The following piece appeared recently, in edited form, on the Back Page of Style Weekly. It is the third, and final, part of my opening salvo making the case for a third party. Hereafter, I will try to continue to campaign by presenting new material.
Recently, Americans Elect - the much-bruited, internet-based
"third party" - has announced its failure to attract a viable
presidential candidate, thus ending another effort to challenge the major-party
duopoly by organizing a "party of the center".
Its demise was sad, but inevitable. If a third party ever achieves success, it
won't be by occupying some vague, bipartisan middle-ground.
A self-defined party
of the center automatically cedes the initiative to the major parties. As the existing parties define where the center
is, a "centrist" party must
constantly tack with the prevailing winds. What's needed is a third party which sets its own course - a bold
course, independent of the existing duopoly.
Americans should study the history of the two third parties which
seriously challenged the major-party establishment in the past - the Lincoln Republicans
and the early 20th century Progressives.
For example, the Republicans - so far the only third party
to become a major party - offer these instructive lessons:
First, define success
- not as winning the next election - but as changing the terms of the national
debate.
Lincoln's Republican Party - and its forerunners , the
Liberty and Free-Soil parties - initially focused less on winning elections
than on compelling Americans to confront the issue of slavery. In the decades leading up to the Civil War, slavery
was the great issue. But this issue presented both an insoluble
dilemma and, in Senator William Seward's phrase, "an irrepressible conflict".
In the interests of national and party unity, leaders of the
Democratic and Whig parties did their best to distract public attention from this
issue. The insurgent Republicans
insisted that it be faced.
In today's America, a
successful third party might, in similar fashion, challenge the major parties' refusal
to confront a cluster of thorny issues concerning our responsibility to future
generations.
This issue cluster takes involves a whole nexus of issues,
including: global climate change; the
decline of public education; the rising costs of health and elder care; our dependence
on foreign, and exhaustible, energy sources; and burgeoning Federal debt.
While these issues are often addressed separately, viewed
together, they represent the stark failure of America's "mature"
generations to provide for those who will follow - thus raising a question of moral
responsibility comparable with that of pre-Civil War America.
Second, logically
connect the new party's moral imperative with a forward-looking vision of how future
generations of Americans will earn their livings.
Lincoln's Republicans insisted on the centrality of slavery,
but their analysis connected that issue with a bold vision for the economic and
geographical future of the nation.
Slavery was seen, not only as a moral wrong, but as a system of labor
and land-ownership in direct competition with the agrarian vision of a nation
of small, family farms spreading to the Pacific.
Today, the cluster of generational failures which might be
termed "neglecting our future" can likewise be addressed in terms of
a new vision for America. Our current
problems are the direct result of a failure of self-discipline, prudence and thrift
- consequences of an economic system based upon consumerism.
The consumption-driven economy of the 20th century - sensible
when Americans made the goods they consumed - has become a self-destructive
addiction. Insatiable consumerism has given
rise to a political psychology based on individual and group entitlements - rather
than the common good. A narcissistic
insistence on undeferred gratification
has put the health of the planetary ecosystem at risk, and brought our country
to the brink of economic and fiscal collapse.
A new, third party might offer an alternative vision for the
future, including such elements as:
- aggressive environmental policies carried out through volunteer citizen policing and thoughtful modifications of markets - in preference to new regulatory machinery;
- nurturing small enterprise, rather than slavishly serving the interests of large corporations; and
- creating viable markets for locally-grown, healthy foods; locally-generated, sustainable-source energy; and products made from recycled materials.
Third, embrace policies
designed to reform, fundamentally, a broken political system.
Implicit in the Lincoln Republicans' demand that westward
expansion result in the creation of only "free states" was a seismic
shift in the Congressional balance of power.
The creation of new free states, no longer balanced by the creation of slave
states, would end the ability of the under-populated South to play an equal
role in setting national policy.
Today, the political reforms available for adoption by a
third party also concern themselves with the undue influence of a minority - in
this case, the very wealthy.
A modern third party should, at the heart of its program,
embrace political reforms such as:
- Ending the ability of any entity, other than an individual American citizen, to contribute to political campaigns;
- Requiring that the House of Representatives, and state and local legislative bodies, be chosen on the basis of non-partisan redistricting and/or proportional representation; and
- Restoring the fundamental right of citizens to organize to petition for redress of grievances by granting to significant third parties the same ballot access enjoyed by the existing major parties.
These essentials - defining success in terms of changing the
debate; embracing a new moral and economic vision based on sustainability and
entrepreneurialism; and challenging the rules which uphold the two-party duopoly
- could well be the keys to a successful third party.
But the thing is that any new party define its own vision for America, not borrow its ideas from the often-meaningless debate of the two existing parties.
No one needs a party of the center. What's
needed is a party of the future.
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