Political Witchcraft and Duopoly Ideology

Undoubtedly, one great strength of two-party system and the corresponding ideology of the duopoly is that they are easily reconcilable with the categories of binary reasoning and dualist systems of thought in general. The simplistic 'us vs. them' mentality fostered by the duopoly system is readily apparent, for instance, in an opinion piece by Andrew Breitbart, when he writes: "Democracy is not Augusta National Golf Club. It's a messy free-for-all, and in a two-party system, the GOP will not survive if it doesn't accept the fact that the Democrats are its enemy." Yet duopolist ideology is not always grounded in such a clear cut antagonism. At the Witches' Voice, a 'neo-pagan news and networking' forum, Phoenix Forestsong analyzes the two-party system in terms of the symbiotic dualism characteristic of Wiccan theology. The piece perfectly encapsulates the misconceptions, contradictions and paradoxes that sustain the ideology of the duopoly.

The aim and goal of dualistic thought is often to supply the believer with two opposing yet complementary principles which together constitute a harmonious whole, thus accounting for the totality of experience or existence. According to Wikipedia, "for most Wiccans, Wicca is a duotheistic religion worshipping both a God and a Goddess, who are seen as complementary polarities akin to the Taoist philosophy of yin and yang." It is thus no surprise that Phoenix Forestsong sees these principles embodied in the two-party system, and finds that the antagonism between the Republican and Democratic Parties "is the ultimate example of an ideological symbiotic relationship." Such a reading of the two-party state must therefore necessarily account for the excess of strife evident in our politics from the local to the national level. It is the individual, Forestsong maintains, who derails the cosmic political balance:

when discussing the relationships between our partisan representatives, what you see is the human aspect of the parties; not the pure ideological beauty of our two-parties, the divinely inspired monument to personal freedom that is the Government of the United States of America . . . the specific representatives of those powerful and necessary ideologies that our nation needs, are flawed (Emphasis added.)

We see here yet another example of a commentator mistaking the form of the two-party political system with constitutional government itself. This example is noteworthy, however, because it does not conform to the usual misconception, in which the two-party system is confused with the separation of powers. Nonetheless, by identifying the individual as the locus of strife and factionalism, Forestsong obscures the structural effects and the artificial nature of the system as a whole. And, at the same time, because the author's theological interpretation of the two-party state assumes that the Republican and Democratic Parties and their corresponding ideologies exhaust all latent political possibilities and potentialities, it must necessarily exclude all forms of political exteriority, just as the ideology of the duopoly does. Ironically, in the present case, this includes Pheonix Forestsong him- or herself! In the article's disclaimer, we read: "I have tried to write this article from a detached point of view, as I am an Independent and do not agree in whole with any political party."