The Two-Party System Does Not Exist

 

If one wants to consider the U.S. a democracy, they'll first need to significantly lower their standards for what the word means. It's been confirmed that the actions of government officials and other elites are highly inconsistent with the wishes of the citizenry, and given the state of the electoral system that brought them there, this isn't at all surprising; from widespread gerrymandering to the Electoral College to the corporatized campaign finance system, the electoral process has been fundamentally subverted to favor the candidates of the people who run it. This applies to America's voting system as well, which has been found to be the most unfair of any other democracy in the world. The consequences of this have lately been felt most dramatically in elections like the Florida Congressional primary between Tim Canova and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, or the 2016 Democratic presidential primary between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.

But the problem goes deeper than all of this.

It feels trite to include a quote from a founding father to prove my point, but this 1780 statement from John Adams is the perfect summation of one of the biggest flaws in our electoral process:

"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. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution."

And thankfully for Adams, such a scenario never appeared in his lifetime. But had he lived two more years to see the election of 1828, he would have been in for an unpleasant twist. After decades of the United States' party system functioning just as Adams preferred, with little tendency towards the country's many parties coalescing into just two, everything changed.

After the contested election of 1824, in which Andrew Jackson lost the presidency despite having won the popular vote, the members of Jackson's Democratic Party spent the next four years feeling rightfully resentful towards the candidate that had beat him (who, I think it's worth emphasizing, was Adams' son John Quincy Adams). By the time Jackson was nominated again four years later, the anger on the Democratic side had firmly united the party in opposition towards their opponent, which naturally instigated political polarization. After a fittingly intense and dirty campaign, Jackson had, in the process of reclaiming the presidency, created a political environment that was dominated far more than ever by two parties-the Democrats and the Whigs (the latter of which would afterwards evolve into Republicans). During the following election cycles, the political duopoly continued to solidify itself, beating down all competitors from other parties and turning America into just what John Adams had feared the most. The irony is that Adams' son is the one who shares much of the blame for this.

And the rest, as they say, is history that we quietly regret having let happened. None of the efforts to return the American party system to its pre-Adams vs Jackson state have gained enough support to be successful, and the consequences of the public's failure to get behind them have turned out to be just as disastrous as Adams foresaw.

For a long time, it seemed as if there was little reason to eliminate the two-party system. Over the generations, the major parties changed their agendas to accommodate the wishes of their supporters, which, aside from instances like the Progressive Party's challenging the Republicans in 1912 or the Dixiecrat's breaking from the Democrats in 1948, kept it so that they both largely represented the interests of their base and thus provided the public with no immediate reason to overthrow them. But during the late 20th century, the fear implied in Adams' sentiment of two parties abusing their power began to come true. With the help of a series of cultural factors that were introduced through the neoliberal policies of the Reagan/Bush years, Democrats, the party formerly depended upon for keeping corporate rule at bay, were transformed it into an institution that was more or less as oriented towards serving the one percent as Republicans were.

That was when the cost of two-party politics truly began to be felt; confident in their position as members of one of the two ruling parties, the Democratic elite continued to wreak havoc over the middle-class and the poor despite their base wanting the opposite. They've since consolidated the news industry, deregulated Wall Street, passed free trade deals, instigated military conflicts, and helped turn the banking industry into a ticking economic time bomb, and yet they've still enjoyed the support to keep them a major political party. This, along with the similar actions that Republicans have taken, has resulted in all of the problems that are threatening to create a decline of the United States and perhaps tear apart civilization itself, such as escalated wars, record income inequality, and climate change.

And if America's two-party system is not undone soon, those aren't the only threats that will continue to get worse. As we've seen all-too-clearly this year, the neoliberal paradigm that this party model has created is giving way to the dark, counterproductive form of populism which is Trumpism, and unless a socially democratic antidote for it is introduced-something which the Democrats are in no position to be the party which does so-politics will soon become dominated by Trumpism. The consequence of this, as Arthur Goldhammer summarizes, is ironically an extension of those divisive, polarizing forces which spawned the two-party system in 1828: "If they [the Trumpists] succeed in their attempt to drive a wedge between us and them, we can expect the polarization of today’s politics to devolve into something far worse than mere gridlock, something resembling tribal warfare."

But there's just one obstacle for this descent into the political black lagoon: the two-party system does not exist.

Or at least it doesn't exist in a healthy democracy. In an undeniable contradiction to the popular myth among American political scientists that the two-party system is an inevitable phenomenon in every democratic system, virtually every other democracy on the planet has a multiparty system like the one of the U.S. before 1828. For example, though all of the UK prime ministers in recent memory have been members of either the Labour Party or the Conservative Party, 16 parties have representation in its parliament. That number for Germany is 14, 5 is the case for Canada, Australia's amount is 7, and so on and so on. This gives the voters of those countries far more freedom than Americans have, in that they can find parties which reflect their ideals without tied down to two ideologically narrow options which actively try to crush dissent.

And it's not a pleasant fantasy to think that this can change for America in the near future. In time for the next election, millennials, a group that can be relied upon for thinking outside of the political box, will make up 40% of the electorate. As a result of the wealth gap, a populist revolt is certain to emerge in the coming years which could easily have a radical effect on electoral politics. These factors, along with the political realignment that's already been building up for many years, serve as compelling evidence that the ancient, archaic American party system could be disrupted in the next one or two election cycles. And this upset might not just take place in the form of the leftist third-party counter that I'll be on the side of; an ideological split is occurring on the right as much as the left, which has caused the author Jeffrey Sachs to believe that "By 2020, it is quite possible that we will actually have four major political parties: a social democratic left, a centrist party, a right-wing conservative party and a populist anti-immigrant party (represented by Trump followers)."

In short, America's party system should not-and soon might not-have to be this way. The two-party reality that we (and our grandparents' grandparents) have known all our lives is not the result of some kind of inescapable law of politics, but of a bitter dispute between two men in 1828. If we can break out of this matrix in time for the great showdown in 2020, we'll be able to reclaim both our democracy and our hopes for sustaining the society which supports it.

A Five-Step Plan For Building A Successful Third Party

 

The picture above is a witness's sketch of the 1856 Republican National Convention. You wouldn't be able to guess it from looking at the image, but this was the party's first one ever.

As I've written about before, the GOP's origin story is proof that political upsets of party-sized magnitude can happen under the right conditions. The Republican Party was born out of the growing success of the abolitionist movement in the 1850's, wherein only months after their founding on March 20, 1854, they managed to largely dislodge the pro-slavery Whig Party in that year's midterm election. By 1856, they had replaced the formerly immovable Whigs altogether, all because they had an agenda that spoke to the deep and growing concerns of the American people.

And a similar situation is expected to play out soon in the 21st century. With income inequality once again at a crisis level, and the Democratic Party in a worse position than ever to address it, all the signs point to many Democrats (and some Republicans) leaving their party and working towards the rise of a third one that isn't corrupted by corporate interests, which will most likely be the Greens.

And especially with the coming economic collapse which will expose Democrats as the party of Wall Street when the Obama Administration pushes for bailouts, I believe that a large surge in support for the Greens is inevitable. But their victory won't happen on its own; we'll need to fight for it.

So in the interests of letting you know what you can do to make us achieve such reform-and most importantly, keeping you motivated-I'll present to you a somewhat idealistic, but entirely possible, projection of the next four years should we make all the right moves. The first one of those moves is...

1: Gather early support

Robert Reich, a longtime friend of the Clintons who nonetheless promotes an agenda far to the left of theirs, is one of the first people who had the vision of a third party upset post-2016. In March, during the height of competitiveness in the Democratic primaries, he authored a piece that succinctly imagined a surprisingly plausible scenario: the end of the two-party system in 2020 if Bernie Sanders did not become president in 2016.

And this wasn't just fanciful speculating. Reich now seriously plans to build an alternative to the two major parties in future elections. And I look forward to working with him on that, directly or indirectly. The one part of his strategy that I disagree with, though, is how he plans to embark on the project after the November election. "The day after Election Day," he said in a July 26 Democracy Now interview, "I am going to try to work with Bernie Sanders and anybody else who wants to work in strengthening a third party—and again, maybe it’s the Green Party—for the year 2020, and do everything else I was just talking about. But right now, as we lead up to Election Day 2016, I must urge everyone who is listening or who is watching to do whatever they can to make sure that Hillary Clinton is the next president, and not Donald Trump."

Aside from my minor disagreement with Reich on whether Hillary Clinton is worth voting for, I'd recommend a different approach: start promoting the idea of a party-sized upheaval right now. 

During the time between the end of the primary contests on June 14 and Bernie Sanders' endorsement of Clinton on July 12, when it was uncertain as to whether my candidate would become the nominee, I had been contemplating Reich's predictions quite a lot. And by the time it was all over, I was fully ready to begin working on plan B. Hours after Sanders surrendered all the hopes of his campaign, I had started cultivating new hope in his supporters by creating See You In 2020 and publishing an article that explained why this was far from over (which, I admit, I had started to write in advance).

In short, I started preparing for 2020 as far back in advance as possible. And if you haven't begun doing so yet, please start now; tell everyone you know about the political opportunities ahead. Talk on social media about building a third party. And if you have any kind of voice in the media or run a blog of your own, use it to spread the message. Time is of the essence, and Trump or no Trump, we can't afford to waste it by remaining silent on this issue.

2: Gather early support from within the establishment

Here's where the fun starts: the day after the election. Well, actually, it won't be all that fun when we experience it firsthand. A massive financial crisis is coming (see the link in the fourth paragraph), and in spite of the uncomfortable effects that most of us will be feeling from it, at least we'll be able to watch the political thriller that it results in.

If the crash hits before the end of Obama's term, which I believe is highly likely, the Democratic Party will be effectively detonated. As was the case eight years ago, Obama will pursue a bailout for the largest financial institutions after they start to go under, which will be just as unpopular as the ones from last time. But unlike in 2008, Obama and the other Democrats who support such actions will not be let off in the court of public opinion. As the middle class rapidly deflates under the policies of a Democratic president, not only the types of liberals who supported Sanders in the primaries but the ones who supported Clinton will largely be jolted out of the notion that their party represents their interests. 

Since Hillary Clinton herself will no doubt be on board with the bailouts in addition to being responsible for creating the foundations of this crisis by supporting the last ones, if the collapse happens before November 8, the election could very well be handed to Trump. But no matter what comes of this in the short term, it will leave us with a major opening for future elections.

Again, imagine it's November 9. The system of big money in politics, unregulated capitalism, and extreme economic concentration has wholly proved itself to be unsustainable, and almost everyone is aware that neither of the major parties is able to fix the problem. It's now when Robert Reich, Bernie Sanders, and the rest of those who know what must be done to fix this mess will need to get to work. 

On that day, I plan to start both privately and publicly contacting the politicians who make up a substantial part of the Democratic Party, called the Berniecrats, and advising them to leave their party. Having collectively pledged to vote for Hillary Clinton, they have somewhat of an obligation at the moment to remain registered Democrats, but after the election is over and the Wall Street bailout fiasco has played out, I'm sure that many of them will be glad to break ties with the DNC. If we all lobby them through some means (writing letters, calling their offices, authoring opinion pieces) to abandon the Democratic Party, our movement could soon have a lot of influential figures backing it.

The winter of 2016 will be a bleak one. But spring will be on its way, and the world will be turning Green.

3: Lay out the foundations for a government takeover

It's 2017, and the cracks in the two-party system are becoming ever more visible. New polling data has been released on party affiliation that shows combined Republican and Democratic membership has dropped to below 50%, and as Americans are struggling to recover from the financial Armageddon that resulted from their past support of these parties, this fact is making a lot of people re-evaluate their political strategy.

And the leaders of the Green Party (assuming that another party with similar goals doesn't arise to compete with it) are taking notice. As the 2017 local elections (or what I like to call the mid-midterms) approach, Greens across the country who are running for positions like mayor, county supervisor, and school board are enjoying a notable increase in support with a public that's both deeply alienated with the parties of those candidates' competitors and has the encouragement of many political leaders to seek out alternatives.

I believe that this surge will be inevitable. But the amount of influence it has over the structure of our government when the time comes to vote will largely depend on how hard we work for these candidates. Living in Humboldt County, California, one of the state's top three Greenest counties and the first place where Greens won a majority of seats in a city council, I'll have front-row seat to some of the races where they're most successful. Other parts of the country won't be as easy, though; judging from the map of Jill Stein's success in the 2012 election, we can expect that while the Green Party will do well in Alaska, Hawaii, the northeast, the west coast, and the northern midwest, they'll face challenges in most other regions.

But even if you live in Georgia (the Green Party's historically worst-performing state), I urge you to promote, volunteer, and most importantly vote for the Green candidates running in your area next year. And if they're expected to be absent from any places on the ballot, fill that void by running as a Green yourself. Because though a Green sweep in local elections won't have much of a direct influence on the issues that affect the country most, it will leave a great deal of communities familiar with the Greens, and feel empowered to vote for them when the stakes are higher.

4: Take it to Washington

I'm sad to say that no Green has ever won a position in the U.S. government's parliament. But when examining the historical record of the amount of votes the Greens have received in past elections, one era stands out: the year 2000.

"Green Party Grows (So Does Democrats' Dismay)", reads a headline from 1998 that we'll no doubt see a new version of in 2018. For several years between then and the turn of the millennium, it looked like the Greens were slowly on their way to overtaking the Democratic Party. After Bill and Hillary Clinton's appaling remaking of the Democrats into another version of the Republicans, many voters were ready for a change. That, and the nomination of yet another uninspiring candidate Al Gore in 2000, propelled Ralph Nader to a symbolic victory of 2.74% of the vote and gave the Greens running for Senate an unprecedented 0.90% of it. Congressional Green candidates also experienced an increase in support from previous elections, with 0.26% of the vote.

The trend of growing success for the Greens didn't last, but it made something apparent: when the public doesn't like the options in front of them, there's no reason they won't switch to something better.

That's what we'll see again-this time magnified-in the 2018 midterms. With the Greens (hopefully) having won a large number of seats in local races across the country, and the latest poll numbers for the Democratic Party showing that it just doesn't have enough support to be taken seriously, they're ready to compete on a higher level. I'd say the worst case scenario for 2018, assuming we succeeded enough in 2017, will be that the Green candidates running for the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the governorship will not win any elections, but still take an amount of the vote relative to their opponents that would have been unheard of two years before. The best case scenario (which, as far as we know, will be the case) is that Greens defy the attacks that the media and the electoral establishment throw at them and actually win several, if not many, seats in parliament.

Then begins the long slog to you-can-guess-where...

5: Take it to Washington-and then take it over.

It's the beginning of 2019, and the Greens have made historic gains in a very short period of time. They have the backing of many prominent individuals, a substantial number of Americans now choose to side with them over the Democrats (which are still shrinking), and though they still don't control the government, they're now very much a mainstream party.

Now comes their greatest challenge: winning the White House. Despite hostility from the corporate media, they enjoy a lot of support from the American people during the first months of the 2020 campaign season, with their presidential frontrunner experiencing a steady rise in the polls. And after the Greens take over more of the country's local governments than ever in November of 2019, the game is on.

With much of the left now with the Green Party, the Democratic base and leadership is almost entirely made up of corporatists, which means that the Greens have an edge. If Hillary Clinton is the next president, they'll find themselves running against one of the worst Democratic candidates imaginable, and if she isn't, the 2020 Democratic nominee will most certainly be just as politically unappealing as her. For this reason, I think the Greens will have a good chance of surpassing the Democrats in both membership and the polling numbers of their presidential nominees in 2020.

The final face-off before November, though, will likely be between the Greens and the Republicans. If Donald Trump is the next president, we'll be competing with someone who harnesses the same kind of anti-establishment, populist sentiments as we do-but twists it into a reactionary, neo-fascist direction rather than towards the politics of peace and equality that we promote. The same will be the case if Trump loses, as a new, probably even worse version of him will easily step in and take his place four years later. So ultimately, the choice that Americans will face on November 3, 2020 will come down to this: do you want  your future to be defined by the politics of fear, or by the politics of courage?

Given the demographic shift that will have taken place by then, we have good reason to believe that courage will win in that scenario. But that's far off; right now, we need to get started on creating the factors that will make it all possible. 

As for 2016, I'll continue to write articles here that promote setting those events into play, and help Greens win in the races currently within their reach. (For anyone who also lives in Humboldt County, you'll have two local Greens to vote for in November: Arcata City Council candidates Paul Pitino and someone named Valerie Rose-Campbell. Let's make this a good year for them.) The future that I envisioned is fantastical, but if we're willing to work for it, it could very well become reality.

And what if we don't succeed in 2020? If that happens, as we've learned this year, nothing should ever deter us from continuing the fight. History shows that change always comes, regardless of the direction of electoral politics. And secondly, remember that the Republicans lost in 1856. However long it takes for the Greens to do what the Republicans did, we'll one day get a Lincoln of our own.