Break the System: the Fix is In

Unlike liberals and progressives who continue to believe, against all the evidence, that the Democratic Party is capable of delivering the change they seek, many conservatives have begun to realize that the Republican Party is beholden not to them, but rather, like the Democratic Party, to the interests of entrenched elites and special interests, whose agendas and interests are directly opposed to those of the vast majority of people in the United States. Vincent Gioia makes a strong case for a unified, conservative third party front:

There is a solution to the loss of conservative representation in the Republican Party and little or no representation in congress. A third party representing conservative ideals and principles will enable conservatives to express their political views on a national level and need not damage election outcomes like past third parties have done.

A similar sentiment is articulated in the letter by Janet Contreras to Glenn Beck, which is currently circulating on right-leaning blogs. Contreras writes in part:

Democrat, Republican, independent, libertarian. Understand this. We don't care. Political parties are meaningless to us. Patriotic Americans are willing to do right by us and our Constitution and that is all that matters to us now. We are going to fire all of you who abuse power and seek more. It is not your power. It is ours and we want it back. We entrusted you with it and you abused it.

Understandably, partisan Republicans are concerned by this groundswell of independent and third party agitation. The Pink Flamingo complains:

I am sick and tired of third party yahoos denigrating the GOP and everyone in it. I am tired of watching people say vile and nasty things about good men and women who truly do not deserve the treatment these third party hacks are threatening. The Republican Party has some very good elected officials, who are doing their very best to do what is right and honorable. Instead of constantly damning them, maybe we should be out there supporting them, and helping them instead of threatening to kick them out of office because they do not slobber around people like Glenn Beck.

At America's Right, Ronald Glenn sees a comparable threat in the activities of Alex Jones, pleading to conservatives: "Don't Abandon the GOP, Fix It." He concludes:

The Democrat Party claims to support labor unions while advocating immigration policies that support non-union labor. The Republican Party sells itself as the Patriot Party, while permitting corporations to move the economy overseas. The point has to be emphasized that the Republican Party does not have to be abandoned. It needs to be fixed.

Such a position, of course, presupposes that the duopoly parties can be fixed. The problem, however, is that the fix is already in. The claim that Americans must work within the framework of the existing two-party system in order to achieve positive change is effectively an argument in favor of the political status quo, which resists and is overtly hostile to all attempts at such change.