We may be selling the original Manichaeism short — I wouldn’t know — but the word has come to refer to a way of looking at the world through a two-color prism that sorts everything and everyone into two piles — good/bad, right/wrong, light/dark, us/them. You might remember that Glenn Greenwald wrote an excellent book about Manichaeism in the Bush Administration. In short, looking at the world this way is a distortion of reality that lures people into doing terrible things in the name of Good.
Although Manichaeistic thinking is more pronounced on the Right, there’s a version of it common on the Left also. This is the view that sorts all Democratic politicians into one of two categories — they are either pure and noble defenders of the righteous liberal cause or blackhearted, corrupt sellouts to the moneyed Powers That Be. And while the default mood of righties is seething resentment, the default mood of lefties may be either annoying self-righteousness or deadening cynicism, or the two combined.
The recent much-discussed essay “Liberals Are Useless” by Chris Hedges is a good example. I have enjoyed much of Chris Hedges’s work over the years, but this essay could be an object lessons in How Progressives Marginalize Themselves. Although Hedges makes some valid points, too much of the essay amounts to his self-righteously lambasting “liberals” for not being liberal or cynical enough, and then proudly announcing that he remains pure because he voted for Ralph Nader.
Excuse me for being cynical, but I think Ralph Nader is useless, and cynics who vote for him are doubly so. It’s easy to stand outside the system and rail about how awful it is, which is all Nader does any more. Hell, I do it all the time. Ain’t nothin’ to it. But that’s about all progressivism did from the 1970s until very recently, and look how effective that was. As long as that’s all we do, nothing is going to change.
“Anyone who says he or she cares about the working class in this country should have walked out on the Democratic Party in 1994 with the passage of NAFTA,” Hedges says. In fact, with few exceptions progressive activists pretty much walked out on party politics altogether in the mid-1970s, and nobody noticed. It’s been only very recently that we’ve been putting our energies back into party politics, as opposed to standing around on street corners and handing out fliers for the cause du jour.
Whether we like it or not, the fact is that nothing gets done except through the system, and the system is two parties, and that’s how it’s going to be until we revise how we run elections. As I see it, we either play the game as it is or take our ball and go home. The former is going to be frustrating and messy, and we may fail. But if we do the latter, failure is certain.
I think the biggest problem we face right now is not that our political leaders aren’t as good as they used to be, but that the system is broken. This is bigger than just whether President Obama or Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid are trying hard enough. None of those people are beyond criticism, but simply carping at them as “sellouts” isn’t helping any of us.
Matt Taibbi’s Rolling Stone article “Obama’s Big Sellout” is a variation on the “It’s Obama’s Fault” meme that is currently popular on the Left. Brad DeLong — not exactly a rube — finds the piece riddled with errors, beginning with the positions on issues that Barack Obama took during the 2008 campaign. See also Tim Fernholz.
In a post called “Blame Obama First,” Matt Yeglesias explains that it’s the whole bleeping government, not just President Obama, that is not performing as hoped.
The implicit theory of political change here, that pivotal members of congress undermine reform proposals because of “the White House’s refusal to push for real reform†is just wrong. That’s not how things work. The fact of the matter is that Matt Taibbi is more liberal than I am, and I am more liberal than Larry Summers is, but Larry Summers is more liberal than Ben Nelson is. Replacing Summers with me, or with Taibbi, doesn’t change the fact that the only bills that pass the Senate are the bills that Ben Nelson votes for.
The problem here, to be clear, isn’t that lefties are being too mean to poor Barack Obama. The problem is that to accomplish the things I want to see accomplished, people who want change need to correctly identify the obstacles to change. If members of congress are replaced by less-liberal members in the midterms, then the prospects for changing the status quo will be diminished. By contrast, if members are replaced by more-liberal members (either via primaries or general elections) the prospects for changing the status will be improved. Back before the 2008 election, it would frequently happen that good bills passed congress and got vetoed by the president. Since Obama got elected, that doesn’t happen anymore. Now instead Obama proposes things that get watered down or killed in congress. That means focus needs to shift.
Michael Tomasky, writing for The Guardian:
Watching American politics through British eyes, you must be utterly mystified as to why Barack Obama hasn’t gotten this healthcare bill passed yet. Many Americans are too. The instinctive reflex is to blame Obama. He must be doing something wrong. Maybe he is doing a thing or two wrong. But the main thing is that America’s political system is broken.
How did this happen? Two main factors made it so. The first is the super-majority requirement to end debate in the Senate. The second is the near-unanimous obstinacy of the Republican opposition. They have made important legislative work all but impossible.
The super-majority requirement – 60 votes, or three-fifths of the Senate, to end debate and move to a vote on final passage – has been around since the 19th century. But it’s only in the last 10 to 15 years that it has been invoked routinely. Back in Lyndon Johnson’s day – a meaningful comparison since American liberals are always wondering why Obama can’t be “tough” like Johnson – the requirement was reserved for only the most hot-button issues (usually having to do with race). Everything else needed only 51 votes to pass, a regular majority.
Over the last several months, the right has come to believe that the president is a fascist/communist, intent on destroying the country, while at the same time, many on the left have come to believe the president is a conservative sell-out. The enraged right can’t wait to vote and push the progressive agenda out of reach. The dejected left is feeling inclined to stay home, which as it turns out, also pushes the progressive agenda out of reach. …
… Remember: nothing becomes law in this Congress unless Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman approve. Literally, nothing. That’s not an encouraging legislative dynamic, and it’s not within the power of the White House to change it.
It is within the power of voters to change it.
Obama has asked Congress to deliver on a pretty large-scale agenda. For all the talk about the president’s liberalism or lack thereof, the wish-list he’s presented to lawmakers is fairly progressive, and it’s not as if Obama is going to start vetoing bills for being too liberal.
But Congress isn’t delivering. The two obvious explanations happen to be the right ones: 1) for the first time in American history, every Senate bill needs 60 votes, which makes ambitious/progressive policymaking all but impossible; and 2) there are a whole lot of center-right Democratic lawmakers, which, again, makes ambitious/progressive policymaking that much more difficult.
I think Jane Hamsher is just flat-out wrong when she writes that a health care reform bill with no public option and no Medicare buy-in — what Joe Lieberman wants — is “giving Obama what he wanted anyway.” Yeah, that’s what most of the Kewl Kids are saying. But I think what Obama wanted is whatever reform he could get from Congress. And as Steve Benen says, Congress isn’t delivering. It can’t deliver, because it’s broken. Yeah, there are lots of things Obama could have done differently, but had he done any of those things we may have been no better off than we are now.
The relationship between progressive activists/bloggers and Democratic politicians is, um, dynamic. The same figures might be on the “bad” side on one issue (David Jay Rockefeller, warrantless wiretaps) and the “good” side on another (Jay Rockefeller, health care). Sometimes characters are re-cast in relation to other characters; for example, Hillary Clinton’s miraculous makeover from corporate sellout to champion of progressivism during the 2008 primaries.
But this has always been so. People are a lot messier and complicated than archetypes. Earl Warren became a champion of civil rights, but before he became a Supreme Court Justice he was one of the chief proponents of the Japanese Internment during World War II. Likewise, FDR — champion of progressivism that he was — was complicit in the internment and also made a deal with southern Dixiecrats that left African-Americans out of the New Deal. Harry Truman got his start in politics through a friendship with one of the most corrupt city bosses of all time.
And the moral is, if you’re looking for knights in shining armor, rent some movies.
Wonderful post, Maha.
Your posted missed something. Do you believe the system can be fixed?
Also, Glenn Greenwald. Is there anyone who has a more Manichean world view?
Do you believe the system can be fixed?
I don’t know. I fear things will have to get worse before they get better.
Maybe your most significant post of the year, Barbara. You describe dualism according to the Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy:
“The term ‘dualism’ has a variety of uses in the history of thought. In general, the idea is that, for some particular domain, there are two fundamental kinds or categories of things or principles. In theology, for example a ‘dualist’ is someone who believes that Good and Evil — or God and the Devil — are independent and more or less equal forces in the world. Dualism contrasts with monism, which is the theory that there is only one fundamental kind, category of thing or principle; and, rather less commonly, with pluralism, which is the view that there are many kinds or categories.”
Two prominent Republicans spoke at Ted Kennedy’s memorial service. TK got beyond dualism in politics and sometimes found common ground and compromise. That didn’t make him less liberal nor did he make McCain or Hatch less conservative. But he broke out of the mode of dualism and sometimes got things done.
I WAS so looking forward to joining Starfleet. Now – Not So Much – Maybe there’s a brown-shirt equivalent. Hebrews for Hitler or something like that
http://wonkette.com/412712/this-is-an-official-air-force-commercial
Thanks for answering. Kind of a more abstract issue: if you decide it can’t, what’s the proper action for a Buddhist?
Unfortunately – they’d like to “Take Their County Back” and I’d really rather like to go live in Toronto – so I’d better go stock up on long undies.
Can the system be fixed? Of course – anything can be fixed. Depends upon how much you want to spend. Sometimes you are a tear down, sometimes you are a fixer upper.
maha,
I’m guilthas charged. But still, there’s ways the Dem’s could show they’re serious. One would be to kick Joe Lie out of his Homeland Security post. Harry, “Joe’s with us on everything except the Iraq War,” is wrong. Joe’s with us on exactly NOTHING I’ve seen recently. Start there, and it’ll go a long way with me. I need some motivation for 2010 besides just the horror of the alternative. Wait, that IS my motivation… OK, I can’t not do anything with the idea of the Republicans winning anything back. I shudder at that thougtht
I’m not buying this idea that Obama is simply making necessary compromises. He’s sold us out completely. He hasn’t even tried to make the much-ballyhoed changes he hinted at in his campaign.
If he really wanted to offer us hope and change, his first act on taking up residence in the White House would have been twisting arms and bullying to pass a public campaign finance law. If lobbyist money could be kept out of the system, even Republicans might start acting responsibly.
Much as I hate to admit it, I think that Chris Hedges is right. Liberals are useless. Disclaimer: I voted for Obama, which makes me “useless” as well. Well, it’s a mistake that I won’t make again. I will simply will never vote for a Democrat for president again. I will vote third party, either for Nader if he runs, or for a Green Party candidate (though not Cynthia McKinney – her “slavery reparations” would put Republicans in control for the next 100 years).
I realize that the chances of a third party candidate actually getting elected are thin. Then again, by 2012 when the USA has become a true third world country like The Congo, we might see some real changes.
Either that, or the country may break up into pieces. Say “hello” to President Sarah Palin from The Republic of Alaska, and President Bra of The Republic of Georgia.
Darn computer just posted my above message before I could finish typing! The last line was supposed to be:
Say “hello†to President Sarah Palin from The Republic of Alaska, President Brad Pitt of San Francisco, and President Newt Gingrich of The Republic of Georgia.
Message to I’d like a revolution,
The high in Toronto today was 4C (that’s 39.2F)–more or less like NYC. Come on up, the weather’s fine.
We do have a prime minister who pines for George Bush, but we also have universal health care.
Can the system be fixed? I sure hope so. The Senate needs to make it so 50 votes plus the VP are all that is needed.
Unemployment seems to be the most immediate problem, but we absolutely must reduce, as a percent of GDP, the amount of money we spend on health care.
Changing the way we have elections – Instant runoff ballot counting at least would allow the Nader votes to revert to a progressive’s second choice.
This really pulls together many of my most recent troubling ideas and puts them into context. It does not make me any happier, just clearer on the big picture. Thanks. Having the problem defined makes it more approachable.
I happily voted for Obama (given Bush as the alternative) and would do so again. Having said that: Obama was in favor of the FISA amendments of August 2007, which were unnecessary. Bush couldn’t have got them passed without Obama and Pelosi’s enthusiastic cooperation, and these proved that Obama was willing to sell out on civil liberties when there wasn’t even any obvious pressure to do so. It was a pre-emptive sellout so as to inoculate against possible charges of being soft on terrorism, at best.
Furthermore, Obama supported TARP, which was again unnecessary. For those of you who are familiar with financial matters: the Treasury stabilized the financial system after Lehman Brothers went down, by guaranteeing money market funds in the same way that the FDIC guarantees savers’ deposits held by banks. The threat to the financial system at the time, was that people were withdrawing funds from money market accounts, and money market accounts finance commercial paper (short term loans to corporations). The cutoff of commercial paper financing is what threatened the system, and this problem was already solved by thet time then-Treasury Secretary Paulson proposed TARP. TARP was not needed, and had Obama stood up against TARP, it would not have happened. Surely we could have found a better longterm solution for the banking system, than TARP; the money fund guarantee bought us the time we needed to craft such a solution, had we only used it.
So, by the time he was elected, Obama had bought into needless represssive civil liberties legislation and equally needless subsidies for bankers. Through his actions he invalidated all his soaring rhetoric long before he took office.
Am I saying the current mess is all Obama’s fault? Certainly not. Am I picking up my ball and going home? No way. But Obama was craven from the beginning, and anyone who didn’t see that by last summer was willfully blind. Long before his election, he had committed Democrats to Republicans’ worst policies, and thereby set them in stone.
I’m not buying this idea that Obama is simply making necessary compromises. He’s sold us out completely. He hasn’t even tried to make the much-ballyhoed changes he hinted at in his campaign.
Um, actually he’s tried to make several of those changes. Health care reform comes to mind. I’m not saying he’s beyond criticism, not at all. I have criticized him myself. There are many things I wish he’d done differently. But there’s something pathological about seeing him as evil incarnate, whether you’re a conservative or a liberal.
But Obama was craven from the beginning, and anyone who didn’t see that by last summer was willfully blind. Long before his election, he had committed Democrats to Republicans’ worst policies, and thereby set them in stone.
Liberal Manichaeism writ large. Welcome to the crazy museum. I have a bell jar all ready for you.
I assume you meant Jay Rockefeller, not David.
Good article, Barbara.
“And the moral is, if you’re looking for knights in shining armor, rent some movies.”
I am taking up a collection so ozonehead & sunstroke to get them susscriptions to Netflix. The thing about elections is that you have to choose from the selections on the menu. In 2008 it was a selection between Obama & McCain.
In 2000 it was between Bush & Gore. And those who have more than a short-term memory know that isiots who threw away thier votes in FL on a 3rd party candidate as a ‘message’ got Bush elected.
There’s too much proof out there that foolishness is not limited to the GOP & Independents.
I used to think “Isn’t it wonderful that we have such a dysfunctional political system that we’ll never have a Fascist catastrophe like Hitler’s Germany.”
Then, GW Bush was elected. His administration managed to accomplish their agenda. There’s something deeply wrong in the Democratic Party.
I appears to me that if we have to have 60 votes to get something passed. We are in the same shape as California, or soon will be.
Sorry it should be it appears
I’ve seen the “It’s not Obama’s fault” trope for a while, now. The restoration of civil rights? The abolition of torture? It’s not Obama’s fault that he’s keeping the limitations created during the Bush administration; there are wars going on. The bank bailout minus any failsafes against the misuse of funds? Obama had a lot on his plate, and something needed to be done quickly. No closure to Gitmo? It’s a tough issue to press. Don’t ask, don’t tell? It’s a tough issue to press. The continued funding of religious-based institutions through the federal government, begun in the Bush years? Obama’s a religious man, cut him some slack. The continued presence of large numbers of ideologically driven DoJ lawyers in government? Obama’s got a lot on his plate.
After all a while, it begins to sound thin and scratchy. There are simply too many decisions that have been made at the highest level; and when they’re taken together, they reveal Obama for the cautious conservative he always was in Congress, not the pretend-liberal he was when he ran for President.
Arguing that he’s a pragmatist seems to be the latest version of “It isn’t Obama’s fault,” and if by pragmatist, we mean expending no political capital to gain nothing in turn, I suppose we can agree that it fits Obama well. I didn’t expect otherwise, and I didn’t vote for him, or for his befuddled Republican opponent. But I can easily understand why his supporters are now wondering what they’ve bought with their enthusiasm.
Balakirev — if you want to argue fault, you have to be specific. I don’t think Obama has any excuse on don’t ask don’t tell, I disagree with him on Afghanistan, but that doesn’t mean he deliberately sabotaged the public option. On most issues he has remained pretty close to what he campaigned on.
And, dude — Guantanamo is closing. The New York Times explained back in January why closing Gitmo would not be easy. I’m a bit disturbed by the attitude that says that since he didn’t accomplish the closure within ten minutes of taking office, he’s selling us out.
You’re doing exactly what I’m talking about — you’re assuming that Obama is either all good or all bad. Liberal Manichaeism.
Good article, maha. That 60 vote thing in the Senate is a puzzler unless of course it’s an ‘out’ for liberal Dems (or anyway the face they present to their liberal constituents) who can hide behind the 60 vote requiremet – “I tried to get meaningful health care reform, but to no avail.” They keep their liberal credentials while at the same time not deep-sixing their health industry benefactors who finally only look at results, not at who made them happen.
“You can’t repeat history” is NOT a bromide. If Obama had done this, or that, or not this, or not that, what are facing us today would have been different and definitely better reminds me of the specious argument that Roosevelt’s New Deal not only prolonged the Depression, it made it much worse – as if we could rerun those years and prove it.
From “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxyâ€
Substitute your favorite in place of “Sirius Cybernetics Corporationâ€
“The Encyclopedia Galactica fell through a wormhole in time, and its entry for the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation is “a bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came.â€
How true is THIS:
“Thus the president and the entire executive branch’s purpose is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it. But only a handful of people know this fact, and only six of them know who actually wields power.â€
You’re doing exactly what I’m talking about — you’re assuming that Obama is either all good or all bad. Liberal Manichaeism.
With respect, Maha–and I mean that, because you’re an eloquent spokesperson for my views 99% of the time–I think you’re guilty of Manichaeistic tarring of those who have carefully watched Obama’s performance in office for some time. I think you’re confusing coming to conclusions after a careful weighing of evidence with an un-nuanced, jump-in-and-start-shooting POV.
I can only reply that my remarks turn to his record; and that while I am impressed by Obama’s intelligence, hard work, his clarity of expression, and his incremental repairs to government in small, largely internal respects, he has not impressed me with his continuing desire to find consensus where there is none (Wall Street being the most heinous example), nor his human rights record–here, at home–nor his unwillingness to expend political clout in favor of hot issues. If this means you’ll point a finger at me and extend a label, go ahead, but I think we both know it’s a label that fools no one and means nothing. I’ll give you Gitmo. How about the rest of the litany, above? I don’t think it can be explained away. In sum it is the portrait of a cautious, relatively conservative president, however you or I choose to judge him.
I think you’re guilty of Manichaeistic tarring of those who have carefully watched Obama’s performance in office for some time. I think you’re confusing coming to conclusions after a careful weighing of evidence with an un-nuanced, jump-in-and-start-shooting POV.
I don’t agree with Obama all the time, and I didn’t agree with him all the time during the campaign. But I agree with him sometimes. I think sometimes he’s doing the best he can, and sometimes he isn’t. That’s “a careful weighing of evidence.” Claiming he is always wrong and never intended to do anything other than wrong is “an un-nuanced, jump-in-and-start-shooting POV.”
If the shoe fits, etc.
I think you are dead wrong on this post, maha. You don’t continue to support a broken system by supporting the least-bad party, which is the Democrats. You work your fingers to the bone to eliminate the problem. As ozonehole notes above, I am also done with the Democrats. I am voting either Green or the Socialist Workers Party in the next election. Frank Zappa said that “government is the entertainment arm of the military/industrial complex”. Until we shut down the complex completely, we are all screwed royally. I will no longer support Obama and the left wing of the Corporatist Party.
I am voting either Green or the Socialist Workers Party in the next election.
Pointless. Your vote will be irrelevant and will change nothing. We are stuck with two parties until we change the way we run elections, and we will only be able to change the way we run elections from within the two parties. Catch 22? Pretty much, but it’s reality.
Republicans have turned all political/policy conversations into a discussion of failure. You know…everything is part of some free market model which will tell us when something is not working because it will fail. No Child Left Behind is a perfect example. They tested all the children and sure enough many failed. Solution, close the school and replace with a charter school. We have been doing the charter thing for over 25 years and to date there still is no change in outcomes…the graduation rate no real improvemnt. But, have you noticed our public schools have always produced world class athletes. We make sure the athletes have access to a medical professional (trainer). We keep the school open later so they can practice. We maintain special facilities (field to play on weight room), and if the district is rich enough a training table at lunch time. If our public schools can produce world class athletes, why can’t we graduate LPN’s or young people qualified to drive at least 3 commercial vehicles? The only way to make the system work is to drown out all this talk about failure with success.
Actually we will only be able to change things after the country collapses fro republican misrule and a lot of people die. This is what I now believe.
Actually we will only be able to change things after the country collapses fro republican misrule and a lot of people die. This is what I now believe.
I fear you are right. It’s all just going to get worse and worse until the breakdown is so total there is no other option but change. Whether anything of value can be salvaged then is another question.
@MN Pundit – Maybe the Northern half of the country could be annexed by Canada. I for one, welcome our new Canadian overlords.
You know maybe if we elected a congress of ADULTS instead of five year old children things would get better. I’m waiting for one of these asshats to curl up on the floor in the aisle and hold their breath until they turn blue.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/15/lieberman-liberal-enthusi_n_392887.html
In the conference room, the very first protester to speak said that if the country dissolved, he would move to the first state that seceded.
You heard it here first – Texas will probably be the capitol of the New Confederate States of America. Makes sense with Rick Perry and Dubya already there.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/12/15/tea-bag-bunning/#comments
Eh? Where in the United States constitution does it specify that there shall be only two parties? Are you saying that FPTP always results in two and only two parties? How is it then that (as I am quite certain you are already well aware) many other countries with FPTP nonetheless have more than two parties? How did one Senator win office without running as a member of either party? (Two Senators, if you count You-Know-Who.)
Prawn — the reason there are only two viable national parties in the U.S. has to do with mathematics and the winner-take-all way that we count “wins.” In most other countries, if 20 percentage of the voters vote for the Brown party, then the Brown party gets 20 seats in their parliament or congress or whatever they call it. Here, a party that wins only 20 percent of the vote gets nothing. For this reason, it is impossible for a third party to build recognition and support by building up a presence in parliament through many election cycles, which is what they do in other countries.
Further, in many other countries if one candidate fails to get a majority of votes, there’s an automatic run-off between the top vote-getters. Here, the person and party with the most votes wins everything, even if he gets just one more vote than the other candidates. For this reason, a third party candidate can only play the role of spoiler, splitting votes that might have gone to one candidate and handing the election to the other, often least favorite, candidate. Not even the great and much loved Teddy Roosevelt could break the pattern when he ran for president as a Bull Moose Progressive.
People have been bellyaching about the two-party system since the two parties were the Jacksonian Democrats and the Whigs, which was 170 years ago. A great many people have worked very hard to create viable third parties, probably more so in the 19th century than the 20th. Notice how well they succeeded.
In our history a few “third” parties have factored into local and regional politics for a while, but eventually the minority parties get re-absorbed back into the Big Two. On a national level, the only time a new party succeeded was after the collapse of the Whigs left the Jacksonian Democrats the only existing national party. Yes, once in a very great while an individual senator or congressmen is elected outside of the two parties, but most of the time there’s something about that election that makes it atypical..
So we have 170 years of people trying and failing to create a viable third party in the United States, because of the way we hold elections. At this point it’s safe to say we are locked into a two-party system until we change the way we run elections. I don’t like it either, but that’s reality.
More more explanation, try this.
I wouldn’t agree that the system is broken, It is the same system that the right worked within to get tax cuts and part-D passed. I would argue that some of the folks in charge (Harry Reid) just don’t understand the system. He has managed to let the publicants get away with the 60 vote thing like that’s just the way it always has been. As Tomansky points out this was a rare occurrence over the senate’s history. Harry is just a weak leader, he projects anemic weakness in his manner, his results do not add up and frankly he is just a pussy (for lack of a better word). When the democrats threatened a filibuster of Bu$hco’s judges the right -wing sprang into action prominent senators where all over the cables and networks decrying the filibuster and crying anti-democratic, the founding fathers, etc.. Have we heard anything from Kerry, Durbin, Feinstein or Reid himself about this filibuster? Very little, so again the system sucks the liberals just need someone running the senate who knows how to make it not suck so bad.
Tip of the hat to all the parrot heads out there. It’s always five o’clock somewhere.
Let’s go back to the seventies. Because anytime is better than the decade from hell
http://www.hulu.com/watch/4173/saturday-night-live-carter
I SO wanted to find a clip of this on you tube OR somewhere out there. But alas no. I remember this Saturday Night Live skit like it happened yesterday. Jimmy Carter was elected and from there we go to this:
Jimmy Carter: [from off screen] I’m gonna tell ya, Ralph, this is gonna be the greatest party this union has ever seen. [clears throat, returns in gray Confederate army uniform, whips out sword, “Dixie” plays in background] My people have been waiting a hundred and ten years … [Nader is stunned] … for this triumphal march of the Confederacy to Washington. Finally, the flagrant rape of the Confederacy by the Yankee war dogs is gonna be avenged. …
[moves aside a red drape on the wall behind him to reveal a map of the U.S. dotted with symbols of planes, tanks, etc.] On Wednesday night, the Fifth Division of the Georgia National Guard … – that is, the Lillian Carter wing – in tanks and armored personnel carriers, rolls north through the Carolinas. It splits here at Raleigh into a pincer-claw, to be complemented by the George Wallace Tactical Air Wing of the Confederate Air Force. … The 20th Armored Group, led by five-time NASCAR winner Cale Yarborough … will roll through Kentucky and West Virginia on to battle emplacements here on the Shenandoah River.
Ralph, they whipped us bad at Raleigh — and at Vicksburg and Memphis and Shiloh and Appomattox. Do you know that Sherman ran a swath through Georgia fifty miles wide? Fifty miles of the choicest, most beautiful peanut country in the Confederacy. … On the night of the 20th, the Tactical Assault Brigade of the Greg Allman Land-Sea Brigade will seize and burn Washington. The zero-based budgeting I have proposed will help me revalidate Confederate currency. [lets out with a rebel yell] YAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH YAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Maha:
I appreciate the effort you took to compose your thorough reply, but I am afraid I must reiterate that your premise of your argument is simply false. First-past-the-post (FPTP), the system you explicated admirably above, does not preclude the existence of more then two parties; this is simply not true as a matter of historical fact.
Look through the results of Canadian federal elections over the past six decades.
Through this entire time period, Canada used the first-past-the-post electoral system, the very same system the U.S. uses now. At no point were there fewer than three parties in contention. In the decades following WWII, the norm was four, running the full gamut from Left (Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, later the New Democratic Party) to Right (Social Credit), with the centre-Left Liberal Party and the centre-Right Progressive Conservative Party filling out the middle.
Until the Bloc Québécois made its appearance in 1991, all were broad-based national parties, so this is not some anomaly attributable to Canadian regionalism.
So please, do not appeal to the necessity of some sort of voting reform before establishing a new political party. There is no such necessity.
So please, do not appeal to the necessity of some sort of voting reform before establishing a new political party. There is no such necessity.
The United States has many volumes of election law — yes, written to keep the status quo entrenched — that differs from Canada’s. Your example proves nothing.
If you knew American history at all, you would know that many people have really tried very hard since the 1830s to establish a multiple party system in the U.S., and they have always failed. Yet in every generation, people look around and say, oh, let’s try something different! Let’s start a third party! As if it has never been tried before.
Well, it has been tried before. A lot. It always fails. If you want to waste your time that’s your business, but don’t ask me to applaud.
From the Everything2 link you gave:
I feel oddly unconvinced.
What is it then? It’s not first-past-the-post voting, and none of the other reasons given at Everything2 seem applicable to the Canadian example. So which laws, specifically, account for the difference?
Prawn — Canada has a bleeping parliamentary system, for pity’s sake. Please, stop wasting my time.
I don’t see what about the Westminster system makes such comparisons invalid.
Would you then accept, as precedent, nations with a FTFP voting system and Madisonian style democracy?
I don’t see what about the Westminster system makes such comparisons invalid.
Then you’re an idiot. There are huge differences between the way parliamentary systems and our system works. Look it up. I don’t have time to do research for you.
Good bye.
Maha – respectfully, you are simply wrong and have a defeatist attitude on this. People simply need to leave the Democratic Party in droves. A strong articulate well-financed 3rd party candidate could win. Remember there used to be a Whig Party and it became extinct. The Democrats should as well.
Sam — As I explained to someone else this week, progressive activists left the Democratic Party in droves back in the 1970s, which helped bring in the Age of Reagan. Let’s not make that mistake again. Also, third parties cannot win in the United States on a national level, for reasons I am tired of explaining, but it has to do with arithmetic and the way we hold elections. Can’t be done, ain’t gonna happen, get over it. The Dems are all we’ve got, like it or not.
If a party were to become extinct like the Whigs, why would you want it to be the Democrats? Why not the Republicans?
Pingback: The Mahablog » Scorched Earth Politics
It’s not possible to have a third party?
No, it is not possible, until we change the way we hold elections. And since the 1830s whenever a political faction has broken off to form a third party it has handed the next election to its worst enemies. It is inevitable.
Maha – respectfully, you are simply wrong and have a defeatist attitude on this.
No, I am right because that’s how it is.
This discussion is now over. Don’t bring it up again.