What follows is this week’s main essay in my free e-mail weekly newsletter, A-Clue.Com, which went out to subscribers this morning.
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Every few years around this time, some friends give me the dodge. (The original of this image at The Lincoln Institute hangs at the Chicago Historical Society.)
They hate both parties. I’m a Libertarian, some say. I’m a Green, others say. Why can’t the two sides get together, still others say.
It’s a dodge.
There are many ways to implement a democratic system. Israel uses proportional representation. Every party with even 1% support gets a Knesset seat. Which means every government is a coalition, and small groups can bring down any government at any time. Thus these small groups have enormous power over the bulk of voters.
Germany has a modified version of this. You need at least 5% of the vote to get into the Bundestag. There are only a few small parties. But these small parties, the Greens and the Free Democrats, have most of the power in Germany. If you want to grow up to be foreign minister, join a small party.
Great Britain has a parliamentary system as well, but like ours it is "first past the post." That is, the winner of each district takes the seat. The Liberal Democrats, who get about one-quarter of the vote, only have one-tenth of the seats in Parliament. They may never get over the hump, unless Labour screws-the-pooch so badly that it finishes behind them (as some polls have shown them doing, and as they have done in many by-elections over the recent past).
The point of this exercise is that, no matter how bad you think our system is (and despite ours being the first written Constitution, hardly any other country has an American system) it’s the system we’ve got.
America has two parties. Always has, always will. These parties are large, they are unwieldy, they are riddled with factions, they are coalitions, and most of the process we know of as democracy happens inside them.
American primaries are very important. On a local level, organization is pretty thin on the ground and an unknown can actually get in. On a local level, in fact, independents sometimes win. Sometimes they even win on a state level, if they’re famous, if the two parties are stupid, or if one party cedes its support.
But generally two parties is what we got. Pick one.
Don’t tell me you’re a Libertarian. You’re a Republican who’s ashamed to admit it, or you’re working a dodge.
Don’t tell me you’re a Green. You’re a Democrat who won’t admit it, or you’re working a dodge.
Don’t give me that bipartisan crap. Bipartisanship happens naturally –
compromise is at the heart of our system. But it happens behind closed
doors. In front of the cameras, no matter how honorable the lady or
gentleman, it’s generally a two-sided game.
Want to change the system? Choose sides first. Win a Republican
primary as a moderate, by getting your friends to register with that
party, or getting them to vote for you in a state with an open primary.
You can try the same game as a Democrat. Or just be someone’s Karl
Rove.
But the system, such as it is, isn’t going away. The system, such as it
is, will go on even if you opt-out. (Most who gain power from the
system today would prefer you opt-out – reduces the variables.)
You can have your own conscience and still belong to a party. Lots of Kansas Democrats were, until recently, Kansas Republicans, but they decided their old party was too conservative, too rigid, and they switched. Lots of Georgia Republicans
were, until recently. Georgia Democrats. They decided their party was
too liberal, that they couldn’t raise money inside it, and they
switched.
This is the way our system works. You get together, you
organize, you scale, and you can take over a party. Even a national
party. Crashing the Gate is an American tradition. Goldwater’s people did it. Populists did it. You can, too.
But if all you have to say is "they’re both corrupt," or "they argue
too much," or "I just don’t have the time," well tough shit. You chose
to let the extremists and the crooks, the consultants and the pundits,
run things. You have no one to blame for that but yourself.
I don’t like everything my party
stands for. I don’t like everyone in my party. It’s not an organized
party. But that’s how you get in the game, by playing, and if you don’t
play you can’t possibly win.
We get the government we deserve. We deserved George W. Bush
just as we deserved Lyndon Johnson and Herbert Hoover and James
Buchanan and every other half-wit who ever claimed to serve us by
running on the fumes of earlier times and bigger men.
If you think we deserve better, prove it.
Register, contribute, get involved, vote.
Or shut the fuck up. I’m really tired of the dodge.
Hi Dana
I look forward to your A-Clue newsletter every week with its underlying message that there are still Americans of principle and wisdom “out there” trying to do the right thing by their country (and the world).
Your comments on democratic voting systems overlooked the model of “Preferential Voting” as used in Australia.
In this system voters can, if they wish, express a second and succeeding preference… i.e. “My preference is for A but if she gets the least votes, then I vote for B, then C”.
The effect of this is that the major two parties get most of the seats, but minor parties, like the Greens can win seats, hence a voice, if candidates are good enough
The major parties dislike it (isn’t that already a recommendation) because it allows people a protest vote without having to disenfranchise themselves. In most seats, you can vote for say, an independent to send a message to the incumbents that you think they’ve done a less-than-optimum job, but still not vote for the opposition because they’re bloody hopeless and don’t deserve to be left in charge of a beer fight at a BBQ (cook-out).
Love your conclusion… sums up democracy exactly
Hi Dana
I look forward to your A-Clue newsletter every week with its underlying message that there are still Americans of principle and wisdom “out there” trying to do the right thing by their country (and the world).
Your comments on democratic voting systems overlooked the model of “Preferential Voting” as used in Australia.
In this system voters can, if they wish, express a second and succeeding preference… i.e. “My preference is for A but if she gets the least votes, then I vote for B, then C”.
The effect of this is that the major two parties get most of the seats, but minor parties, like the Greens can win seats, hence a voice, if candidates are good enough
The major parties dislike it (isn’t that already a recommendation) because it allows people a protest vote without having to disenfranchise themselves. In most seats, you can vote for say, an independent to send a message to the incumbents that you think they’ve done a less-than-optimum job, but still not vote for the opposition because they’re bloody hopeless and don’t deserve to be left in charge of a beer fight at a BBQ (cook-out).
Love your conclusion… sums up democracy exactly
Dana, I think it’s you who are running a dodge. Yes, there have always been 2 parties and their true names are Conservative and Progressive. These two parties exist within our Democratic and Republican parties. They also exist within everyone else who runs. The problem is that at the moment both the Republican and Democratic parties are controlled by Conservatives (i.e. Big Business). At the highest levels, Democrats are Progressives in Name Only, as they rely on Conservative money to get elected. If you are a Progressive your duty is to vote along that line, not along the Democratic party line. Voting in primaries makes sense, but what if your candidate does not make it to the next round? Too often people make the circlular logic argument that unless you think your pick can win, you are wasting your vote. That’s like saying that the toilet’s broken so you should shit on the floor or in the sink rather than try to fix it. The truth is that if an Independant gets a lot of votes, even while losing, the major parties adjust to recapture those votes at the next election — that makes such a losing vote very well spent indeed.
Dana, I think it’s you who are running a dodge. Yes, there have always been 2 parties and their true names are Conservative and Progressive. These two parties exist within our Democratic and Republican parties. They also exist within everyone else who runs. The problem is that at the moment both the Republican and Democratic parties are controlled by Conservatives (i.e. Big Business). At the highest levels, Democrats are Progressives in Name Only, as they rely on Conservative money to get elected. If you are a Progressive your duty is to vote along that line, not along the Democratic party line. Voting in primaries makes sense, but what if your candidate does not make it to the next round? Too often people make the circlular logic argument that unless you think your pick can win, you are wasting your vote. That’s like saying that the toilet’s broken so you should shit on the floor or in the sink rather than try to fix it. The truth is that if an Independant gets a lot of votes, even while losing, the major parties adjust to recapture those votes at the next election — that makes such a losing vote very well spent indeed.
Hello Dana, I’m from Germany and I think you are right. The negative side of the proportional vote is, that half of the seats in our Bundestag and our regional parlaments are given to people who have not been personally elected and do not have actual voters behind them. They get their seat by following a party career over years and feel responsible mainly to the party. If they don’t submit to the party line, they won’t be put up as a candidate again. I think the decision in parlament turn out better if representatives can be held responsible for their work back at home by their voters.
Hello Dana, I’m from Germany and I think you are right. The negative side of the proportional vote is, that half of the seats in our Bundestag and our regional parlaments are given to people who have not been personally elected and do not have actual voters behind them. They get their seat by following a party career over years and feel responsible mainly to the party. If they don’t submit to the party line, they won’t be put up as a candidate again. I think the decision in parlament turn out better if representatives can be held responsible for their work back at home by their voters.