On the Red State Republican Crypto-Communist Electoral Strategy: Against Infiltration

Given that Red State's Eric Erickson was one of the earliest Republican supporters of Doug Hoffman's third party candidacy for the special election in NY-23, Red State diarists have begun penance for their third party heresy. Consider "Third Parties Are Not the Answer," which was posted by nedryun, and may or may not have been authored by Erickson himself. Let's refute this apologia for the two-party state and call to political infiltrationism point by point.

Following the introduction, the author begins from a position favored by historical fatalists, writing: "American politics always has been, and for the foreseeable future, will be, a two party system." This is the myth by which ideologues of the two-party state justify the continued existence of the political status quo, turning a contingent historical-political constellation into a quasi-eternal condition of politics as such. As any reader of these pages is likely well aware, and, as I sometimes tire of reiterating, the United States does not have any "party system" whatsoever, as none is mandated by the Constitution. Rather, what is called the "two-party system" is nothing more than the form by which the people of the United States are systematically disenfranchised and alienated from their supposedly representative government.

The Red State diarist then goes on to unveil the central argument of the piece, namely, that conservatives would be better served by infiltrating the Republican Party than by engaging in third party and independent activism. As we are well aware, the argument in favor of infiltration refutes itself. What is noteworthy in the present context is the authority by which the author legitimates his argument in favor of infiltration. We read:

Some argue that the Republican Party is so dominated by DC insiders and special interests that the only way to break their strangle-hold on the party is to go the third party route. I strongly disagree and think we could learn some lessons from the left on this issue. In February of 1974, in Ramparts magazine, G. William Domhoff, a socialist, wrote “Blueprints for a New Society.” In that article, Domhoff argues that those running under the Communist Party banner should stop doing so and instead run within the Democratic Party . . . Domhoff struck on some very important points with this article, points that limited government conservatives would be wise to use. [Emphasis added.]

Is it necessary to point out the irony of a Red State diarist employing a Cold War crypto-Communist strategy for taking over the Democratic Party in the mid-seventies to justify continued allegiance to the two-party statist model of representative government in 2009? Perhaps here it would make more sense, or at least be more interesting, to reveal the contradiction inherent to Domhoff's position rather than engage his Red State Republican acolyte. Allow me, then, to put forward an argument that both the doctrinaire Marxist and the duopolist ideologue can easily comprehend: an argument by authority. In the Preamble to the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx writes:

Communism is already acknowledged by all European powers to be itself a power. It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the spectre of Communism with a manifesto of the party itself. [Emphasis added.]

In other words, the point of the Communist Manifesto and the strategy it envisions is not to secretly infiltrate the powers that be and somehow effect their transformation from the inside, but rather to stand on principle and in open opposition to those powers in order to change the dynamics of the balance of power. Unlike principled revolutionaries of any stripe, infiltrationists prefer a strategy that, above all else, compromises with the ruling parties and affirms the political forms that maintain the reigning political status quo. The Red State diarist continues:

Some will argue that the major parties are corrupt, controlled by wealthy interests and DC insiders, and that every election is really a choice between the evils of two lessers. I can’t say I disagree. But the reason major parties are controlled by such interests is that many limited government conservatives have failed to realize that the parties are only vehicles to achieve political ends.

Indeed, the Democratic and Republican Parties are the vehicles by which "wealthy interests and DC insiders" achieve their corrupted political ends. It is precisely for this reason that the Democratic and Republican Parties are not an appropriate means to oppose corrupt, entrenched, political elites, or achieve ends opposite to theirs. From this simple insight, the refutation of the author's final point easily follows. He writes:

The third party route will only entrench the interests even more because nothing effective will be done — can be done — against them from outside the party.

On the contrary, it is only from the outside, in open opposition to the Democratic-Republican duopoly system of government, that the scope of political representation can be expanded to include interests other than those of corrupt elites and political insiders. Infiltration of the Democratic and Republican Parties only serves to provide political cover for the theft, or rather, the purchase, of political office.