The Baneful Effects of the Spirit of Party
Somewhere in this post, I’m going to offer you the most paradoxical statements I have ever made on this blog. You’ll find it when you get to it.
I’m am quite possibly one of the oddest political science majors around. You see, I really am appalled by politics. I hate it. I define politics as the struggle to determine who gets what. So much of it is a selfish mumbo jumbo designed to look like the public interest. There are very few politicians whose hand I would shake right now.
But the big one for me is political parties. The most assertive statement I could statement I can make regarding politics is that I hate political parties. “But Chris, aren’t political parties a blessing in our democratic society? Isn’t that freedom of speech and assembly.” You bet. But in the scope of democracy, there has not been one thing that has risen to become more undemocratic than the political party. Political parties are the bane of democracy.
Number one, they make things way oversimplified. People have no clue who they are voting for half the time. If I believe in low taxes, I will vote Republican without knowing a single thing about the candidate. It really disappoints me when people in our own department rush out to partisan gatherings around a candidate that has nothing in common with them.
Number two, they severely limit the ability of candidates to say what they feel. A candidate always has to be cognizant of what his partisan base feels.
Number three, they breed serious corruption. Now, a candidate has to please all the people who made campaign contributions to his or her political party.
Number four, they create more division. Two congressman in two political parties might share 7 out of 10 things in common with one another. But they will instead work with their own partisans before working with someone in the other party.
Number five, they are the very reason why I have no chance in politics. I make a terrible Republican and a worse Democrat.
Number six, they are not created to be Democratic. They are created to keep like-minded people in office and in power regardless of public sentiment. They are created to be undemocratic. Quite a paradox I believe.
Number seven, you cannot make it in politics without being a part of one. It is impossible to finance a campaign as an independent unless you own serious wealth.
I’m sure many of you who read this are active within one political party or another. I don’t know how you do it. But at least one great historical figure thinks the same way I do. Washington.
What you have said is mostly true only in American politics. And Washington was a closet Federalist. In European parties, you see a huge amount of democracy at work. Especially in Britain. The Speaker of the House is a former sheet metal worker from Scotland. Politics and political parties aren’t the problem, American politics and American political parties are the problem. Besides which, if you wish to make any progress in shaping this country, you have to work within the system. You may not agree with everything that a particular candidate stands for or a particular party, but no two people on this earth with agree on every single subject if they are independent and free thinking. To expect otherwise is unreasonable and, quite frankly, asinine.
I don’t want to engage in a time consuming fisking here, so I’ll just point out the biggest problems I have with this post.
As one who has made a career of partisan politics, I don’t think it is the parties that limit what candidates can say. The fact that a candidate has to (at least rhetorically) consider the opinions of his political base is not the result of any rigid party structure. I would even argue that most of the actual opinion formation process in contemporary politics occurs outside the party apparatus. For example, dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq grew much faster outside of the Democratic Party than within it. Blogs and other internet based communication platforms have made the parties all but irrelevant in aspects other than those related to practical campaign craft.
Also, you oversimplified almost everything you wrote. Actually, a majority of voters concerned with taxes voted Democratic in 2006. Each party certainly has assumed attributes. Republicans have a higher bar to reach before they are considered to be good on education and health care issues, and Democrats face an uphill climb on national security. These may not be true, but they aren’t the parties fault. And candidates do not have to please all of the contributors to the party. Contributions to a specific candidate often have strings attached, but the diversity of donors to the parties makes such a thing impossible.
Jkkuwitzky, I gave the tax example just as one example. You pointed out an exception to that. The point remains, most people attach stereotypes to parties and vote based on that rather than the candidate themself.
Kyle, Washington agreed more with the Federalists no doubt. But he never joined them and for that has my respect. And you bring up a good point about our problems being American in nature. Do you think our legislature would be more representative if we had a proportional vote rather than a winner-take-all? A proportional election would severely hurt the entrenched two-party structure that I hate so much. Honestly, if there were many political parties, I would probably be a lot more tolerant of them.
As would I, especially considering that on most issues the two parties are pretty much the same.
The most interesting part about the parties is the reallignment that goes on within them over the years. The parties, as you say, have certain stereotypes. But they have not always been the same stereotypes, nor will they continue to be the same. I think it is quite possible that we will see a significant reallignment in the next couple of election cycles.
Once we accept partisan reallignment, though, it does sort of take the teeth out of your conspiracy theories about political parties. It shows them to be products of changing values and ideas in the political landscape, not the heinous architects of it.
It interesting to watch the realignment of political ideals over our history. The Republican party used to be the party for african americans (Lincoln freeing the slaves and what happened afterwards), then the Democrats jumped in and took over during the Civil Rights era. The Demorcratic party used to be the southern Christian party, and now the Republicans have almost completely taken over the south as the “Religious Right”. It is interesting to see the changes that might occur in the future. I would be happier with a multiple-party state rather than a two party state, however it doesn’t look like that is going to come about anytime soon (although the rise of libertarianism is interesting to watch).
Ha, you think libertarianism is on the rise?
I don’t know why everyone’s always slamming on the two-party system. I mean, sure, it has its faults, but I think there are much bigger faults with having too many parties (coalition governments, ruling parties with a very small plurality, even MORE division, gridlock, and so on). I realize that there are some who don’t fit in well with either of the two major parties in this country. I further realize that many of the people who read/contribute to this blog fall into that catagory. That being said, I think that the majority of Americans can pretty closely identify with one of the two parties, or with one of the candidates sponsored by one of the parties.
More abstractly, the two party system usually forces moderation. Since the two parties dichotomize most issues into FOR or AGAINST, the tension between those two absolutes keeps a good balance in this countries politics.
Overall, though, the best thing that our political system provides is stability. Let’s face it, Democrats and Republicans aren’t all that different. If you think they are, then just look at some multi-party states and some examples of their parties: the Nazi Party, the Conservative Party, the Socialist Party, the Communist Party… In these nations, a change in government means a completely new direction for the country and a reversal of many different policies. We have a good deal of stability that I think is wise, even though I would like to see some pretty radical changes.