Let’s Party (politically, that is)
We’ve reached a point in American politics when the very idea of political parties has become stomach turning. The hyper-partisans that dominate our two major parties have managed to engender an environment in which compromise, cross-party cooperation, and even civil discourse have all but disappeared.
There is little doubt that major party polarization is damaging our country. Many of us are even thinking we should have heeded George Washington’s warning in his 1796 farewell address.
However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
As well as comments by fellow patriot John Adams.
There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other.
Washington and Adams both feared the negative aspects of political parties, knowing full well that factions were to be expected. The First Amendment to the US Constitution, after all, guarantees
… the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
What could be more natural than like-minded citizens banding together to pursue common political objectives? Political parties exist in every vibrant political democracy around the world.
Perhaps the problem is not that we have political parties. Perhaps it’s that we have only two political parties — two parties that jealously (and mutually) protect their continued dominance of US politics.
It is unfortunate that the US system of single-member districts and plurality voting seems to naturally lead to a two-party duopoly (Duverger’s Law). Many have argued that compromise and moderation occur inside two dominant political parties, ensuring that centrist positions prevail and suggesting that it is easier to govern when there are only two parties. Whatever moderating influences that once existed now seem to be long gone, relegated to the dust bin of history.
Intraparty reconciliation of divergent competing views may have occurred more frequently before the advent of popular-vote primary elections (The United States of Dysfunction, Carl Jarvis). Whatever the cause of our current situation, however, the major parties now seem to be behaving more like tribes, much to our collective detriment. If anything, they seem to be solidifying their positions on a war footing.
In his book, Unstable Majorities: Polarization, Party Sorting & Political Stalemate, Morris Fiorina argues that our current state of polarization is not due to a less moderate electorate, but rather to polarization of the two major parties that make up the American duopoly. Matthew Levendusky (The Partisan Sort: How Liberals Became Democrats and Conservatives Became Republicans) agrees with this point of view, contending that the American electorate is as politically heterogeneous as ever, including many in the moderate center.
Lee Drutman (Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America) suggests that the way out of our political anguish is not to transcend party, but rather to embrace party by transforming our political landscape in ways that enable more diverse multi-party politics. Drutman recommends a number of specific changes to accomplish this, among them multi-member districts and ranked-choice voting.
The last time there was a change in the two dominant US political parties was prior to the Civil War when the Whigs were replaced by the Republican Party largely because of the slavery issue. Since then, there has been considerable evolution of the Democratic and Republican parties. Evolution has often been spurred by upstart minor parties that have occasionally enlivened political debate and brought about significant political change (e.g., Progressive and Reform parties). Upstart political parties have had their most impact when they focused on issues that the voting public felt were not being sufficiently addressed by the two major parties.
Two minor parties have had some recent success in garnering and maintaining ballot access across the US — the Libertarian and Green parties. But neither party has, at least to date, achieved any breakout successes that would suggest a major impact on US politics.
Both have been at it for a long time. The Libertarian Party was founded by disaffected Republicans in the early 1970s. Their largest popular vote for president was achieved in 2016, when Gary Johnson (a former Republican Governor of New Mexico) received 3.3% of the popular vote. The Green Party was founded in the late 1980s and came to more widespread attention following the 2000 presidential election, when Ralph Nader won 2.7% of the popular vote.
These results pale against the Progressive Party (former President Theodore Roosevelt received 27% of the popular vote in 1912) and the Reform Party (Ross Perot received 19% of the popular vote in 1992). In 2020, the Libertarian Party presidential candidate received 1.2% of the popular vote, the Green Party candidate only 0.3%.
The lack of significant success by these two parties runs counter to the apparent desire for a third-party emergence among the electorate. A recent Gallup poll indicated that 62% of US adults say the major parties “do such a poor job representing the American people that a third party is needed”. This observation is congruent with the fact that more Americans now self-identify as Independents (41%) than as either Republicans (25%) or Democrats (32%).
These polling results would suggest that the country is ripe for a significant third party to emerge from the political landscape. It is not clear, however, that either the Libertarians or Greens offer what significant portions of the electorate desire. It could be argued that neither minor party has put forth a sufficiently compelling (or perhaps distinctive) narrative nor slates of candidates that would induce voters to put aside their wasted-vote fears and vote for a third party.
The problem, as one might suspect, is that disaffected US voters don’t agree about what a third party should look like. Lee Drutman suggests that almost one in five want a third party more liberal than Democrats, a third want a more centrist party than either Republicans or Democrats, and more than one in five want a party more conservative than Republicans.
Drutman further suggests that Perot gained traction in 1992 because large swaths of the electorate believed that the Democrat and Republican parties were too similar, not too polarized. This is hardly the case today when negative partisanship is so clearly part of the political landscape.
If people were not so afraid of wasting their vote, it would seem that those desiring a more left-leaning third party might gravitate to the Green Party, and those desiring a more right-leaning might gravitate to the Libertarians or perhaps the Constitution Party. This does not appear to be happening. A recent article in the Economist points out that Americans are more likely to change their religious denomination than their political party.
Pessimism with regard to the seeming permanence of the two major parties might be countered by some optimism that the country could be in the midst of a significant realignment of its politics, as divisions within each of the major parties appear to be fracturing old allegiances. Is it possible that our system of duopolistic political power-sharing may now be vulnerable to disruption? Could this, in fact, be a time for optimism?
Matthew Dowd in his book, A New Way: Embracing the Paradox as We Lead and Serve, points out that even though we live in an era characterized by significant disruptive innovation, our politics has remained resistant to the entrepreneurial forces that have shaped so much of modern life.
Diffusion of Innovation Theory suggests a pathway for innovative disruption. Even a modest toehold might be enough to begin to foment significant political change. Imagine if alternatives to duopoly candidates regularly garnered 10–20% of votes or 10–20% of serious voter and media attention. This level of attention on a continuing basis would open the door for duopoly alternatives to be a more permanent feature of our politics.
We should not expect to find early innovation adopters among Democratic or Republican faithful. These populations are too invested in the status quo. Early adopters are also not likely to be found among Libertarian or Green Party faithful or among the third-party enthusiasts who desire a party to the left of Democrats or to the right of Republicans.
Rather, we should expect to find early adopters in the middle of the electorate who desire a more centrist party with a primary focus on good governance as opposed to scorched-earth policy purity.
The problem with mobilizing centrist voters is that political energy too often seems to flow to the political extremes. It’s hard for most folks to get excited about squishy political positions that are the hallmark of centrist (and more independent) voters. Hurdles are high and will require a significant effort that will be opposed by the two major parties.
Duopolistic thinking is firmly entrenched with most voters. A plethora of statutory ballot restrictions (e.g., gerrymandering, ballot access requirements) lock in two-party political power. The cost of modern political campaigns with their big data advantages (especially in large states such as Texas) are difficult for upstarts to compete against. And in spite of its claim of independence, the press continues to ignore small party candidates as being insufficiently serious, even when they contribute to serious political debate but fail to garner campaign donations on the scale of major party candidates.
So, what kind of party might appeal to a significant portion of the centrist voting public? What kind of party might chip away at the entrenched advantages that the two major parties enjoy? What kind of party could voters trust to put country over party, governing over bomb throwing, pragmatic compromise over stalemate? What kind of disruptive entrepreneurialism would break the doom loop that Lee Drutman warns about? Here are a few thoughts to kick off a discussion.
Such a party would …
- not blindly follow tribal dictates but would embrace those who choose to think for themselves.
- recognize that good ideas come from considering a diversity of ideas — left, right, and otherwise.
- not feel the need to denigrate the intelligence, goodwill, or patriotism of those who reach alternative conclusions.
- champion certain fundamental immutable principles such as transparency, accountability, fair elections, respect for individual rights, honest fact-finding, and civility.
- be embarrassed by the vitriol and name-calling that passes for political debate and would refuse to accept behavior that we do not tolerate from our children.
- value pragmatism over ideology and would not believe that compromise is a dirty word but rather a necessary element of any healthy relationship.
Could such a party succeed in breaking the duopolistic stranglehold of the two major parties? In order to ensure the futures of our children and our grandchildren, perhaps it must.
