Two-party democracies

[fable]

I'm starting this thread as a forum for a subject that Lazarus brought up under Bush and Europe. To quote him:

@fable: It is not "simply fact" that Bush was elected because he had more money backing him. How can you honestly state such a thing? Do you really believe that the American people are such mindless automotons that they are simply forced into voting by money and marketing? Hmmm. Maybe you do. How sad. You must find it terribly difficult to live among us.

My reply follows.

[fable]

I've studied the subject for the last thirty years, and gone back to research even the "private elections" that started with John Adams' presidency. (Jackson was the first president elected by a public vote.) This doesn't make my investigations worth anymore than anybody else's, but I have noticed that the electioneering characteristics of the American presidency has changed character many times; and in its most recent incarnation, money and marketing are indeed the key to winning. Simply put, since Truman, if you don't have the war chest, you don't win. If you don't have the best marketers, the "spin doctors," you end up like the liberal Adlai Stevenson or the conservative Barry Goldwater. Should you not believe this, I can reccomend some good books that analyze a variety of the elections on a day-to-day basis, examining cost, activity, media, etc.

Both candidates had nearly *1 billion dollars* in campaign chests for the last presidential election. But money in itself means little, if you don't have a team working for you that knows how to spend it wisely. Bush, who wisecracked at Clinton's obsessive poll-taking, had himself purchased the use of some of Madison Avenue's most expensive pollsters to determine what the mainstream of voting Americans wanted to hear. His image was remade into that moderate, friendly, cooperative middle class American, instead of being a far-right, top-down management style autocrat and oil multi-millionaire who values loyalty to himself above all else.

Are voting Americans stupid? Or let me pose the question as the great humorous essayist Robert Benchley did, in 1930, "Why is it that a college professor goes into a voting booth and chooses to vote as his leader a person who has one-third his education and one-tenth his native intelligence?" I would suggest the fault lies with an American people who accept the two-party system, despite the intellectual bankruptcy (IMO) of the two major parties. Winner-take-all just isn't feasible as a means of governing in a congress/parliament, because it eliminates all but the most milktoast and mainstream of views--or more correctly, *the expression* of all but the most milktoast and mainstream of views. As Bush demonstrates, a far-right candidate simply reinvents themselves with the help of an overwhelming marketing program into a moderate, guy-next-door, a "consensus builder," and gets elected as such--then changes back once in office.

So why do Americans tolerate such a system? I can't speak for you, but when I was in elementary school we were taught from first grade onwards that democracy meant going to the voting booth every few years and choosing the person we liked best. This was dinned into our collective consciousness every year, and I haven't encountered many Americans who question whether simply pulling a lever in fact makes for good government--or whether the art of selecting good rulers derives from a constant involvement in an ongoing process between the governing and the governed, and the regular discussion in depth of a variety of important issues.

I don't see that involvement, nor do I see an understanding in America of how central political processes should be to daily life. Our nation (and some others) IMO are mistaken in their views, because our minds are made up for us at a very early age; and few escape this.

Just my POV: Bush is playing right now on anti-European sentiments in various American constituencies (the far-right paranoia nut fringe who fear Europe taking our jobs by conspiracy; the labor market that fears loss of jobs from cheap imports; the religious far-right that views America as the chosen holy land) to build a core that he thinks, with moderate voters impressed by the War on Terrorism, will coast him over the next couple of years to a second term.

[C Elegans]

I would be very interested to hear what people both from the US and other countries with 2-party system thinks about this issue. I'm personally critical towards 2-party systems because, as I've mentioned in other threads, all issues tend to be split up in simple pro or contra solutions, which leads to lack of nuances and demand a high degree of simplification.

[der Moench]

Ugh. Boy, do I hate politics.

But maybe y'all can explain to me why you refer to the US as a two-party system - ? My history ain't so good, but I don't think we have anything written into the Constitution or Bill of Rights that says only two parties are allowed to be voted for ...

I live in Minnesota where we successfully voted in a third party Governor. Such things may happen at any level of government, from City Council to President, if the people want it. If the people do not want it, and vote for the two big parties, who are you to say that this is the wrong way of going about government?

Ugh. I hate politics.

I think I'll go back to the brewery now.

[EMINEM]

Bush is playing right now on anti-European sentiments in various American constituencies (the far-right paranoia nut fringe who fear Europe taking our jobs by conspiracy; the labor market that fears loss of jobs from cheap imports; the religious far-right that views America as the chosen holy land) to build a core that he thinks, with moderate voters impressed by the War on Terrorism, will coast him over the next couple of years to a second term. [/b]

As a proud, unapologetic, and devoted member of this "far-right paranoia nut fringe" [ you're becoming way too predictable in your bashing, fable], let me just say that after eight years of Clinton, it feels wonderful to be able to say "President" and not wince upon hearing the name that comes after it.

[Chanak]

@fable:

I don't see that involvement, nor do I see an understanding in America of how central political processes should be to daily life. Our nation (and some others) IMO are mistaken in their views, because our minds are made up for us at a very early age; and few escape this.

This is where a democracy, or more correctly a Republic (which is what the US basically is), begins to deteriorate: the nescience of the governed. As it's written in the Hebrew scriptures - which I'm sure Bush pays lip service to - (paraphrase) 'the people die for lack of vision.'

It's simply the responsibility of the governed to remain reasonably informed of not only domestic issues, but global issues as well. Being well informed, they might be armed sufficiently to ward off the sound bites of the media, spins of the spin doctors, and the demogoguery of incumbents.

Technically, there are no political party limits in the United States of America. Realistically, there are two massive, well-oiled and fueled political machines with deep pockets and few hinderances. They've ensured their continued survival by stacking the federal courts with their appointees, building (or destroying, as it were) the "careers" of the federal legislators (thus placing them in their pockets), and squashing whatever threat they perceive from upstarts that somehow get their hands on enough money to compete with them.

Cronyism even filters down to the state and local levels. Most Governors owe their office to either of the giant political parties, and so on down to mayors and school superintendents. I am not a 'conspiracy theorist,' but this is simply something that has developed over time, beginning with a non-informed voting public. A non-informed voting public easily becomes a misinformed voting public.

I admire Mark Twain greatly. To paraphrase something he wrote: 'Imagine, dear reader, that you are a congressman. Now, imagine that you are an idiot; but I repeat myself.'

[fable]

@Eminem, feel free to stay and topic and contribute, anytime.

I live in Minnesota where we successfully voted in a third party Governor. Such things may happen at any level of government, from City Council to President, if the people want it. If the people do not want it, and vote for the two big parties, who are you to say that this is the wrong way of going about government?

First off: I'm me. I can hold an opinion if I want, because, fortunately, opinions are not subject to the "majority rules" theme of American politics.

Second, America in this instance happens to agree with me that something important is wrong. Considerably less than 50% of the eligible voters vote in national elections, which clearly shows enormous disaffection with the political system and its candidates. Occasionally the politicians of the two major parties do typical "fret" speeches about how terrible it is that Americans don't take advantage of their democratic right to vote, etc, but it's posturing--they never do anything to deal with the root issues identified repeatedly over the years in focus groups and surveys by pollsters they've hired: Americans don't believe in the parties. They distrust their politicians, who speak in glittering generalities. They feel the government has been completed corrupted by lobbyists. They feel that the politicians are chameleons who change their stripes to suit the mood of the moment.

I am not suggesting that most Americans feel the two-party system is itself the cause of the dilemma; but if you analyze the reactions and look at the record number of Americans who are no longer registered for either party, I think some conclusions along similar lines are fairly evident.

My own POV is that we suffer in the US from a two-party monopoly. Both parties know that they have to suffer each other to maintain "democracy," but the deck is stacked by legal means to keep everybody else out. If 40% of the eligible voters go for a certain party as Congressional representatives in a given state in an election year and 30% don't vote, why shouldn't the candidate or candidates of other parties who garnered the remaining 30% receive seats in Congress according to the proportion of their vote? Did the 30% of Americans in that state simply vanish? Aren't their opinions entitled to be heard in Congress, as well, whether we agree with 'em, or not?

[HighLordDave]

Part of the way the Democrats and Republicans have squelched the ability of someone to run on a third party ticket is through federal matching election funds. In order to be eligible for these funds, a party must gain 5% of the vote in a national election . . . and that first election must be done entirely on their own dime. In the last election, the Green Party and the Libertarian Party did not qualify for matching funds and were shut out of the presidential debates because the people setting the ground rules for the debates decided that they didn't have a reasonable chance to win, so they wouldn't waste the public's time by giving them a forum to establish their minority views. So who set the ground rules? The Democrats and the Republicans. These two alternative parties were shut out by the established parties because they were independents and didn't have as much money, not because they didn't have a valid message to get out.

In addition, for those "non-aligned" members of Congress, they still owe their allegience on some level to the two parties because committee assignments are handed out by the majority party. Committee assignments lead to the ability to push through pork barrel bill amendments which in turn lead to re-election. The two party system is so entrenched into our national political consciousness that it probably will never change; there's simply too much at stake for anyone to bolt.

Take for instance the extreme groups most likely to split from either party. For the Republicans, it's the conservative Christians and the NRA. For the Democrats, it's the blacks and the labour unions. The party leaders on each side know they need those vital constituencies because they get people to the polls, they raise money and they vote as a bloc. That's why they can push their agenda ahead of moderate elements within each party. On the flip side, the leaders of each of those groups know they cannot simply leave the party and form their own single-interest party; in each case they are a special interest group that weilds a tremendous amount of power within their party, but they cannot fully overpower the moderate elements because on their own, they cannot carry a national election.

The reason why the two-party system is so ingrained in the US is because unlike a parliamentary system, the executive branch is elected independently from the legislative branch. In Britain, Germany, Israel and other countries with parliamentary governments, single interest parties can wield a lot of power by getting elected at the local level, then joining a coalition and threaten to bring a "no confidence" vote if things aren't going their way. No such mechanism exists which doesn't inhibit a third (or fourth, or fifth) party from joining the fray.

[Tamerlane]

Originally posted by C Elegans
I would be very interested to hear what people both from the US and other countries with 2-party system thinks about this issue. I'm personally critical towards 2-party systems because, as I've mentioned in other threads, all issues tend to be split up in simple pro or contra solutions, which leads to lack of nuances and demand a high degree of simplification.

We have a two party system, but I'm afraid that I won't be able to write up a detailed response like the others. We have the coalition party (Liberal and Nationals) and Labor party. In principle they are both vastly different, but in practice too similar for my own liking. The Liberals who hold the majority of the coalition are generally regarded as being focused towards the business end whilst the labor party look after the workers. However recently the Labor party have tried to distance themselves from the trade unions.

Its not uncommon to see a party voted in because of their stance against certain issues only to see them finish what the previous government started. Whilst forever blaming the other government. One example is that the state government previously a Liberal one was ousted out because they were neglecting the health area of funding. A Labor party was voted in because of their promises of increased funding, and a year on, it seems the plans for increased funding have been scrapped. Like I said earlier, you basically have two parties who are increasingly looking more like partners instead of opponents.

I won't even bother about the smaller groups like the Greens as they are anti everything whilst offering no viable solutions.

[Delacroix]

I don't know about USA elections as some of you(americans).
But the main problem I see, is not the two-party system, but the proximity of the sides.
Sometimes I ask: there is a choise?

In the last election, Bush-Gore, some of the major politics analysts(world scale) even give importance to the election. And those who give said: "There are few diferences" "No way of any kind of rupture".

Even a Two-party system can be "rich" in proposal if those two parties have strong diferences. BTW, The great diferences/conflict in proposals and ways of one country is one of the primals requirements in evolutive process of government and cidadany.

BTW, this fact was also exposed by "Rage against the Machine" videoclip. I find this clip interesting because was exposed in a massive way of comunication. In fact I don't know the band or the music. But the clip is good.

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

This space reserved for an anti-two-party system response.

It should be a good one, I studied Australian politics in high school for two years.

[CM]

I disagree with the 2 party system as it is not democracy in my opinion. Democracy is the will of the people. How can the will of the people be defined by 2 parties. This is where I think the European system is far better, there are tones of parties, some similar some different. But they give people a chance to decide between a far choice.

How many of you agree with everything the republicans or democracts do? Majority i believe don't. You agree with some aspects of the democracts and some of the republicans. But not 100% of one party, unless you are like the 10% who do. The majroity in my opinion falls somewhere in the middle.

Democracy is freedom of choice, with a 2 party system the choice is limited and at points like the US, where the two parties (in my opinion) are very similar, there is voter apathy. They really don't care who to vote for as they believe both parties are the same.

My 2 cents.

[Lazarus]

@fable: thanks for the thread. Feel free to take some of the last comments on "Stereotypes" from the Bush/Europe thread, and start a new one on that subject as well.

Being me, I have no time to respond during the week, so you will have to wait until Saturday or so. Sorry. School, work, love, life, you know.

However, to start off, I can't help but question the entire direction this thread is taking.

1) The US is neither 2-party, nor a democracy (as Chanak and der Moench have both pointed out).

2) My comments (as I will explain more fully) really don't have anything to say about the system of government, but rather with the manner in which you view the voting public. You have indeed touched on that in your posts, so that, I think, is where we should concentrate our discussion.

Later.

[fable]

Originally posted by Delacroix
I don't know about USA elections as some of you(americans).
But the main problem I see, is not the two-party system, but the proximity of the sides.
Sometimes I ask: there is a choise?

In the last election, Bush-Gore, some of the major politics analysts(world scale) even give importance to the election. And those who give said: "There are few diferences" "No way of any kind of rupture".

You make my case for strong marketing as the final arbiter of national elections. Quoting what I wrote before:

Bush, who wisecracked at Clinton's obsessive poll-taking, had himself purchased the use of some of Madison Avenue's most expensive pollsters to determine what the mainstream of voting Americans wanted to hear. His image was remade into that moderate, friendly, cooperative middle class American, instead of being a far-right, top-down management style autocrat and oil multi-millionaire who values loyalty to himself above all else.

You, and many Europeans, still believe that Bush and Gore were very much alike. In fact, Gore's record put him solidly in the current American middle--economically conservative, socially moderate--and this was measured by several nonaligned organizations that look at candidate's political activities and publish the results. Bush, by contrast, was straight conservative on nearly all issues. There *was* a difference. It was deliberately eroded by marketing, because political wisdom these days states that the only way to win elections is to "reposition" (ie, lie) a candidate into the mainstream of moderate, uncommited voters who still believe the process works. Where's the openended, continuing dialog and sense of responsibility in an honest consideration of relevant issues, if the main purpose of the election campaign is only to skew each candidate's image to the center of the mainstream, as much as possible?

[Delacroix]

Originally posted by fable


You, and many Europeans, still believe that Bush and Gore were very much alike. In fact, Gore's record put him solidly in the current American middle--economically conservative, socially moderate--and this was measured by several nonaligned organizations that look at candidate's political activities and publish the results. Bush, by contrast, was straight conservative on nearly all issues. There *was* a difference. It was deliberately eroded by marketing, because political wisdom these days states that the only way to win elections is to "reposition" (ie, lie) a candidate into the mainstream of moderate, uncommited voters who still believe the process works. Where's the openended, continuing dialog and sense of responsibility in an honest consideration of relevant issues, if the main purpose of the election campaign is only to skew each candidate's image to the center of the mainstream, as much as possible?

About, the influence of media you talk in your last posts(and this one above); I don't say nothing before, because there was no need of talk about it, you are obviously correct. It is a determinant fact in elections, otherwise the major marketing heads will never be contracted by the politics. As I post in Soros thread a minor declaration of one American economist, exposed by media ravens change 6 percentual election points.
In 94 media found a girl who claim be the son of a candidate of the second turn in brazil elections, result: he loose the election by something not relationed with politic.

About the diference you point, considering the global politics I must insist that it is a minor diference.

Aproximate to the mainstream, (that is not only a marketing process but also a politic one) I think is a major left wing error ( pink wave), May work, like Mitterrand and Blair; but Blair was never to left at all. Last French election Jospin trying mainstream strat without assume a real Left position even go for second turn while the extremist right of Le Pen go for second turn.

As you point the major sadness of aproximate to the mainstream is the coerence riff-raff and discordance. Expecially for the icons who once claim themselfs socialist.

[Word]

@fable the failure of the two major in the minds of Americans will be marked by the major success of a rival third party to meet the needs of those not satisfied with the current two party system. This fact has proven itself in two major instances in American System which are the Populist Party of 1896 which was the first third party to gain 1,000,000 votes mostly from farmers and silver interests. The reforms of this party were absorbed by the two major party in order to regain the votes that they had lost to this party. A notable reform that pushed its way to the focus of these parties was the direct election of senators.

The second major group was the progressives that formed a party under Teddy Roosevelt who ran against Woodrow Wilson in the 1912 election supporting many progressive reforms which were quickly absorbed by the major parties in order to regain votes.

Another problem is the lack of voters showing their displeasure with the system instead they simply ignore elections. Their voices and opinions will not be heard unless they vote. Tell me why a politician would care if they didn't vote they want to attract voters not the American people. It is up to the people who disatisfied with the system to organize and make their demands known. They have quite the task up against them if they wish to challenge the huge business lobbyist interest in Washington but votes hold more power than the dollar as votes make dollars for the politicians so the American people must remind them of this.

[Tamerlane]

Originally posted by Ode to a Grasshopper
This space reserved for an anti-two-party system response.

It should be a good one, I studied Australian politics in high school for two years.

You can't reserve a space for too long my friend

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

I wasn't up to writing a good rant yesterday. Today, however, I should be able to get onto it.
Besides, I can pay the rent.

[fable]

Originally posted by Word
@fable the failure of the two major in the minds of Americans will be marked by the major success of a rival third party to meet the needs of those not satisfied with the current two party system. This fact has proven itself in two major instances in American System which are the Populist Party of 1896 which was the first third party to gain 1,000,000 votes mostly from farmers and silver interests. The reforms of this party were absorbed by the two major party in order to regain the votes that they had lost to this party. A notable reform that pushed its way to the focus of these parties was the direct election of senators.

I would, with respect, disagree. There were a couple of major reforms promoted by the Populist movement which became law *nearly twenty years after the Party disintegrated,* when the Republicans were trying to absorb the low and middleclass Depression poor, especially of the Midwest, into their ranks. This was at a time when the American South voted as a solid block for the Democrats. By the time direct election of Senators (who were formerly gubenatorial appointees) became law, the Populist Party had been buried for years.

The second major group was the progressives that formed a party under Teddy Roosevelt who ran against Woodrow Wilson in the 1912 election supporting many progressive reforms which were quickly absorbed by the major parties in order to regain votes.

Roosevelt allowed his VP, William Howard Taft, to run for president as a Republican after Roosevelt had served two terms. This was roughly thirty years before the two-term presidential limit became law, and Teddy could have run again. He was enormously popular, but extremely restless, and he thought Taft's policies were identical to his own. Surprise, surprise: Taft began the doctrinaire swing to the monied interests which has become a lodestone around the GOP's neck (albeit a golden one) ever since. Roosevelt was furious. He cobbled together a party that didn't represent a groundswell of opinion for issues, but for Teddy and his image: it was this, and this alone, which helped draw a convincing showing in the 1912 election. Significantly, there was no larger popular vote that year--in other words, Teddy didn't bring into the electoral process anybody who wasn't voting. He merely split the GOP, allowing the Democrat Wilson to slide into office.

However, you missed the single iinstance in US history where a third party which was issue-oriented actually rose to second place in a presidential election. That was back in 1856, and it was the famous John Fremont (a vainglorioriouis and grandiose explorer known affectionately to the public because of his exploits as "The Pathmaker") who came in second as a Republican--a first race for the Republican Party--and the issue was slavery, which Fremont hated. (In 1861, at the start of the Civil War when he was appointed General over the US troops stationed in Missouri, he arbitrarily released a Military Order freeing all slaves within his dominion. Lincoln properly slapped him about decorously, and killed the Order as soon as the State Department heard of it.) However, those facts conceal the complexity of the times.

James Buchanan, the Democrat frontrunner in 1856, was a wishy-washy, colorless figure who seems in retrospect to have possessed a minus figure in his willpower attribute. He assumed the coloration of the most forceful personalities he was around (as his subsequent term as president would show). He only won because the Whig Party had self-combusted, thanks to the mutual hatred of their two leaders, Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. This left the Democrats with only one old rival: the Know-Nothings, the far-right, anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish group that had grabbed the presidency a while earlier in a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment, only to lose it when immigration due to wars and revolutions in Western Europe had died down. They were a spent force, with literally nothing to show, and more of a joke at that point than anything else.

The Republican party under Fremont was thus really running as a *second party.*

Now, if you want to look at how third parties with ideas and distinctive platforms traditionally fare in US presidential politics, check out how poorly everything that was a true third party fared against our two-party system over the last 150 years. Third parties may draw away from the two mainstream parties, but they have no chance of assuming any power in the US government, because the system is winner-take-all. It is not only the third parties and their candidates who are the victims of such a situation. It is also, IMO, the democratic process itself, which requires the exchange of meaningful ideas in public and private forum. Nader and Buchanan would have seriously challenged Gore and Bush in this regard. They were eliminated. Bush may have made efforts to pull in some of Buchanan's supporters, much as Gore might have done with Nader's, but the real issues remain untouched. And under the current system, I don't see how this will change.

[HighLordDave]

While third parties and independents technically could achieve power in the US, the fact of the matter is that they will never be a long-term factor. The two party system is firmly entrenched in America. The independent elected officials and third parties who spring up from time to time are not permanent political fixtures. Often they are the centered around a single person, whether we're talking about Teddy Roosevelt, Ross Perot or Jesse Ventura, and cease to exist after that person leaves the political arena.

The Democrats and Republicans have stacked the deck against any new parties and they have enough money and influence to absorb single-interest parties without making drastic changes to their own platforms, as our friend fable has pointed out.