Eight-score and Eight Years Ago

Three months ago, as I began pulling together my campaign for the Oregon House, I thought mainly in terms of three related isssues:  

     - My entire lack of confidence in both of our major political parties, dating back some 42 years, but growing more pronounced over time;

     - My alarm at the threat to constitutional government posed by the Republican Party's abandonment of all commitment to ethical and legal constraints - surely, even politics has some constraints - and by the Democratic Party's feeble, finger-wagging response to Republican lawlessness; and
 
     - My sense that - at a time when the gathering Climate Crisis threatens the habitability of the only planet in the galaxy known to be habitable - the United States, which should be leading the world, appears barely able even to govern itself.

I have argued for decades - in my old newspaper column, in the classroom, in conversation, and occasionally in this blog - that these three issues could be addressed if a small, but determined, group of citizens took steps to create a new and effective political party. 

Such a party, I have insisted, would have to appeal to citizens disenchanted with both major parties, and ready to take action.  Most of these people would, of necessity, find themselves in what is called the political center.  But the party need not be - and in fact, should not be - defined as centrist.  

Attempts to build "centrist" parties inevitably fail.  In democratic politics, the center is nowhere.  It is a negative space. It is defined, not by a vision for the future, but by the relative positions of the two existing parties.  And both of the two major parties are obsessed with the near-term - specifically, with winning the next election.  They have no greater idea of the future than that.

Moreover, in the United States, the political center is not a fixed position.  For decades, the midpoint between the two major parties has been shifting steadily rightward, as the Republican Party moved from the intellectually-respectable conservatism of thinkers like Russell Kirk to the ignorant, superstitious, angry populism of Pat Buchanan, then Newt Gingrich, then the Tea Party, and finally, Donald Trump. 

Which populism long since ceased to be conservatism at all, as it morphed into a kind of fascism. 

During these same decades, the Democratic Party - for all its rhetorical commitment to the latest fads in acceptable newspeak - has continued to be what it has been since LBJ:  A collection of disparate tribes, pretending to be a movement.  A top-down establishment machine committed entirely to maintaining the illusion of unity in order to assure its own electoral survival.  A feckless, leaderless, rudderless asssembly of incompetents.  The Democratic Party of the past fifty years has been of no use to anyone but its own, aging incumbents - and the co-opted acolytes waiting expectantly to succeed them.

In such an environment, a new party committed merely to occupying the center would be compelled to shift steadily rightward, simply to maintain its position between a party gone mad and a party with no coherent principles.  

The third party America needs - and which the world desperately needs for America to produce - would have to be far better-defined, more principled, and more combative than a merely "centrist" party. In present-day America, where politics has become increasingly like civil war, a new party would have to be prepared to fight, and fight ruthlessly. 

Nor could it commit to a goal of "bringing people together" in some sort of join-hands-and-sing-Kum-by-ya fantasy.  America is too divided for that.  Unity will come - if it comes at all - when new leaders emerge who are capable of establishing a clear sense of movement toward some credible vision of the future. 

Think Lincoln at Gettysburg, reminding us that America must be an example to a waiting world of what free people can do - of, by and for themselves.  Think of FDR and Churchill proclaiming the Four Freedoms.  Remember Kennedy aiming for the Moon.  Remember Dr. King's dream. 

Vision.

Put it another way:  If America is ever re-united, our unity will not be the goal, but rather a by-product of pursuing some great, ennobling goal.

Today's Democratic Party is utterly incapable of providing such vision,  And the vision the Republican Party offers is dystopian.  

It is important to understand the reality of our situation.  The problem is not the Republican Party, alone.  The problem is a two-party system in which the Republican Party must be taken seriously.  The problem is a system in which the only alternative to the Democrats is run by insiders who insist on nominating the only candidate who could possibly lose to Donald Trump in 2016. 

Insiders who inist that the Democrats nominate a bland, doddering old buffer to have any chance of defeating Donald Trump in 2020. 

Insiders who look likely to lose both Houses of Congress in November - and the White House to Donald Trump, or someone even worse, in 2024.

The problem is not the Republicans.  The problem is the absence of an effective alternative to the Republicans.

The problem is both major parties - and the duopoly they have created.  The problem is our tolerance for unlimited campaign contributions from the rich and powerful.  The problem is gerrymandering.  The problem is elections in which superannuated incumbents are assured of perpetual re-election.  The problem is the system by which major-party candidates are chosen - and other candidates "discouraged" from running at all.

In short, the problem is the two-party system. 

A successful new party would have - like Hercules - to strangle two serpents in its infancy.  One red.  One blue.  There is no "better" alternative between these serpents.  Both are toxic, though their venoms differ.  Both must be strangled. 

And to do this, the new party would have so stand for, and fight for, very clear principles - even if those principles happened to be found largely in the rational center of present-day options.  The new party might be, in Michael Lind's phrase, radically centrist. 

What is important is that the new party be active,  aggressive, and audacious.  

The task of building such a party will be, indeed, Herculean.  But is there any chance such a party could be created?  

The short answer is - Absolutely, yes.  I have long argued that America's modern failure to produce a successful third party is the fruit of our schools' and universities' lamentable failure to teach our own national history.

All my adult life, I've heard repeatedly - from people holding degrees from reputable institutions - that America has never had a successful third party.  Which is nonsense.  Today's Republican Party began - in 1854 - when anti-slavery members of the two major parties (Democrats and Whigs) quit their respective parties, embraced their former rivals, and founded various state "fusion" parties. 

These new, state parties quickly evolved into the national Republican Party.

How quickly, you ask?  The new party, which began organizing in the summer of 1854, captured the White House in the Election of 1860 - elevating Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency.  By the following spring, it also commanded both Houses of Congress.  

In less than seven years, this new, third party went from zero to complete control of the Federal government, as well as the governments of most of the northern states.

Anyone who has been miseducated to believe that America has never produced a successful third-party should do a bit of research into this stirring tale. Wikipedia should suffice, but if you're serious about history, I suggest finding an old copy of David M. Potter's Pulitzer Prize-winning volume, The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861.  It's a great book - my favorite single volume of American History. 

If you're pressed for time, Chapter Ten will more than reward your investment of a few hours.   

My point is this:  A third party is absolutely possible.  It's also absolutely necessary.

The question is:  Are Americans of our time prepared to do what our forefathers did, eight-score and eight years ago?