The Two-Party System Guarantees Political Corruption and the Abuse of Power

An AP article out of Idaho profiles Keith Allred, who has announced that he will be seeking the Democratic nomination for governor of the Gem State in 2010. As usual, the article is careful to exclude mention of any third party or independent candidate for the office:

If Allred wins the 2010 Democratic primary in May, he would face the winner of the Republican primary. GOP candidates include front-runner Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter, Ada County Commissioner Sharon Ullman and former elk rancher Rex Rammell.

Yet there are already at least two independent candidates for governor of Idaho in 2010: Jana Kemp and Pro-Life Richardson. The AP piece quotes a former Democratic governor of the state, Cecil Andrus, talking up the virtues of the two-party system:

Cecil Andrus, a former four-term Democratic governor, applauded Allred's run, saying Democrats haven't held the post since Andrus left office in 1995. "Keith is extremely knowledgeable about the issues and he knows Idaho," Andrus said in an e-mail from the state Democratic Party. "Most Idahoans know that a strong two-party system makes for better government and a more balanced approach to solving problems." [Emphasis added.]

Such statements are good for a laugh, but the joke is on those who continue to believe the propagandistic proclamations of duopolist ideologues. Consider the situation, for instance, in the state of Georgia, where the Republican Speaker of the House, Glenn Richardson, will soon be resigning after it was revealed that the "family values" conservative had been carrying on an affair with a lobbyist. Richardson "helped engineer the 2004 Republican takeover of the House, becoming the first GOP House speaker in Georgia in 134 years." In an opinion piece for the Atlanta Journal Constitution reflecting on the scandal, the former executive director of the Georgia GOP, Lee Raudonis, notes that the two-party system clearly does not make for better government:

The announcement that Georgia’s first Republican speaker of the House since Reconstruction is resigning in January causes me to wonder if a lot of work by a lot of people to help make Georgia a two-party state actually achieved the results we were seeking. After all, one of the primary objectives of creating a viable two-party system was to bring an end to the abuse of power by a few ultra-powerful legislators . . .

The perceived abuses of power by . . . Democrats was one of the great motivators for candidates and party loyalists to work extra hard to elect more and more Republicans. Eventually, in the year 2002, Republicans won a majority in the state Senate and two years later, a majority in the state House. We were convinced that once in power, Republicans — who understood firsthand what it was like to be in a minority position and campaigned aggressively against the abusive use of power — would make sure that none of their leaders abused their power.

Oops, I guess we were wrong. A competitive two-party system clearly does not guarantee that those in the majority will not abuse their power. Our soon-to-be former speaker proved that.

The proposition that a "strong two-party system makes for better government," as is alleged by duopolist ideologues and Democratic-Republican partisans of the two-party system, is demonstrably false. Indeed, it would not be much of an exaggeration to propose that the two-party system guarantees political corruption and the abuse of power. The proof is the abject degeneracy and corruption of the reigning two-party state. A primary aim of independent and third party politics should be the dismantling of the Democratic-Republican corporate corruptocracy.