The "Fore-Shock" Test

 
In March, 2017, I attended a three-day Climate Reality training session in Denver.  I remember many moments from that weekend - none more than the moment when Al Gore told us his understanding of change.  I didn't write down his precise words, but it went something like this: 

In life, change happens very slowly.  For a long, long time, it doesn't seem to be happening at all.  And then, suddenly, it happens all at once.

It's been five years since I heard Mr. Gore say this, but I've never forgotten his insight.  This year, I think, that promise is being fulfilled, right before our eyes.  Change, long so slow in coming, is beginning to happen.  And perhaps it's even accelerating.  Whether we like it or not - whether we're ready for it or not - we appear to be entering an age of revolution.

Since 2017, most of us have been living through hard times.  But they've also been slow times.  Times of hunkering down at home.  Times of caution.  Times when nothing - the availability of KN-95s, the re-opening of schools, the approval of vaccines, the end of the Trump administration - seemed to happen fast enough.

Now, my historian's instinct tells me we're about to start living through times that will move at a very different pace.  If I'm right, we'll need to keep in mind Dickens' words about the French Revolution.  Such times can be - at once - the best and worst of times. 

The worst part will, almost certainly, involve the baked-in consequences of our rapidly heating and dangerously over-populated planet.  There will be extreme weather events.  In portions of the world, centuries-old agricultural patterns will be disrupted - forcing millions of people to migrate in search of a way to make a living.  There will be wars over water, over arable land, over borders. 

In many cases, these changes will not - at least at first - appear to threaten our own way of life here in the Northwest.  But our respite will be brief, and we'd be wise to prepare ourselves for the worst.

If you're not in the habit of following the news on climate change, you'd be wise to start - because that news no longer consists of dire predictions for the future.  Events are transpiring daily - some big, some small, some which seem merely curious.  And if you keep an eye on these things, over a few months, patterns will begin to form.  A bigger picture will emerge.

You'll begin seeing the certain events as fore-shocks of a coming age of change.  The sense you make of all this will be for you to decide - but following climate news will be a kind of personal Rohrschach test.

Personally, for some years now, I've relied on The Guardian as my primary news source in many areas - climate among them.  I like that The Guardian is free, with virtually no firewalls.  The Guardian does, occasionally, ask for voluntary contributions - and I contribute.  But I like having the choice.

I also like that, being a British publication, it's far more globally-oriented than most US sources.  I especially like that I can use it to watch PMQs.  (If that's not your thing, no worries.  But I love it.) 

Moreover, while I'm a lot more centrist than most of The Guardian's opinion writers, I greatly admire George Monbiot, the paper's main observer on climate matters.  He's incredibly well-informed, generally manages to offer a fresh perspective, and somehow contrives to present terrifying news in a calm, rational tone. 

The Guardian also features a Climate Crisis section - with several new stories every day.  Today, for example, there's a story about rising suicide rates related to climate "doomerism" - focusing on the April 22 death by self-immolation of Wynn Bruce, an American Buddhist and climate activist who set himself ablaze on the steps of the Supreme Court.  Wynn's self-sacrifice reminded me of the protests of Vietnamese Buddhists at the height of the war in Southeast Asia.  Those protests were dramatic, but seemed to happen in another world.  Wynn was a 50-year-old photographer from Boulder, Colorado.  

Today's other stories are less sensational, but they illustrate the wide reach of the climate crisis.  One is about a large study of sleep habits around the globe.  In parts of the world where air conditioning and electric fans are not widely available, there seems to be correlation between hotter nights and serious sleep loss. 

Another story involves a 50% decline in the harvest of the tiny seeds used to make Dijon mustard - due to heating in the areas of France and Canada which provide the greatest part of the world's supply.  

Now, I can easily imagine how climate deniers would dismiss each of these stories.  A man who sets himself on fire might be mentally ill.  The fact that millions of people in India and equatorial parts of the Third World are missing sleep won't necessarily cause comfortable First-Worlder to lose sleep.  And one can, I suppose, live without Dijon mustard.

But two or three stories a day - some catastrophic, some on a more personal level, some even curious - and you start to realize that the worst of times might well be upon us.

At the same time, there's beginning to be reason for hope from - of all places - the world of politics. 

Just today, news comes from Australia's national elections.  After nine years in power, the Liberal Party - which is actually a conservative party with a disgraceful record on climate - is out.  The Liberals' loss doesn't seem to have come about because their traditional rivals - the left-leaning Labor Party - did especially well.  The real change comes from new seats won by the Greens, and even more, from successful challenges to Liberal incumbents from centrist, climate-oriented candidates running as independent "teal" (blue-green) challengers. 

Indeed, in much of the truly democratic world, new parties and candidates seem to be emerging to challenge existing power structures.  And often, these new people are relatively centrist on many issues, but dead serious about the climate. 

In this regard, Emmanuel Macron - just re-elected to a second five-year term as President of France - must be considered an early leader.  But this year, in the United States - and particularly in the Northwest - there are encouraging signs of centrist challenges to the two-party duopoly.  

In Washington state, Chris Vance, a former chair of the state's Republican Party, quit the GOP in 2017 and became a member of the Lincoln Project.  This year, Vance is taking steps to form a new, centrist party in Washington.

In Utah, the state Democratic Party has decided not to run a candidate against incumbent Republican US Senator Mike Lee - throwing its support behind independent Evan McMullin, a sane conservative who challenged Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in a handful of states in 2016.

And in Oregon, long-time state senator Betsy Johnson - a former Democrat - is mounting a well-funded independent campaign against the newly-nominated candidates of the two major parties, Tina Kotek (D) and Christine Drazan (R).

To the best of my knowledge, none of these American challengers is outspokenly pro-environment.  All three seem primarily concerned with staking out a position nearer the center than either of the two major parties. 

I wish them luck.  But my sense is that mere centrism will have pretty limited appeal in a time of rapid change.  The Climate Crisis is pushing its way onto the stage.  It will not be denied.  And politicians who fail to address it will - if not this year, in a very few years - find themselves talking to increasingly fewer people.

Late last winter, when I decided to run for the Oregon House of Representatives, I was motivated by two issues - the Climate Crisis, and the crisis in American (and Western) democracy.  To me, these two issues seem inescapably connected through the impact of big money and corporate corruption on our politics. 

I'll go into my thinking in later posts - and on the campaign trail.  But in terms of simple, pragmatic political strategy, it seems to me that it will be impossible to build a new, centrist movement or party on the basis of something as uninspiring as mere centrism. 

Indeed, that approach seems to be taking a tattered page out of the Democrats' and Republicans' play-books:  You don't need a vision of a better future.  You don't need to address great challenges.  All you have to do is say, "Vote for us.  We're not as bad as the other guys."

That ain't gonna work.  Not in these times.

For me, the Australian "teals" got it right.  We do need the sort of unity more centrist, problem-solving candidates can bring to the table.  And the proper starting-place is for new candidates is to address the greatest existential threats we're facing - the threat of a heating planet, and the threat of losing our ability to govern ourselves democratically, at a time when we truly need effective leadership.

At any rate, that's what I'm betting on.

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?

Introducing the Two-Vote Plan

 
In my last post, I promised to introduce a new plan for electing members of the Oregon House of Representatives - a plan which would add new dimensions of diversity to our legislature.  The Two-Vote Plan - known in comparative government circles as parallel voting - isn't complicated in practice, but its workings will be unfamiliar to those who don't follow politics abroad.  So please - if you're interested - be sure to read this when you have time to focus.  [You might look up "parallel voting" first - or after reading this - for further clarification.]

I'll outline the plan in this post. Then - for those with questions - I'll be happy to post a further elaboration.  

The basic idea of the Two-Vote Plan is that each voter would be entitled to two votes for Representative - one for an individual candidate running to represent a specific district, the other for a party slate running to represent a large region of the state.

Let's think of your two votes as Column A and Column B.  

In Columm A, you would choose among individual candidates running for a district seat - exactly the way you do now.  The one difference would be that only half of Oregon's 60 state Representatives would be elected from districts - so the 30 House districts would be identical to Oregon's 30 state Senate districts.  

Column B is where the innovation comes in.  Under the Two-Vote Plan, Oregon would be divided into three large regions - each containing one-third of the population.  The regions would be drawn so as to include - as much as possible - parts of the state with common economic, environmental, and cultural features.  For example, given our present population distribution, one region might include Portland and most of its suburbs.  A second region might contain eastern and and parts of central Oregon, and a third region the coast and its hinterlands.    

Each region would be entitled to ten Representatives, who would be elected by proportional representation.  Rather than running as individuals, candidates would run as slates - either chosen by a party, or ianassembled by agreements among individual candidates.   A slate could have up to ten candidates, but - as no slate will likely get 100% of the vote - it could have somewhat fewer than ten members.   

When voting in Column B, you would use a form of ranked-choice voting - indicating up to three choices.  Once all votes had been counted, any slate receiving fewer than 5% of the total vote in that region would be eliminated.  Those whose first preference was eliminated would have their second and, if necessary, third-choice votes assigned to their preferred surviving slate.  

That done, the ten regional seats would be allocated among the slates according to the percentage of votes received by each slate.  A slate would be awarded one seat for each 10% of the total vote, with the final seat or two awarded by a remainder process.  

The obvious question is:  What are the benefits of adopting the Two-Vote Plan?

The main advantage is that it would guarantee that almost every Oregonian would be able to cast a vote for a candidate who actually ends up being elected. 

At present, this simply does not happen.

When all Representatives are elected from single-member districts, most Oregonians find themselves voting in elections where the result is a foregone conclusion.  A Democrat living in eastern Oregon has virtually no chance of voting for a Democrat who will go to Salem to represent him.  A Republican living in Portland has very little chance of electing a Republican who will go to Salem to represent her.

This would be true, even without gerrymandering.  With gerrymandering, the impacts of single-member districts are greatly exaggerated.  In simple truth - whether we vote for the winner or the loser - very few of us have the opportunity of casting a vote that might actually make a difference.

Beyond this, a third of Oregonians do not identify with either major party - preferring a third party, or not consistently favoring any party at all.  As things now stand, these voters usually end up voting for either a Democrat or a Republican, rather than "wasting their vote" on a candidate they prefer, but who has no chance of winning.

Under the Two-Vote system, nearly all Oregonians would have the opportunity - in Column B - to vote for a slate they actually support, and from which at least a few candidates would be elected.   

For example, Republicans in the Portland region would probably be able to elect two or three members of their party to the House.  Likewise, Democrats from Pendleton or Baker City or Lakeview would almost certainly cast votes electing at least two Representatives to the House.

As for those who dislike both major parties, there would finally be a serious chance if electing someone from a third party.  A slate winning only 10% of the regional vote would be entitled to one seat.  (Indeed, under the remainder process a slate winning 7% or so would have a decent chance of electing one Representative.)

The obvious result;  A House of Representatives elected in this way would better represent the great variety of opinions and interests in our very diverse state.

But there would also be - in all probability - subtler impacts on the workings of the state House of Representatives.  

While Democrats would almost certainly continue to have a majority in the House, the Democratic caucus would have fewer members from Portland, and some new additions from Oregon's coastal and rural areas. With more areas of the state represented in the Democratic caucus, Oregon's House might still be controlled by Democrats - but it would not be so easily dominated by Portland Democrats.

Likewise, the Republican caucus would have slightly fewer members from rural areas, and a small infusion of members from urban and suburban areas.  This might contribute to less feeling of alienation among rural Representatives, who would now have metropolitan colleagues to partner with.  Over time, this might result - not only in better legislation - but in fewer walk-outs by rural Republicans who do not feel heard.

Finally, for everyone who wishes there were more than two parties in Salem, the Two-Vote Plan would, over time, result in at least a handful of Representatives from third parties taking their seats in the House.  Again, voices would be given to more diverse opinions and interests.  And perhaps, over time, attractive third-party leaders might emerge capable of becoming viable candidates for higher office - the state Senate, Congress, even US Senator or Governor.

So - that's the outline of the plan.  Your questions are welcome.

Toward Representation for All Oregonians

I was fairly new to Oregon when I picked my candidate for President and started looking for ways to get involved in the 2020 campaign. 

Over the course of a long life, I had occasionally dived into the political deep end before.  But I'd been younger then.

I was only 27 when I volunteered for John Warner's first run for the Senate in 1978.  By good fortune, I became an insider in that effort, which gave me a chance to get to know that remarkable man - and to escort his remarkable wife, Elizabeth Taylor, to a few public events.

In Gary Hart's 2004 presidential campaign - the one without the blonde - I played a strategic role at the Virginia Democratic Convention and stepped in at the last minute to preside over the successful Hart caucus.

Mark Warner's 2001 gubernatorial campaign introduced me to marathon door-to-door campaigning, a skill I'll be using again this year.

And I suppose I'll add Howard Dean's presidential campaign, too.  Though I really only did a week of hard work for Dean, that was in Manchester, New Hampshire - the fulfillment of a lifelong dream of playing a role in the Granite State's first-in-the-nation primary.

But those experiences seem to have been from another age.  It had been four decades since I made the sort of effort that followed my decision to join Elizabeth Warren's all-volunteer Oregon campaign.  From that effort, I learned a great deal about my new home state and its politics in five months of fairly intensive travel.

To be candid, Warren hadn't been my first choice to topple Donald Trump.  I had initially favored Al Franken, who was - yes, I'll say it - cancelled.   

But Warren proved an excellent choice for me.  While I disagreed with many of her plans, long experience has taught me not to pay too much attention to what presidential candidates say they'll do in office.  That sort of analysis might work for down-ballot offices, but the Presidency presents challenges beyond the capacity of mortal man or woman to imagine.  Until you've taken a seat behind that desk, you simply can't know what you'll learn, what events will come at you, what choices you'll have to make.

As a lifelong student and longtime teacher of history, I've come to look for the personal qualities that have, in the past, made for presidential greatness: vision; imagination; the ability to listen; wisdom; intellectual curiosity; the ability to build a team and use it well; great moral courage; a high energy level; ruthlessness; the ability to learn and grow.

That last one, especially. 

Only one President in our history was suited to the job when he took the oath of office.  The Constitutional Convention of 1787 had drawn up Article II with George Washington in mind, and the Presidency fit him like a glove.  Every president since has had to grow into it.   Those who didn't grow enough have gone down in history as failures.

Campaigning for Elizabeth Warren quickly exposed me to one harsh reality of Oregon politics - the domination of the state by one great metropolis and two smaller cities - Portland, Salem and Eugene - and by one party, the Democrats.  I quickly learned that the Warren campaign's strategy focused on seven counties along the upper I-5 corridor.  Oregon's other 29 counties - including mine (beautiful Clatsop) - "didn't count".  

I wasn't entirely shocked.  My native Virginia is usually dominated by blue urban areas - the suhurbs of Washington, DC (NoVA); Richmond; and the seven cities of Tidewater.  But in Virginia, the red rural and small town areas are sufficiently populous that they can occasionally overwhelm the Democrats' urban strongholds.  Indeed, that happened last November. 

In Oregon, the imbalance is on an entirely different order of magnitude.  I had heard of secessionist movements in the East, and walkouts by Republican legislators - but I'd always assumed the worst about those involved.  Now, I began to understand.  In Oregon, unless you live in the Portand metro area, Salem or Eugene, you're not in charge of your own destiny.  And if you're not a Democrat, you're just along for the ride.

People tend to resent things like that.

This realization did not cause me to rethink my commitment to Elizabeth Warren.  The folks involved in her campaign were fine people. They were simply playing the game the way it's played in today's Oregon.  

But, not being from one of the seven counties that count - and being a volunteer - I wasn't required to play the game their way.  If Elizabeth Warren won the nomination, and went on to become President, she would be President of all Americans - not just those whose votes counted in a primary strategy.

So I persuaded a small cadre of the PDX crowd to join me in a 36-County Project - an effort to find Warren chairs in every county in Oregon.  Over the next few months, I visited Democratic meetings in Clatsop, Tillamook, Columbia, Hood River, Wasco, Yamhill, and Jackson counties.  Other road warriors took our message eastward as far as Union County - and we persuaded the national campaign to send us telephone lists of registered Democrats in distant counties, so we could attempt to recruit leaders without making so many long drives.  

I also helped our team set up a table at the biennial Democratic Summit at Sunriver - the only presidential campaign to do so.  We met Democrats from all over the state, recruited new local leaders, and handed out nice, quickly-made buttons honoring Congressman Elijah Cummings, who had died two days before the Summit.  

As a result of our efforts, by the time Warren's national campaign began to falter, the 36-County Project had found effective leaders in some 22 of Oregon's 36 counties - including counties as remote from Portland as Harney and Coos.

The 36-County Project was, for me, a true introduction to my new home state.  I met people and learned things I could never have encountered in the quiet, privileged enclave of Cannon Beach.  

This spring, as I begin my campaign for the Oregon House of Representatives, the lessons of the 36-County Project remain with me. My perception of Oregon is of a state dominated by one great metropolis, two allied cities, and a single political party.  And I certainly relate to the sense that many Oregonians - in most of the 36 counties - have of being unrepresented in halls of their own legislature.

This year, I'm running as a non-party candidate - my natural position for a pragmatic centrist in a polarized, two-party world.  My campaign will necessarily focus on the one issue that motivated me to run - the climate crisis, and the failure of the two-party system to address that crisis.  But that failure strikes me that as symptomatic of the polarized red-blue division in our state and nation. 

And that division - so long as it persists - will present an almost insurmountable obstacle to developing the sort of civic dialogue and united effort required to save our planet from the worse impacts of planetary heating.

This year, I have made myself this promise:  During my campaign fir the Oregon House, I will present a plan to reform the way in which Oregonians elect members of that house.  This plan - while it would be innovative in the United States - has been time-tested abroad.  It is based on a model political scientists term parallel voting, and its great advantage is that it would assure that virtually every Oregonian - no matter where they live - will end up voting for someone who goes to Salem - and who speaks for both their political views and their region. 

In the next week, I'll post an outline of this plan.  I hope you'll check back, read the plan, and think it over.   

Your feedback will be most welcome.

Lincoln Green: The Party America Lacks

 

For many years, I have avoided this - hoping that someone younger, or better-known, or with more national political experience - would take up the challenge.  But the sands of time are running, and at 70 - with our Republic in the midst of a genuine struggle against both internal and external forces of autocracy, and with our planet approaching a crisis unlike any humankind has yet faced - it seems I have no valid excuse not to try. 

The challenge to which I refer is the creation of a third political party - positioned approximately where progressive Republicans stood before they became extinct.  A party of the broad center.  A party which is proudly nationalist - inclusively nationalist - rather than tribal.  A party which is firmly committed to the Constitution, and to the vision of the Founders who created that surprisingly durable charter. 

And a party - above all - which accepts the existential challenge of the climate crisis and is prepared to attack its causes; work toward reversing its dire advance; and, while that struggle goes forward, directs all of our modern ingenuity toward programs of adaptation and resilience.

And, because meeting the climate crisis will require a level of civic unity desperately lacking in our nation at present - a party committed to bringing Americans together, even when that means occasionally knocking a few heads together.  The time for tolerating foolishness and falsehood are over.  There is too much to do.  

To be perfectly honest, it is the climate crisis that motivates me - at this age - to bestir myself.  Great nations - as great empires - rise and fall.  If it were just a matter of seeing my country speeding toward the precipice, I might have shrugged in resignation and contented myself with the historian's perspective: Nothing lasts forever.

But the climate crisis is something different.  It represents the potential end of human life - perhaps not the life part, so much as the human part.  For we are not a species set apart.  We are part of an evolutionary generation of species - those life-forms which emerged after the last great extinction - and our very identity is bound up with those other species with whom we co-evolved.  I am sure that - if global heating reaches an extreme stage - some relatively small collections of our descendents might be able to live on in desert domes on this planet, or in subsurface tunnels on Mars, or perhaps on some moon of Saturn. 

But to my mind, they will soon cease to be truly human.  Detached from the world in which we evolved - the flora and fauna of our native planet - they will devolve into an impoverished, degenerate species.  I wonld not want to be one of them.  Better to die with my planet, and my evolutionary classmates.

Now, here I must pause - because the sort of dreadful future I am imagining is probably a century off, at least.  And really, I believe there is yet time for us to come to our senses, recognize the threat of global heating for what it is, and take rigorous steps to meet that threat. 

In another decade, rigorous might not suffice.  At some point, if we procrastinate enough, only very drastic steps will be sufficient.  At some point, what is necessary might be so unacceptable that humankind simply chooses to surrender to its fate.

I'm an optimist.  I think we will wake up in time, rediscover our innate, human capacities for collective action and self-sacrifice, and save both ourselves and most of our fellow species from the worst.

But to do so will take action.  Not in a few years.  Now.

And this brings me back around to where I began.  I do believe humankind can rise to the challenge of global heating.  But I do not believe we can do it without the leadership of the United States.  And I do not believe the United States can do it under the present two-party system.  That system has been broken for generations.  It is barely capable of adopting a budget, increasing the debt ceiling, and counting the Electoral vote for the next President.

It is certainly incapable of summoning its people to the sort of resolute action which overcame the Great Depression, won the Second World War, and put humans on the Moon.

Perhaps, with luck, some younger, brighter, more energetic spirits will find me in the wilderness, and adapt my thoughts into a sharp, practical weapon with which to meet the present crisis.  I'd prefer to help and advise, rather than - as King Henry put it - "crush [my] old limbs in ungentle steel" and take the field in my 70s.

With that off my chest, here is my point in a nutshell:  The United States needs a third party - and we need it now.  

The problem with making this case is simple.  Most Americans have an intuitive belief that a two-party system is the way it's supposed to be; or the way it has always been; or even what the Founding Fathers intended.

In point of fact, most of us have believed one or another of these things since we studied American Government in our last year of high school - which, sadly, is the last time most of us systematically studied government at all.  Which means that - for the great majority of us - acceptance of the two-party system is an unexamined aspect of what we perceive as American political life.

Which is unfortunate, if we recall what Socrates - at the supreme crisis of his life - said about the unexamined life.

In a recent post, I delved into into why so many of us assume that the two-party system exists due to some law of nature - and argued my case that the United States - having produced one extremely successful third party - could do so again, under similar circumstances.

I think of this third party as the Commonwealth Party, but that choice is not finally mine.  For now, I think of it as a color - not red or blue, but Lincoln Green, the color worn by Robin Hood and his Merry Men.  It's a lovely, sprightly color - and the words Lincoln and Green say most of what really needs to be said about this hopeful new party.

For the next nine months - if I stay healthy - I will take the first steps toward creating such a party.  I'll write about it, here and elsewhere.  And, as a candidate for the Oregon Legislative Assembly, I'll work to bring together a merry band of citizens in my own corner of my adopted state - perhaps to be the mustard seed from which great things grow.

Impossible?

 

It is a commonplace of American politics that third parties can never succeed.  Editorialists, op-ed columnists, talking heads - even political scientists (who should know better) - insist that, for constitutional, institutional, and other reasons, third parties cannot succeed. 

Which would be tragic, if it were true, because today's Republican and Democratic parties are manifestly dangerous and useless, respectively.  The Democratic Party hasn't been good at governing since Lyndon Johnson doubled down on JFK's early investment in Vietnam.  The Republicans - at least since Ronald Reagan pronounced government "the problem" don't believe in governing.  

Tragic if it were true.  But of course, it isn't.  The United States has had one extraordinarily successful political party.  It sprang into existence in the aftermath of President Franklin Pierce signing the Kansas-Nebraska Act on May 30, 1854.  That chief effect of that law - sponsored by Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas - was to repeal the Missouri Compromise, which had banned slavery in all US territories north of latitude 36°30'.

For 34 years, the Missouri Compromise Line had made it possible for Congress to admit new states in pairs - one slave, one free - thus maintaining a sectional balance in the Senate.  Both North and South could live with that, and America was thus free to grow richer, prouder, more populous, and ever more confident of its destiny.

But when the Line disappeared, it suddenly became possible to imagine slavery expanding both westward and northward.  This proved too much for many in both parties, including an impressive number of professional politicians - governors, senators, congressmen, even skilled political operatives. 

Within months, in most Northern states, fusion or anti-Nebraska parties had formed.  Former Whigs and Democrats - men who had been bitter partisan enemies - embraced each other (if cautiously) and vowed to work together to restore the sacred Line. 

That summer, the anti-Nebraska partyu in Michigan had adopted the name Republican.  Within two years, Republican parties were fielding candidates in every free state, and a national convention had chosen John C. Fremont as the first Republican candidate for President of the United States.

In 1858, the Illinois Republican Party nominated Abraham - a former state legislator and one-term Congressman - for the US Senate.  Lincoln would challenge Stephen Douglas, author of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.  Though Douglas eventually won re-election, the seven debates between the two candidates - reported throughout the nation - made Lincoln a credible candidate for President in 1860.

In 1858, the Republican Party gained control of the House of Representatives.  Two years later, Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States.  When he took office, on March 4, 1861, his party - so recently a third party - was less than seven years old.   It held the White House and the House of Representives.  Within months, as Senators from seceding states withdrew from Congress, the Republican Party controlled the Federal government.

How was this possible, in a nation where third parties never succeed?

A detailed analysis would require a great deal of study.  Perhaps the best single-volume history of the period is David M. Potter's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861 (posthumously completed by his colleaguek Don E. Fehrenbacher.)

But in brief, the circumstances which made it possible for a third party to rise to dominance in a few years' time were three:

First, the defection of serious political professionals from two long-established major parties was motivated by their genuine outrage over their parties' failure to address an issue of imperative moral importance - the expansion of slavery.

Second, in addition to its moral opposition to slavery, the new party united around an ambitious economic program which would transform the United States into the most powerful economy on the planet.  This program involved the rapid expansion of farming and ranching into the West, providing food for the growing industrial cities of the East and Midwest by means of a new, transcontinental railroad network.  All would be financed by a national banking system.

Third the new party which closed the West to slavery - while opening it to small farms and ranches - was strongly nationalistic - in contrast to the Whigs and Democrats, both riven by sectionalism.

This was the formula for the Republicans' unique success:  a profound moral imperative, closely allied to a timely economic transformation, both pursued in a spirit of renewed national unity.

Today, at a time of growing disunion and societal breakdown, we confront a parallel opportunity.  The great moral imperative of our time is to assure the survival of our planet as a place of habitation for humankind - and many other species which whom we have co-evolved since the last great extinction.  To this moral imperative is linked the overdue transfromation of our economy from one based on excessive consumption, easy credit, and fossil fuels to a new economy of security, sustainability, thrift, and human dignity.

Neither of the two existing parties seems remotely capable of leading America in achieving these twin goals.  If a third party is not possible, 

If a third party is not possible, our once-great nation is doomed to decline - at a time when the planet desperately needs our leadership.

But first, a third party is necessary - a third party which can rapidly become the leading party in the nation.  

Impossible?  We will never know, unless and until we try.

For 2021: Only Connect

 
Those who know me from my newspaper column in the Chester Village News will recall that I have little patience with New Year's resolutions.  I've long believed that, as evolved primates, we remain largely governed by nature's rhythms - which would suggest that the shortest days of the year are a poor time to undertake changes requiring a lot of energy and physical effort. 

Thus, the predictable failure of January gym memberships, which run flat contrary to our caveman bodies' inclination to store fat and get more sleep during the winter.  (Recent scientific evidence that some of our forebears actually hibernated would only have bolstered my past arguments.)  Thus, in my column, I argued for making health-related resolutions at the beginning of the pagan "new year" - at the vernal equinox.

But today, in the waning days of the presidency of Florida Man #1*, I'm going to break a personal rule - to suggest a New Year's resolution to friends who care about the future of this country as a democratic republic in a world which seems, once again, to be tilting toward autocracy.  Here it is:

This year, I will learn (or re-learn) a modern language to the point of reasonable fluency.

Now, you can take this suggestion literally, or metaphorically.  You can learn a literal language - or learn how people who don't think as you do express themselves about contemporary issues.  Either will do.  Both would be outstanding.

What I'm suggesting is that we who care about the future of this country - as a government of laws, based on popular consent - need to get out of our bubbles, or silos, or whatever, and learn to communicate with people who don't share our worldview.  Those people could be fellow citizens whom we tend to regard as the unenlighted foe - or citizens of other democracies we should regard as potential allies in a global struggle for democracy.  Either is fine.

Remaining quietly in one's privileged, middle-class American bubble is not fine.

And the good thing is - adopting this resolution will not be nearly as challenging as losing twenty pounds, or getting in three days a week of cardio.  For one thing, it won't be involve a lot of physical effort at a season when we'd prefer to be snacking and napping.  Mental effort, yes.  But winter's not a bad time for mental effort.

For another thing, it won't be - like health-related resolutions - a form of maintenance work.  Americans tend to hate maintenance work, because we are culturally habituated to acquiring new things.  That's a feature of late-stage corporate consumer capitalism.  (More on that in future posts.)  But it's a fact that most of us vaguely resent doing repairs, mowing the lawn, weeding the flowerbeds, or doing the laundry.  We're wired for new.  We're wired to buy.  Maintenance is frustrating.  You do it today, you'll have to do it again in a week, or a month, or next year.

I suspect that's another reason health-related New Year's resolutions are so difficult.  We dislike maintenance - especially when what we're maintaining is starting to run down - which, for anyone out of their teens or early twenties, includes our bodies.  We'd prefer to buy new - which probably explains the growing popularity of evangelical religion in our country.  Go to Heaven, get a new body - and one that doesn't require maintenance.  

Again, a subject for future posts.

The nice thing about a learning-oriented resolution is that it is - in a very real sense - acquisitive.  Learning a new language feels like progress, not maintenance.  So maybe - just maybe - learning something new would work as a New Year's resolution.  

At any rate, I suggest it's worth a try.  

So why a new language?

Well, in the case of an actual language, it's really good for the brain.  It's pretty well-established that people who are reasonably fluent in two languages are more imaginative and intellctually flexible than those who are trapped in one.  Every language represents a different way of seeing the world.  I used to have fun - as a substitute teacher - explaining to French students how reflexive verbs express how the French enjoy an entirely more comfortable  relationship with their bodies than our rather detached, vaguely hostile one.  That was one of those lessons that really seemed to reach students - and it wasn't even in my field.

But I digress.  (Yes, I do that.)

Back at the beginning of this piece, I suggested that learning a language could be a patriotic duty - and I'd like to wrap this up by circling back to that idea.

In 2019, when I was campaigning for Liz Warren, I gradually realized how few of her supporters - mostly privileged, white liberals - had the language skills to communicate with Oregon's substantial Hispanic communities.  A year later, after the too-close election just passed, I shared the dismay of many at Joe Biden's loss of support in Hispanic communities - particularly, and perilously, in Florida's Cuban community.

And it occurred to me:  If I were a Democrat, at the birth of 2021, I would be starting a Spanish-language project among activists in my local party.  Before we know it, 2022 will be here - and the Hispanic vote will be critical to Democrats in holding the House and trying to gain an actual majority in the Senate. 

Since it's useless to start learning a new language a few months before the campaign season begins, now is the time - and in most of the US, Spanish is the language - for political activists who want to forestall the Return of Florida Man #1 - or someone like him - in four years.

Now, for those more interested in policy than in ground-game politics, other languages than Spanish could be equally useful.  Over the past year, the United States has demonstrated just how far behind the rest of the developed democracies we have fallen.  Take a look at the global statistics on Covid-19 (worldometer.com is a useful site), and you'll see just how miserably we have done, by almost every measure.

And yes, a lot of that has to do with Florida Man #1 being in the White House.  But it also has much to do with our national allergy to learning from other countries - especially a non-English-speaking countries.

This American affliction of We're-Number-One-ism severely hampers our ability to solve problems.  Americans seem to think we have to re-invent every imaginable wheel, when in fact, there is much to be borrowed from the successes of friendly nations.  Finland's approach to elementary education.  The French approach to health care.  The emerging Spanish approach to taming urban automotive traffic.  The Dutch approach to including bicycles in the urban transportation mix.  The German approach to a whole lot of things (including electing their national legislature).

I should include some ideas from Asia here, but I'm woefully ignorant about Asia's democracies.  We could all learn more.  Asia is on my list for 2021.

Now, at the top of this post, I referred to the possibility of learning another "language" in a metaphorical sense - i.e., learning to communicate with fellow Americans who see things differently, but who aren't downright hostile to our own points-of-view.  They're out there.  I'd be willing to bet that half the people who voted for the Florida Man #1 can't stand him.  

They just dislike the Democratic Party even more.  It would be useful to understand why.

But this piece is getting long - and I've been away from this blog too long to demand an endless read from those I'm trying to win back.  So I'll get back to learning metaphorical languages in a week or so.

Meanwhile, please, consider learning a literal second-language.  Or, if you can stand the maintenance work, getting back a language you used to know.  It's easier than it used to be.  The online apps are amazing - and many are free.  (If you need suggestions, leave a comment. I'll be happy to recommend some possibilities.)  

Think about it.  Happy New Year!  Bonne Année!

__________

* Florida Man #1:  One New Year's resolution I intend to work on is not speaking or writing the name of our out-going President, except when absolutely necessary.  He seems to thrive on attention - positive or negative.  It feels like using his name is a way of keeping him alive.  So I'm starting to refer to him as Florida Man #1.  It seems to fit.