done is to remove barriers to parties other than Democrats and Republicans serving effectively in Congress. It would be better to make committee assignments by throwing darts than by the current partisan system of patronage and seniority. Perhaps committee appointments should be the work of non-partisan commissions. The people of the United States, not political parties, lobbyists or special interests, should be the primary constituents for members of Congress regardless of political affiliation.

We probably need some national standards for voting in national elections. And I don’t mean things that make voting more difficult either. As a non-felon (in most places) citizen of appropriate age, you have a right to vote. That places the burden on the state to show that you are not eligible, not the other way around. We should do everything that we can to encourage voting, not discourage it.

It’s been over a half a century since there’s been evidence of voter fraud on a scale to change a national election. That doesn’t mean that voter fraud doesn’t happen; it just means that it doesn’t happen to the degree that it ought to be our sole election concern. And when it does happen, the available evidence suggests that fraud goes both ways.

I don’t think that I’m going to live long enough to see more choices or better candidates in elections — though I’d be, for many reasons, thrilled to be wrong. But nothing’s going to happen unless everyone who’s as fed up as I am over our lousy choices starts agitating for change.

Associated Press and Idaho Press Club award-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer, consultant and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time with family, riding mountain bikes and motorcycles and playing guitars. His video blog, “Howlin’ at the Moon in ii-V-I,” may be found at facebook.com/HowlinattheMoonin251 and on YouTube at bit.ly/2SN745k.