A New Beginning

I have been plugging away at this blog for a number of years, now, without reaching a widespread audience.  To be sure, I haven't tried that hard.  Until last year, I had my newspaper column in the Village News - a hyper-local paper, to be sure, but one which reached thousands of people who were my actual neighbors.  In eleven years, I think I managed to penetrate the thick layers of habitual Republicanism in the Chester (Virginia) area - at least a little.

But now, I want very much to reach a wider audience with the core message of this blog - which is that America desperately needs a third party.  Not a third party of the left or right.  And not, as many would urge, a third party committed to some vague, ever-shifting notion of "the center".

A party committed to the greater good, to principled citizenship.  A party of people who put the public interest, if not absolutely first, at least somewhat ahead of their own personal interests or the interests of whatever demographic group they happen to fall into.

A party dedicated to what the Founders called "the general welfare" or, in term I love, "the Commonwealth".

My reasons for advocating a third party are of long standing.  Having grown up in a political family, I have been involved in politics since my childhood.  (I first worked the polls as a nine-year-old, helping my Dad hand out literature for a congressional candidate in the early morning hours of November 8, 1960 - the day JFK defeated Richard Nixon for the presidency.)

I grew up a Democrat, because my parents were moderately conservative, Southern Democrats.  My Dad served as Attorney General of Virginia and, for eighteen years, in the Virginia General Assembly.  But when I came of age, I realized that I was not, at heart, a Democrat.  The Democratic Party seemed to me too much an awkward coalition of ill-sorted groups, held together with duct tape and bailing twine.

The Republican Party - and, specifically the moderate-to-liberal "citizen" wing of the Republican Party - seemed to me far more appealing.  So I joined the Republicans, working in the inner circle of John Warner's 1978 campaign for the US Senate (against a hard-core right-winger, Dick Obenshain).  I was even appointed to a political office - Secretary of the Commonwealth of Virginia - by Republican Governor John Dalton.

But my days as a Republican lasted only briefly.  With the nomination of Ronald Reagan, it became clear to me that the GOP had been transformed in its essentials, overwhelmed by a flood of refugees from the Democratic Party - Southern segregationists hostile to civil rights and Southern and Midwestern evangelicals horrified by Roe v. Wade.

The "citizen wing" of the Republican Party was swept away by this tide.  The GOP became, in effect, a second Democratic Party - another coalition of aggrieved demographic groups - losing all touch with its original commitment to the national, general welfare.

I became politically homeless.

Over the years, disgusted with what my former party had become, I tried to reconcile myself with the Democratic Party.  But the things which frustrated me in my twenties continued to trouble me as I matured.

The Democratic Party remained what it has been since its founding.  Whether you trace it back to Andrew Jackson or to Thomas Jefferson, the Democratic Party has always been a lose coalition of demographic groups and special interests, held together - whenever possible - by one charismatic leader.  Over the years, it has occasionally stood for worthwhile causes, but none so central as the cause of winning the next election.

Its preference for charismatic leadership has assured that the "next election" that mattered most was the presidential election - which is why Democrats have seldom made full use of legislative power.

And, since the Republican Party had become, in my judgment, a second, right-wing version of the Democratic model, I had nowhere to go.

So I became a reluctant independent.  Occasionally, I supported a maverick in one party or the other - Gary Hart in 1984, John McCain in 2000, Howard Dean in 2004, Bernie Sanders in 2016.  In 1984, I actually presided over the Hart caucus at the Virginia Democratic Convention.  In 2003, I spent my Christmas vacation in Manchester, New Hampshire, knocking on doors for Howard Dean.

But I remained essentially homeless.  And I sensed that millions of other Americans felt the same way.

In ordinary times, I would probably have been content to remain where I am - without a political home, but free to lend my energies, skills and experience to the occasional maverick.  Nearing 66, I could certainly get away with living out my life as an eccentric political curmudgeon.

My problem is climate change - what I call AGW (anthropogenic global warming).  I take climate change seriously - seriously enough that, earlier this month, I flew to Denver for three days of intensive training with Al Gore and his organization, Climate Reality.  Now, as a duly accredited Climate Reality leader, I am tasked with spreading the word through local presentations of Mr. Gore's justly famous "slide show".  I'm looking forward to that.

But my concern is this:  In Denver, I met many of the 950 other volunteers there for the training.  Nearly all were Democrats, or independents who reliably vote Democratic.  And that worries me.

Because I don't trust the Democratic Party to get the job done when it comes to saving the planet from AGW.

A party built as a coalition of special interests isn't well-designed to put an issue of the greater good high on its agenda.

A party which clings to its ties with big-money contributors, big-city machines, and old political dynasties isn't likely to break with the corporate or political Establishment on energy policy.

A party identified primarily with an agenda focused on racial, gender, immigrant, and other identity issues is not well-positioned to advocate a cause which requires the united commitment of the great majority of the American people if it is to succeed.

A party built largely on rewarding its member constituencies will never be comfortable with calling for sacrifice for the common good.

I don't trust the Democrats to get the job done, and clearly, no one in his or her right mind can trust the Republicans, who seem to live in an alternate world which could only be called "reality" in the sense of "reality television".

So the answer, by default, is a third party - a party of the general welfare, of the Commonwealth.  A party in the tradition of Hamilton, Clay, Lincoln, and the greatest of all American environmentalists, Teddy Roosevelt.

Establishing that third party is the program of this blog.  I will try, very hard, to post more regularly.  I invite you to read and share anything I post here - as well as my old posts.

I welcome your comments.