Throughout virtually it’s entire history, the United States
has had two dominant political parties.
Since the collapse of the Whigs in the 1850s, those two parties have
been the Republicans and the Democrats.
With the exception of the Bull Moose party in 1912 and some short-lived racist
Southern parties (the Dixiecrats in 1948 and the American Independent Party in
1968), it’s been nothing but Republicans and Democrats in the oval office and
Congress. This is the longest stretch of
the same two parties being power in U.S. history. (A third party candidate has
not even won a single state in a presidential election since 1968, when George
Wallace carried five Southern states.)
On the surface, that kind of stability may seem like a good
thing. But when you look a little
deeper, what has this system really gotten us?
We have a government that is paralyzed by partisan politics that prevent
almost anything from getting done. Over
the past few decades, the Democrats have moved further to the left, the
Republicans have moved further to the right and the gap between the two sides
has grown larger. Moderates from both
parties have been jettisoned in favor “true believers” who stick to the party
line and view compromise as a four letter word.
Whereas many of our Founding Fathers were eloquent statesmen, the halls
of the capitol in Washington and the various state legislatures across the
country are now populated with sycophants and cronies who spend more time
hurling insults across the aisle than actually reaching across it to do the
jobs they were elected to do.
Republicans claim to be the party of small government while
at the same time trying to tell people who they can and cannot marry and
starting wars overseas with money we don’t have. Democrats view the government as the solution
to everyone’s problems and if we take enough money from the wealthy and give it
to the poor, everyone will be happy.
Republicans denigrate Democrats as “tax and spend liberals” while
themselves voting to spend money like drunken sailors on wars and the military
while trying to keep taxes low. It doesn’t
make any sense.
Both parties are in bed with lobbyists and banks and special
interests and corruption appears to be behind every corner. Republicans are fiscally and socially
conservative, while Democrats are fiscally and socially liberal. But what about those folks – and there are a
lot of them – who are fiscally conservative and socially liberal? Those folks who agree with one side on the
economic issues and the other side on the social issues? They have to pick one or the other because
there isn’t a viable party out there that truly represents their views.
This is why we need a viable third party (and, heck, why not
a fourth party, too) in this country.
First of all, it would potentially provide an option for moderates and
others who may see the benefits of both sides.
But more importantly, it could help break the stalemate in government
and force our elected officials to actually do the jobs they were elected to
do! With two parties, everyone can vote
along party lines and the result is filibusters or legislation that one side
shoves down the other side’s throat.
Imagine, though if we had a viable third party that was, for instance,
fiscally conservative and socially liberal.
Those folks in that party would potentially vote with the Republicans on
economic issues but the Democrats on social issues. It would be a new dynamic that would force
the existing two parties to reach out to others outside their party to get
things accomplished. Maybe it would wind
up not working any better, but can it really be any worse than it is now? People keep saying they are fed up with
politicians and surveys show dismal Congressional approval ratings. However, we keep perpetuating this same mess
by continually electing the same people from the same parties over and over
again. As Einstein said many years ago,
that’s the definition of insanity.
So, when you go to the polls next month or in November, don’t
just automatically think your only options are the people with the D or R after
their name. Do your research and
consider what the person with the L or G or C behind their name has to
offer. If enough people voted their
conscience (sorry to quote Ted Cruz) rather than just choosing the lesser of
two evils, we might actually be able to begin fixing our broken government.
Thanks for reading.
