An independent movement dedicated to shifting from winner-take-all to proportional representation in legislative elections might be able to resurrect it.
In “first past the post” the voters get a clear and unambiguous signal. An “up” or “down” on the party in power. Proportional representation takes that away and dilutes the mandate. It gives leftist institutions, like the media, first mover power to determine what a compromise coalition will look like. What issues will be dropped (border security and abortion) and what will be kept (climate justice). That’s why leftists hate first past the post and advocate for proportional representation.
We won’t always be so polarized. History shows that leftism always burns itself out, at which point left-liberals and classical liberals pick up the pieces and start building again.
"People who cling to a fading notion of partisanship often assert that political independence is a youthful phase and that people’s party affinities deepen with age."
I'm 67 and I find the mindless partisanship emanating from both parties repellent.
We're back to History, John. The structure of U.S. politics, which Democrat Martin Van Buren created in the 1820s based on rewarding party loyalty/votes with jobs, has been in place now for 200 years. It simply can't change. The single member district/winner take all, you're right, does force voters toward the middle. But history also shows that proportional representation is an even bigger disaster. France has had SEVEN governments in the time we had one.
But the other problem---one for both parties---is that THEY allowed Congress to become entirely irrelevant. Between the "nibble around the edges" people who don't want to solve problems and the "mavericks" like McCain who kept screwing up real reform, just in terms of partisanship and lethargy nothing significant can pass. But the bigger problem is the speed of the world. It simply has moved way past 535 people debating stuff endlessly. The public won't stand for that anymore. That is why Trump appeals to so many---he CAN get past this sclerosis. Now, the Constitutional side of me hates what this has become, but the realist in me says, "Maybe this is what is supposed to happen, given the speed of decision making?"
You're right about Congress abdicating its authority and not keeping up. I do feel people are over only two stale party choices but structural reform is not at all easy for the historical reasons you cite (plus inertia). Would be a generational change.
Very mixed feelings on the Unitary Executive theory. Maybe it's needed given the sclerosis in the bureaucracy, but there should be a professional civil service.
I wonder if the geniuses who run the Democratic Party even begin to realize just how close to that cliff they are standing. If the economy hangs in there in early '28 and Vance is elected, between that and what's coming after the '30 census the Democrats will be looking at an 8-1 Supreme Court and a political environment that should right now make their blood run cold.
The best comparison is 1869 to 1933, a 64-year period that, Woodrow Wilson (the most virulent racist of any president) aside, was thoroughly dominated by the Republicans. They should be aggressively tacking toward the center like they did in the late 1980s, but they aren't doing so.
You know, here we have Archie Bunker Trump, the Rodeo Clown from Queens, who the "progressives" think is an idiot. Really? I think the guy is a god damned magician. He has gotten the Democrats on the side of the drug cartels, Maduro, and the Iranian mullahs, along with communist mayors in New York City and Seattle, not to mention the disasters in Chicago, L.A., Minneapolis, and Portland.
Oh yeah, that Trump is a real dummy. By the way, at wholesale, eggs are down 96% since March, when liberals were complaining about it. Ha!
If the Democrats lose in '28 then the left-liberals will either take back the party, or start a new one (I hope it's the latter). The leftists will go the way of segregations, bitter old people believing until they die that they were right and the country has made a huge mistake.
I think it would even be the death throes of leftism entirely. A 270 year movement suddenly dying. The communists genuinely believed they were making utopia. Khrushchev stared down Nixon and proclaimed "We will bury you."
Do contemporary leftists actually think they are creating utopia? Doubtful. It seems clear that they are a wounded animal trying to find a hole to curl up and die in, and bring down Western civilization with them. They aren't even trying to build.
Whether or not you realize it, you advanced a "final victory" thesis. There are no final victories, even when there are emperors. The pendulum swings. I just want to see it swing further to the right in the next 2-1/2 years, after which it will swing even further given the census and reapportionment. I want to see the "progressives" humiliated, but I will not predict it right now.
Fellow Charm City resident and former active member of the Libertarian party here in Maryland. I can only speak for Maryland, but the MD Democratic Machine is masterful at thwarting any competing third party. After maybe the 5th election cycle of having viable candidates who were unable to get on the ballot until some magical 10,000 signature threshold is crossed, I gave up.
Election after election, the Libertarian has been forced to band together with the Green party to sue/petition for ballot access. We'd usually win, after exhausting time and money. They ALWAYS set the bar just high enough to maintain farcical deniability.
I believe in liberty and am a libertarian before I'm a Libertarian. But I'm tapped out and refuse to participate. Fuck these guys, fuck their system.
By the way, there is no officially recognized Libertarian party in MD anymore. They decertified us.
I used to recoil when some mainstream candidate would blame the Libertarian or Green party voters about causing their loss. Now, I take pride in it. Somehow, we are to "blame" for Hillary losing, Obama winning, Trump winning, Biden winning, Biden losing, Trump re-rising.
Hey here's an idea, take your two party party and shove it up your two party asses. They have the exact system they want.
I think you're right that it will take a cult of personality Ross Perot type. Qualifications don't matter. Ideas don't matter. Legitimacy doesn't matter. The democratic process is a joke. As reality show host turned President of the United States has shown, the low-information allure of celebrity is the only thing capable of motivating enough to citizens to pierce the firewall the system has built for itself.
“ the low-information allure of celebrity is the only thing capable of motivating enough to citizens to pierce the firewall the system has built for itself.”
Keep in mind that high information voters believe that women have penises* and that life doesn’t actually start at conception. 50 years ago (and today), the highest information voters were confident that communism was superior to capitalism. The horrors of the 20th century like communism and eugenics were created by high information voters.
As Orwell said; “ One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe [absurd] things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.”
Dan Kahan has backed this up empirically. Studies show that more numerate people are better at understanding counter-intuitive results such Bayesian statistics in the chance of having a disease (a classic behavioral economics “gotcha”). But more numerate people are actually less accurate when the answer goes against their bias. Intelligent people use their intelligence to create a delusional architecture around them being right. We all remember smart liberals crowing about the Seltzer poll proving that Harris would win.
* Just today the best and brightest leftist lawyers are arguing before SCOTUS that it's impossible to define "woman."
The reality that must be faced is that the fracturing will continue until we once again have common values and goals, with only differing opinions on how to achieve them.
This is the problem. Today's Democratic Party (which I supported for 40 years) is doing a damn good imitation of hating this country and everything it has ever stood for. I haven't gone Republican mainly because "once burned twice shy," but I really want the Republicans to keep the House and then see Vance win in '28.
The way I am seeing it, if that happens then the Democratic Party will fall apart and be replaced, like the Whigs in the 1850s. From what I see, the Democrats are beyond repair. We need two strong, sensible parties. We now have maybe three-quarters of one in the Republicans, and next to nothing in the Democrats. They need to be replaced.
It’s sad to see what’s happened to the Democrats. A single party system is dangerous, and so is a system split into multiple factions. 2 parties seems the best alternative. But the minimum requirement is that both parties are sane. I’m a conservative, but I would welcome a return to sanity on the left. Please, rejoin us on Planet Earth.
I couldn't agree more. One-party systems are always corrupt, no exceptions that I know of. The Dems could help themselves and the country a while lot by diving into health care financing, but they won't even do that. What in hell are they FOR? What are they offering the broad middle class? Nothing that I can see.
By the way, if things work out, their mindless opposition to Trump will come back to bite them, maybe as hard as the mindless opposition to Nixon did in 1972. Oh, but that's history, and "progressives" don't study that anymore. I'd add that, compared to 1972, there is not the same generational component that there was back then. Other way around, if anything. The youth, being rebels, are rebelling against their woke high school teachers these days. O! The horror!
Great conversation, but unfortunately, we do have a one-party system: both are in the pockets of lobbyists and will always just answer to their corporate overlords and "market forces." I'd like just one of them to make decisions that benefit ordinary people ONLY, and if we had a hundred proportionally representative parties, we probably wouldn't find one that managed to keep that promise. Ah, well - thanks to John Halpin for a great post!
Not sure our structure is nearly the problem of lousy leadership. Few of today's problems existed in 2020, just a few short years ago.
Biden was historical, in the same manner Carter transformed the country. Biden's failure, brought us back to Trump, whose ineloquent verbiage has failed to unite Americans. Just as a large portion of the US has decided they are perfectly happy to sacrifice American victims of entirely preventable crime, if it aids sinking Blue State populations and harms Tump.
Most importantly, a large chunk of the country has decided there is no need to wait until the next election, when years of multiple Impeachments and criminal charges might faster change leadership, with which, one disagrees. Now "protest" has morphed into to reckless and violent obstruction of federal officers. The pattern is rather easily identified.
A 3rd Party is possible, but we certainly do not want to emulate Europe where serious Brits discuss the next thing to an impending Civil War, the once stable and prosperous Germany swirls the drain, both economically and politically, while France's ungovernability has resulted in near economic collapse.
No matter how many political choices, disaster awaits, when citizens in a nation of laws, decide they are mere suggestions, if the person in the WH sports the other team's jersey.
"Not sure our structure is nearly the problem of lousy leadership. Few of today's problems existed in 2020, just a few short years ago."
I agree with the first part, but not the second. The rise of Wokism (AKA Critical Theory-derived leftism) is generally dated to Obama's second term in 2012. There are even good objective measures of this, such as the analysis of NY Times word usage, where terms like "systemic racism" and "patriarchy" skyrocket in frequency.
Critical Theory-based leftism (read: "wokism") was discredited in 1980 and even by the 1990s Bill Clinton had to run as a "New Democrat" and that the "era of Big Government was over." A decade of good government and a successful first term for Obama meant that the tarnished Democrat brand name recovered and the far-left was once again back in power. It's disappointing that left-liberals rolled over so thoroughly, but the Sexual Revolution is the hill that Democrats (leftists and left-liberals) have chosen to die on. So left-liberals will always side with leftists who reject the Enlightenment over conservatives who embrace it.
I will give Trump backhanded credit for speaking his mind, and for being honest about it as long as you can apply a significant hyperbole discount. For my entire adult life, I have seen all kinds of commentary about weaseling, waffling, double-talking politicians who don't say what they mean and say different things to different people.
Trump doesn't do that, and I think he's made it harder for future politicians to play both sides of the fence. Yeah, truly an a-hole, but there's a good argument for the idea that America needed an a-hole president to ride herd on the bullshit.
I largely agree with all the points your making, but i’m pretty hesitant about proportional representation. It seems like a system that invites the possibility of even more radical candidates winning. Isn’t that kind of what happened in the Dem primary in NYC? Three candidates — 2 flawed but ordinary and one quite radical.
Yep. I am so put out by this blame game of two party politics. There is a commercial with a quote ," we are more alike than we are unalike". The United States is a community of comprehension and achievements. Our differences are our strengths. We learn how live strongly and vibrantly within the endless possibilities of our discoveries on this earth.
If the Dems lose the midterms, meaning they fail to regain the House, and if the economy is strong enough to elect Vance in '28, I think the Dems will break apart like the Whigs in the 1850s. There will then be a period of "third parties," a la the Know-Nothings, the American Party (Millard Fillmore's, not George Wallace's), the Free Soil Party, and a bunch of Whig splinters. Then those will disappear, and a different Democratic Party (maybe under a different name) will emerge in the 2030s.
The only way a multi-party system can emerge, IMO, would be for the electoral college to be amended out of existence. As long as it exists, only one of two parties can get enough EC votes to elect its presidential candidate. The chance to get the necessary 38 states to eliminate the EC would be slim, given that this would effectively disenfranchise ME, NH, VT, RI, DE, WV, WY, ND, SD, ID, NM, AK, HI, NV, MT, UT, NE, IA, and KS in presidential elections.
Let's see, add a third political party, why not even more to achieve truly proportional representation and, what, render it even less likely that a nation achieves a workable governing majority? That would certainly make moderation, compromise and coalition building unnecessary and almost certainly see Americans doviding and despising their political parties and non-majority elected officeholders even more than they already do.
I do agree with John Halpin that having more independent voters above party-identified voters can help, but only as a transition by making both of our two, and only two, political parties working harder, moderating their positions and achieving compromises and coalition building to achieve winner-take-all majorities needed to effectively govern.
In sum, don't pander to our widening differences but expect negotiation and compromise to win elections and aspire to our better angels.
John, I’m sorry but this reads like a 9th grade social studies essay.
PR in the House wouldn’t’t create coalition governance. Majority coalitions form via deals on what laws will be enacted, how budgets will be spent, and who will lead ministries, enforced by the threat of defection triggering new elections. The House on its own cannot enact legislation, approve budgets, fill cabinet posts, or create snap elections. State legislatures that would need to enact PR? Exactly zero are elected by PR.
Americans aren’t clamoring for a political science experiment or even more choices, just *better* ones. Eliminating the bipartisan scourge of gerrymandering - whether justified on partisan or civil rights grounds - would go a long way. Congress could do this by making federal funds contingent on state adoption of objective districting, e.g., Iowa’s system forcing district boundaries to be drawn on county and city borders.
Beyond that, why is it that the parties are “incapable” of change? The Republicans did change, dramatically, in response to voter dissatisfaction. The Democrats have done likewise in the past and perhaps will again in response to their current predicament. These changes came from voter preferences in primary elections, which in my view can’t happen soon enough. And if they don’t adapt, what other than gerrymandering prevents another party from usurping their place in the “duopoly”?
Republicans are turning independent while we Republicans throw the RINOs out. Once the party has been purged of the RINOs, former Republicans will return. I would say the same process is happening with the Democrats, but they have to date been less successful at purging the DINOs from their party (the DINOs have much less respect for Democratic voters and just blatantly ignore their voters' concerns by either fixing or refusing to hold primary elections). Soon though the Democrats will complete the purge of DINOs. Unfortunately that will leave them with the Sanders, Warrens, Ocasio-Cortez's and Mamdanis of the world.
Seeing "Party ID by Birth Cohort" really brings home the fact that the WWII generation is about gone.
I'm ready to vote for a third party. Even Trump is fairly limited in what he can do as the executive branch. We need a congress and legislation to do stuff.
I had to think about this a bit. I agree the two parties are widely disliked. ButI’m not convinced a third party, or proportional representation / multi-party, addresses the core failure. The U.S. problem feels less like a representation issue and more like a leadership/cohesion issue. We don’t have leaders articulating a compelling national vision that can unite people across divides and translate tradeoffs into action. Multiplying parties might intensify sorting and weaken accountability through coalitions and blame-shifting. The practical focus should be on why party dynamics keep producing base-optimized nominees instead of majority-building leaders. In short: the problem is not primarily the number of parties; the problem is leadership and cohesion. Until that is addressed, structural reform toward more parties could easily formalize division rather than overcome it.
Citizen vs. United change the emphasis of politicians from convincing voters through policies to generating the maximum amount of money as possible by selling votes. They don't even try to convince voters that the laws they enacted at the bequest of donors is in the voters' best interest. We are to blame for this, because we vote for the guy who raises the most money. I, for one, will never vote for anyone presidential candidate in the future that does not sit down to a two hour podcast.
Proportional representation in a presidential system gives more power to the executive. When there are multiple parties in the House, each will have an incentive to concede to the executive. And even in parliamentary systems, proportional representation doesn't mean the centrists win. Look at Israel, where PM Netanyahu has to appease the far right to remain in power.
I’m not sure the cure for partisanship is more parties in order to appeal to voters desire to have letters after a candidate’s name they feel good about.
In our current system the voters form the coalition in the voting booth, instead of having politicians form it afterwards. It’s arguably far more small “d” democratic than what you’re proposing. If you think the acrimony is bad now, imagine if your pro-labor party candidates decide after the election to form a coalition that hands power to a party you would never in a million years want to be associated with. At that point it’s too late.
The old adage that bad politicians are elected by good people who don’t vote definitely holds true here. Except the problem is the lack of voting in the primaries. If you are looking for things to change I’d recommend the following:
A general shift in the media where attempts to clear the field for an incumbent or worse anointed successor are loudly described as weakness.
I’m a fan of top 2 primaries. As a purple to magenta guy living in a very blue state a top 2 primary is unlikely to produce my preferred candidate, but it’s far more likely to produce a lesser evil with a reasonable shot at winning.
Lastly we should have a one day national primary Election Day in the spring that’s treated as just as important as our national general Election Day in November
Republicans are turning independent while we Republicans throw the RINOs out. Once the party has been purged of the RINOs, former Republicans will return. I would say the same process is happening with the Democrats, but they have to date been less successful at purging the DINOs from their party (the DINOs have much less respect for Democratic voters and just blatantly ignore their voters' concerns by either fixing or refusing to hold primary elections). Soon though the Democrats will complete the purge of DINOs. Unfortunately that will leave them with the Sanders, Warrens, Ocasio-Cortez's and Mamdanis of the world.
In “first past the post” the voters get a clear and unambiguous signal. An “up” or “down” on the party in power. Proportional representation takes that away and dilutes the mandate. It gives leftist institutions, like the media, first mover power to determine what a compromise coalition will look like. What issues will be dropped (border security and abortion) and what will be kept (climate justice). That’s why leftists hate first past the post and advocate for proportional representation.
We won’t always be so polarized. History shows that leftism always burns itself out, at which point left-liberals and classical liberals pick up the pieces and start building again.
"People who cling to a fading notion of partisanship often assert that political independence is a youthful phase and that people’s party affinities deepen with age."
I'm 67 and I find the mindless partisanship emanating from both parties repellent.
We're back to History, John. The structure of U.S. politics, which Democrat Martin Van Buren created in the 1820s based on rewarding party loyalty/votes with jobs, has been in place now for 200 years. It simply can't change. The single member district/winner take all, you're right, does force voters toward the middle. But history also shows that proportional representation is an even bigger disaster. France has had SEVEN governments in the time we had one.
But the other problem---one for both parties---is that THEY allowed Congress to become entirely irrelevant. Between the "nibble around the edges" people who don't want to solve problems and the "mavericks" like McCain who kept screwing up real reform, just in terms of partisanship and lethargy nothing significant can pass. But the bigger problem is the speed of the world. It simply has moved way past 535 people debating stuff endlessly. The public won't stand for that anymore. That is why Trump appeals to so many---he CAN get past this sclerosis. Now, the Constitutional side of me hates what this has become, but the realist in me says, "Maybe this is what is supposed to happen, given the speed of decision making?"
You're right about Congress abdicating its authority and not keeping up. I do feel people are over only two stale party choices but structural reform is not at all easy for the historical reasons you cite (plus inertia). Would be a generational change.
Very mixed feelings on the Unitary Executive theory. Maybe it's needed given the sclerosis in the bureaucracy, but there should be a professional civil service.
Unitary executive is the worst theory except all the others.
Is an organization not mentioned in the Constitution really supposed to be firewalled off from checks and balances or the will of the voters?
I wonder if the geniuses who run the Democratic Party even begin to realize just how close to that cliff they are standing. If the economy hangs in there in early '28 and Vance is elected, between that and what's coming after the '30 census the Democrats will be looking at an 8-1 Supreme Court and a political environment that should right now make their blood run cold.
The best comparison is 1869 to 1933, a 64-year period that, Woodrow Wilson (the most virulent racist of any president) aside, was thoroughly dominated by the Republicans. They should be aggressively tacking toward the center like they did in the late 1980s, but they aren't doing so.
You know, here we have Archie Bunker Trump, the Rodeo Clown from Queens, who the "progressives" think is an idiot. Really? I think the guy is a god damned magician. He has gotten the Democrats on the side of the drug cartels, Maduro, and the Iranian mullahs, along with communist mayors in New York City and Seattle, not to mention the disasters in Chicago, L.A., Minneapolis, and Portland.
Oh yeah, that Trump is a real dummy. By the way, at wholesale, eggs are down 96% since March, when liberals were complaining about it. Ha!
If the Democrats lose in '28 then the left-liberals will either take back the party, or start a new one (I hope it's the latter). The leftists will go the way of segregations, bitter old people believing until they die that they were right and the country has made a huge mistake.
I think it would even be the death throes of leftism entirely. A 270 year movement suddenly dying. The communists genuinely believed they were making utopia. Khrushchev stared down Nixon and proclaimed "We will bury you."
Do contemporary leftists actually think they are creating utopia? Doubtful. It seems clear that they are a wounded animal trying to find a hole to curl up and die in, and bring down Western civilization with them. They aren't even trying to build.
Whether or not you realize it, you advanced a "final victory" thesis. There are no final victories, even when there are emperors. The pendulum swings. I just want to see it swing further to the right in the next 2-1/2 years, after which it will swing even further given the census and reapportionment. I want to see the "progressives" humiliated, but I will not predict it right now.
Fellow Charm City resident and former active member of the Libertarian party here in Maryland. I can only speak for Maryland, but the MD Democratic Machine is masterful at thwarting any competing third party. After maybe the 5th election cycle of having viable candidates who were unable to get on the ballot until some magical 10,000 signature threshold is crossed, I gave up.
Election after election, the Libertarian has been forced to band together with the Green party to sue/petition for ballot access. We'd usually win, after exhausting time and money. They ALWAYS set the bar just high enough to maintain farcical deniability.
I believe in liberty and am a libertarian before I'm a Libertarian. But I'm tapped out and refuse to participate. Fuck these guys, fuck their system.
By the way, there is no officially recognized Libertarian party in MD anymore. They decertified us.
I used to recoil when some mainstream candidate would blame the Libertarian or Green party voters about causing their loss. Now, I take pride in it. Somehow, we are to "blame" for Hillary losing, Obama winning, Trump winning, Biden winning, Biden losing, Trump re-rising.
Hey here's an idea, take your two party party and shove it up your two party asses. They have the exact system they want.
I think you're right that it will take a cult of personality Ross Perot type. Qualifications don't matter. Ideas don't matter. Legitimacy doesn't matter. The democratic process is a joke. As reality show host turned President of the United States has shown, the low-information allure of celebrity is the only thing capable of motivating enough to citizens to pierce the firewall the system has built for itself.
“ the low-information allure of celebrity is the only thing capable of motivating enough to citizens to pierce the firewall the system has built for itself.”
Keep in mind that high information voters believe that women have penises* and that life doesn’t actually start at conception. 50 years ago (and today), the highest information voters were confident that communism was superior to capitalism. The horrors of the 20th century like communism and eugenics were created by high information voters.
As Orwell said; “ One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe [absurd] things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.”
Dan Kahan has backed this up empirically. Studies show that more numerate people are better at understanding counter-intuitive results such Bayesian statistics in the chance of having a disease (a classic behavioral economics “gotcha”). But more numerate people are actually less accurate when the answer goes against their bias. Intelligent people use their intelligence to create a delusional architecture around them being right. We all remember smart liberals crowing about the Seltzer poll proving that Harris would win.
* Just today the best and brightest leftist lawyers are arguing before SCOTUS that it's impossible to define "woman."
The reality that must be faced is that the fracturing will continue until we once again have common values and goals, with only differing opinions on how to achieve them.
This is the problem. Today's Democratic Party (which I supported for 40 years) is doing a damn good imitation of hating this country and everything it has ever stood for. I haven't gone Republican mainly because "once burned twice shy," but I really want the Republicans to keep the House and then see Vance win in '28.
The way I am seeing it, if that happens then the Democratic Party will fall apart and be replaced, like the Whigs in the 1850s. From what I see, the Democrats are beyond repair. We need two strong, sensible parties. We now have maybe three-quarters of one in the Republicans, and next to nothing in the Democrats. They need to be replaced.
It’s sad to see what’s happened to the Democrats. A single party system is dangerous, and so is a system split into multiple factions. 2 parties seems the best alternative. But the minimum requirement is that both parties are sane. I’m a conservative, but I would welcome a return to sanity on the left. Please, rejoin us on Planet Earth.
I couldn't agree more. One-party systems are always corrupt, no exceptions that I know of. The Dems could help themselves and the country a while lot by diving into health care financing, but they won't even do that. What in hell are they FOR? What are they offering the broad middle class? Nothing that I can see.
By the way, if things work out, their mindless opposition to Trump will come back to bite them, maybe as hard as the mindless opposition to Nixon did in 1972. Oh, but that's history, and "progressives" don't study that anymore. I'd add that, compared to 1972, there is not the same generational component that there was back then. Other way around, if anything. The youth, being rebels, are rebelling against their woke high school teachers these days. O! The horror!
Great conversation, but unfortunately, we do have a one-party system: both are in the pockets of lobbyists and will always just answer to their corporate overlords and "market forces." I'd like just one of them to make decisions that benefit ordinary people ONLY, and if we had a hundred proportionally representative parties, we probably wouldn't find one that managed to keep that promise. Ah, well - thanks to John Halpin for a great post!
Not sure our structure is nearly the problem of lousy leadership. Few of today's problems existed in 2020, just a few short years ago.
Biden was historical, in the same manner Carter transformed the country. Biden's failure, brought us back to Trump, whose ineloquent verbiage has failed to unite Americans. Just as a large portion of the US has decided they are perfectly happy to sacrifice American victims of entirely preventable crime, if it aids sinking Blue State populations and harms Tump.
Most importantly, a large chunk of the country has decided there is no need to wait until the next election, when years of multiple Impeachments and criminal charges might faster change leadership, with which, one disagrees. Now "protest" has morphed into to reckless and violent obstruction of federal officers. The pattern is rather easily identified.
A 3rd Party is possible, but we certainly do not want to emulate Europe where serious Brits discuss the next thing to an impending Civil War, the once stable and prosperous Germany swirls the drain, both economically and politically, while France's ungovernability has resulted in near economic collapse.
No matter how many political choices, disaster awaits, when citizens in a nation of laws, decide they are mere suggestions, if the person in the WH sports the other team's jersey.
"Not sure our structure is nearly the problem of lousy leadership. Few of today's problems existed in 2020, just a few short years ago."
I agree with the first part, but not the second. The rise of Wokism (AKA Critical Theory-derived leftism) is generally dated to Obama's second term in 2012. There are even good objective measures of this, such as the analysis of NY Times word usage, where terms like "systemic racism" and "patriarchy" skyrocket in frequency.
https://davidrozado.substack.com/p/new-york-times-word-usage-frequency
Critical Theory-based leftism (read: "wokism") was discredited in 1980 and even by the 1990s Bill Clinton had to run as a "New Democrat" and that the "era of Big Government was over." A decade of good government and a successful first term for Obama meant that the tarnished Democrat brand name recovered and the far-left was once again back in power. It's disappointing that left-liberals rolled over so thoroughly, but the Sexual Revolution is the hill that Democrats (leftists and left-liberals) have chosen to die on. So left-liberals will always side with leftists who reject the Enlightenment over conservatives who embrace it.
Ineloquent = outrageous a-hole. As for Biden, he was senile. And Kamala was a drunk. Hell of a choice.
I will give Trump backhanded credit for speaking his mind, and for being honest about it as long as you can apply a significant hyperbole discount. For my entire adult life, I have seen all kinds of commentary about weaseling, waffling, double-talking politicians who don't say what they mean and say different things to different people.
Trump doesn't do that, and I think he's made it harder for future politicians to play both sides of the fence. Yeah, truly an a-hole, but there's a good argument for the idea that America needed an a-hole president to ride herd on the bullshit.
I largely agree with all the points your making, but i’m pretty hesitant about proportional representation. It seems like a system that invites the possibility of even more radical candidates winning. Isn’t that kind of what happened in the Dem primary in NYC? Three candidates — 2 flawed but ordinary and one quite radical.
Yep. I am so put out by this blame game of two party politics. There is a commercial with a quote ," we are more alike than we are unalike". The United States is a community of comprehension and achievements. Our differences are our strengths. We learn how live strongly and vibrantly within the endless possibilities of our discoveries on this earth.
If the Dems lose the midterms, meaning they fail to regain the House, and if the economy is strong enough to elect Vance in '28, I think the Dems will break apart like the Whigs in the 1850s. There will then be a period of "third parties," a la the Know-Nothings, the American Party (Millard Fillmore's, not George Wallace's), the Free Soil Party, and a bunch of Whig splinters. Then those will disappear, and a different Democratic Party (maybe under a different name) will emerge in the 2030s.
The only way a multi-party system can emerge, IMO, would be for the electoral college to be amended out of existence. As long as it exists, only one of two parties can get enough EC votes to elect its presidential candidate. The chance to get the necessary 38 states to eliminate the EC would be slim, given that this would effectively disenfranchise ME, NH, VT, RI, DE, WV, WY, ND, SD, ID, NM, AK, HI, NV, MT, UT, NE, IA, and KS in presidential elections.
Let's see, add a third political party, why not even more to achieve truly proportional representation and, what, render it even less likely that a nation achieves a workable governing majority? That would certainly make moderation, compromise and coalition building unnecessary and almost certainly see Americans doviding and despising their political parties and non-majority elected officeholders even more than they already do.
I do agree with John Halpin that having more independent voters above party-identified voters can help, but only as a transition by making both of our two, and only two, political parties working harder, moderating their positions and achieving compromises and coalition building to achieve winner-take-all majorities needed to effectively govern.
In sum, don't pander to our widening differences but expect negotiation and compromise to win elections and aspire to our better angels.
John, I’m sorry but this reads like a 9th grade social studies essay.
PR in the House wouldn’t’t create coalition governance. Majority coalitions form via deals on what laws will be enacted, how budgets will be spent, and who will lead ministries, enforced by the threat of defection triggering new elections. The House on its own cannot enact legislation, approve budgets, fill cabinet posts, or create snap elections. State legislatures that would need to enact PR? Exactly zero are elected by PR.
Americans aren’t clamoring for a political science experiment or even more choices, just *better* ones. Eliminating the bipartisan scourge of gerrymandering - whether justified on partisan or civil rights grounds - would go a long way. Congress could do this by making federal funds contingent on state adoption of objective districting, e.g., Iowa’s system forcing district boundaries to be drawn on county and city borders.
Beyond that, why is it that the parties are “incapable” of change? The Republicans did change, dramatically, in response to voter dissatisfaction. The Democrats have done likewise in the past and perhaps will again in response to their current predicament. These changes came from voter preferences in primary elections, which in my view can’t happen soon enough. And if they don’t adapt, what other than gerrymandering prevents another party from usurping their place in the “duopoly”?
Is DINO pronounced like the Flintstones’ house pet or Jimmy Walker’s catchphrase? Either way count me in.
I agree. My post from above:
Republicans are turning independent while we Republicans throw the RINOs out. Once the party has been purged of the RINOs, former Republicans will return. I would say the same process is happening with the Democrats, but they have to date been less successful at purging the DINOs from their party (the DINOs have much less respect for Democratic voters and just blatantly ignore their voters' concerns by either fixing or refusing to hold primary elections). Soon though the Democrats will complete the purge of DINOs. Unfortunately that will leave them with the Sanders, Warrens, Ocasio-Cortez's and Mamdanis of the world.
Seeing "Party ID by Birth Cohort" really brings home the fact that the WWII generation is about gone.
I'm ready to vote for a third party. Even Trump is fairly limited in what he can do as the executive branch. We need a congress and legislation to do stuff.
I had to think about this a bit. I agree the two parties are widely disliked. ButI’m not convinced a third party, or proportional representation / multi-party, addresses the core failure. The U.S. problem feels less like a representation issue and more like a leadership/cohesion issue. We don’t have leaders articulating a compelling national vision that can unite people across divides and translate tradeoffs into action. Multiplying parties might intensify sorting and weaken accountability through coalitions and blame-shifting. The practical focus should be on why party dynamics keep producing base-optimized nominees instead of majority-building leaders. In short: the problem is not primarily the number of parties; the problem is leadership and cohesion. Until that is addressed, structural reform toward more parties could easily formalize division rather than overcome it.
Citizen vs. United change the emphasis of politicians from convincing voters through policies to generating the maximum amount of money as possible by selling votes. They don't even try to convince voters that the laws they enacted at the bequest of donors is in the voters' best interest. We are to blame for this, because we vote for the guy who raises the most money. I, for one, will never vote for anyone presidential candidate in the future that does not sit down to a two hour podcast.
Proportional representation in a presidential system gives more power to the executive. When there are multiple parties in the House, each will have an incentive to concede to the executive. And even in parliamentary systems, proportional representation doesn't mean the centrists win. Look at Israel, where PM Netanyahu has to appease the far right to remain in power.
I’m not sure the cure for partisanship is more parties in order to appeal to voters desire to have letters after a candidate’s name they feel good about.
In our current system the voters form the coalition in the voting booth, instead of having politicians form it afterwards. It’s arguably far more small “d” democratic than what you’re proposing. If you think the acrimony is bad now, imagine if your pro-labor party candidates decide after the election to form a coalition that hands power to a party you would never in a million years want to be associated with. At that point it’s too late.
The old adage that bad politicians are elected by good people who don’t vote definitely holds true here. Except the problem is the lack of voting in the primaries. If you are looking for things to change I’d recommend the following:
A general shift in the media where attempts to clear the field for an incumbent or worse anointed successor are loudly described as weakness.
I’m a fan of top 2 primaries. As a purple to magenta guy living in a very blue state a top 2 primary is unlikely to produce my preferred candidate, but it’s far more likely to produce a lesser evil with a reasonable shot at winning.
Lastly we should have a one day national primary Election Day in the spring that’s treated as just as important as our national general Election Day in November
Republicans are turning independent while we Republicans throw the RINOs out. Once the party has been purged of the RINOs, former Republicans will return. I would say the same process is happening with the Democrats, but they have to date been less successful at purging the DINOs from their party (the DINOs have much less respect for Democratic voters and just blatantly ignore their voters' concerns by either fixing or refusing to hold primary elections). Soon though the Democrats will complete the purge of DINOs. Unfortunately that will leave them with the Sanders, Warrens, Ocasio-Cortez's and Mamdanis of the world.