Lesser-Evilism: the Duopolist Dead-Ender's Pact with the Political Devil

Though lesser-evilists on both sides of the duopoly divide cloak their political pact with the devil in the mantle of pragmatism, their support for practical accommodation with the Democratic or Republican Party, as the case may be, is nothing other than a defense of the ruling political class and a renewed call for the reproduction of the reigning duopoly system of government. At the Booman Tribune, Booman comes right out and admits it:

Right now, the left is looking at the Democratic Party and asking why they are too much resembling the party of corporate management. But I think this is an anachronistic way of judging where we stand politically as a nation. We have a two-party system that is driven by the first past the post winner-take-all federal elections that were created by our Constitution. But one-party proved unworthy of support during the Bush years . . . [and so] the Democratic Party ceased being the party for the left and became the party for the entire Establishment. Outwardly, Obama campaigned as a traditional Democrat, appealing to traditional Democratic constituencies. But, in reality, he took on the job as savior for the entire system.

Booman has, perhaps unwittingly, thereby supplied one of the most succinct arguments in favor of opposition to the Obama administration and the Democratic congressional majority. Of course, the contention that today's Democratic or Republican Party is, or could be, anything other than a party for the establishment is maintained only by the most cynical propagandists of the two-party state and the most naive rank and file supporters of the major parties.

On the other side of the duopoly divide, JB Williams argues against independent opposition to the two-party state and for infiltration of the Republican Party. In addition to the absurd assertion that the end result of any successful third party and independent movement would be the transformation of the United States into a "parliament system," Williams provides a number of faulty arguments in favor of accommodation with the Republican Party. In what we might call the fractal fallacy, he treats findings from a national poll as if they reflected the breakdown of public sentiment in all state and local level polities:

23% “Tea Party” voters without a “Tea Party” to run a single candidate under cannot defeat 36% Democrat voters even in the wonderful Land of Oz.

The statement is, moreover, doubly false since this year voters in districts across the country will have the opportunity to choose a "Tea Party" candidate for office, whether that candidate is an independent or from the Constitution Party, the Libertarian Party, the Whig Party or even –why not?– the Green Party or Socialist Party. Applying yet another common duopolist argumentative fallacy, Williams equates the results of the 2008 presidential contest with outright support for the two-party state:

98.47% of the voters cast a vote for the two primary party tickets despite the fact that we had undeniably, the two worst tickets to choose from in U.S. history . . . 98.47% of voters are highly prone to support one of the two primary party tickets in every national election.

98.47% support for Obama and McCain sounds impressive until one recalls that only 56.8% of registered voters participated in the election. In other words, even with his "landslide" victory and comparatively "high" voter turnout, Obama was only able to garner the explicit support of roughly 30% of eligible voters. State and local elections are another matter altogether. In an opinion piece on the Florida Republican Party's attempts to court tea party activists, Bill Cotterelli observes:

As [GOP committeeman] Feaman accurately pointed out, these people want an end to big government, which is what Republicans advocate. But, he failed to add, it's not what the party does — certainly not to the extent the Tea Party ralliers desire.

This situation is effectively no different from that of the Democratic Party with respect to progressives. Just as Republicans advocate conservatism, but never deliver it, so too do Democrats advocate progressivism, but work against it. The reason for this is simple: the Democratic and Republican Parties are nothing more than the political organs of narrow corporatist interests. Rank and file lesser-evilists, the dead-enders of the duopolist order, are nothing more than their enablers.