gracchusdixit

If you are sick to death of talk about the 2014 mid-term election, which you have every right to be, you may want to skip these comments and spend your time with an episode of Madmen. Nobody would blame you.  On the other hand, this election did dramatize one of the most maddening but little discussed aspects of our public life—the peculiar institution we call the “two-party system”.

It is profoundly strange that we are stuck with two political parties defined by the crude and largely meaningless characterizations, “liberal” and “conservative,” when every other advanced democracy in the world has at least three—and in most cases, far more than three—parties to choose from.  The largest European nations each have half a dozen significant political parties, representing a wide range of political philosophies and practical interests.   The United Kingdom, whose political traditions are closer to ours than any other, has three major parties and shows every sign of getting at least one more.  Our neighbor Canada likewise has three major parties, and if you count the Parti Québécois, it has four.  Even the “little country” of Europe, Denmark, with a population smaller than that of Massachusetts, has ten.

The disparity between our political arrangements and those of other nations cannot be explained by fact that we are a “constitutional republic” rather than a “parliamentary democracy”. Several of the parliamentary systems I just mentioned had, once upon a time, only two parties, but ultimately decided that two wasn’t enough.

Nor can it be explained by the fact that we are “federal” union of separate states that somehow need to be brought together under two big political “tents”.  If anything, the opposite should be true.  Switzerland also has a “federal” system, one that is more complex and potentially fractious than ours, because the Swiss speak four languages and hail from half a dozen distinctly different cultural traditions.  This hasn’t stopped the Swiss from developing a dozen major parties to speak for their interests all the while the Swiss federation hangs together quite nicely.

The irony is that our Constitution doesn’t mention political parties at all.  As far as the Constitution is concerned, we could just as easily be governed by ten parties—or none.  Indeed, the Founders abhorred the very idea of parties or “factions,” as they preferred to call them.  In his farewell address, George Washington, the “father of the nation,” warned against them in the severest terms.  And yet here we are, two centuries later, stuck with two parties, and two parties only, which are forever at one another’s throats and increasingly held in contempt by the electorate.

If there was any doubt about the depth of that contempt, it disappeared on November 4th.  Republicans weren’t swept into office by a “wave” of popular support, as the pundits proclaimed.  Instead, they crept into office, like thieves in the night, “elected” by fewer than one in five eligible voters  The vast majority of the electorate voted for someone else or didn’t choose to vote at all.

Nor did the 2014 election herald rejection of Barack Obama and the Democrats, as Republicans are now thundering.  It signified a growing rejection of the entire two-party system. Voter turn-out was the lowest in more than half a century,  but it has been dwindling for decades.  Even in Presidential elections, scarcely more than half the electorate any longer casts a ballot.

Our governing class routinely blames voters themselves for this, castigating them for their indifference or lack of political engagement.  That is a shabby rhetorical trick, which diverts attention from the real problem.

People will vote—assuming that they are allowed to vote at all—if they have something, or somebody, to vote for.  They will make choices if they are offered real choices, which speak to their interests or their convictions.  Unfortunately, our two-party system provides neither.

If it were true to its principles, the “tea party” would stand on its own two feet instead of surreptitiously co-opting the Republican Party to which it pretends to belong.  Progressives would abandon the Democratic Party for its craven obedience to big donors and organized special interests.  Environmentalists would go their own “green” way and rally their supporters to the cause they believe in, which is precisely what the various “Green Parties” of Europe have successfully done.

We are bridled with our crazy system for one reason and one reason only—the unbridled power of big money.  Nearly every other democracy in the world regulates political spending more rigorously.  Nearly all require full disclosure.  Nearly all underwrite elections with public funds and ensure media access to legitimate candidates and parties.  We do none of these things.  Big money wants big results, and you can’t get big results when “the little people” are given a voice.

The ultimate madness of our system may be that we take it so much for granted, as if it were an inevitable act of God or an irreversible calamity of nature. It is neither—and we would be a lot better off if it disappeared.  The wickedly funny British comic, Russell Brand, recently asked:  What if nobody voted at all?  The way things are going, we may soon find out.