America's Fastest Growing Third Party

What is America's fastest growing third party? The question seems straightforward enough, and the answer would appear to be easily quantifiable: one need only determine which party is increasing its membership at the fastest rate. Yet the proliferation of new parties over the last few years complicates the issue. If an activist founds a new party and convinces just one more person to join, membership instantaneously doubles. The most recent and reliable tally of voter registration numbers I have been able to track down is from late 2008, at Ballot Access News. Perusing the third party political web, however, one might begin to wonder just how many "fastest growing" parties there are in the United States. I count at least seven, in no particular order:

• An article from May at the Constitution Party website begins, "The Constitution Party, the fastest-growing third party, is poised to pick up the pieces of the broken Grand Old Party as more Americans consider the option of an alternative choice."

• The welcome page for the Green Party states: "The Green Party is America's fastest growing political party."

• America's Third Party calls itself, "America's fastest growing political movement."

• The introduction at the Libertarian Party website reads: "The Libertarian Party is America's third largest and fastest growing political party."

• A post from last year at the Boston Tea Party site is entitled: "The Fastest Growing Party in America."

• In June, the Modern Whig Party blog wrote that "the Modern Whig Party has attracted media attention as "the fastest growing mainstream political movement in the nation.""

• In a press release from the National Committee of America's Independent Party, we read: "The American Independent Party is the nation's third largest and fastest growing political party based on voter registration."

Of course, though comical, this is not meant to slight the above parties. If anything, it underscores the vitality, and the level of competition between them, as well as the widespread interest of voters across the political spectrum in alternatives to the duopoly charade. But it also raises the issue of truth in politics.

Cognizance of the tenuous relationship between political rhetoric and what is called 'the truth' is likely as old as politics itself. In Plato's Republic, for instance, it is famously asserted that a 'noble lie' is necessary to maintain social and political order. Today, as the corporate media have taken to accepting the truth claims of preferred politicians and ideologues of the duopoly parties at face value, it sometimes appears as if the greater portion of independent and amateur political commentary consists in nothing more than exposing the lies of the author's political opponents, present company not excluded. The cynics among us may well be justified in wondering whether the chains of lies and distortions peddled by the political class are not primarily intended to deceive, but rather simply to keep us busy while they go about their business.

The plasticity of truth, however, allows for it to be bent without necessarily being broken. It is in this gray area between truth and lie that much of our contemporary political discourse comes into its own. This holds as much for the partisans of the duopoly as it does for their opposition among third parties and independents. The intensity of political competition virtually requires it.