The Failure of Political Representation is the Success of Democratic-Republican Party Government

One of the most common criticisms of Democratic-Republican Party government states that our political system is broken, that the Democratic and Republican Parties are incapable of adequately representing the interests of the American people, that the two-party state has been captured by entrenched factional interests, that the Democratic and Republican Parties are more concerned with expanding their power than reigning in the rampant abuses of power to which we have become accustomed from the Democratic and Republican Parties. But, arguably, this critique is fundamentally misguided because it is based on a misapprehension of the system's function, aims and goals.

The fact that the Democratic-Republican two-party state does not represent the interests of the American people, but rather those of well-connected corporatists and interest groups, the fact that Democratic-Republican Party government aims first and foremost at the centralization and monopolization of political power in the hands of the parties and their functionaries and hence seeks always and everywhere to expand rather than limit the power and reach of government authority – this is not evidence of the failure of the Democratic-Republican two-party state and duopoly system of government, rather, this is evidence of its success. This is not evidence that the political system is broken, it is a well-oiled machine and this is how it has been constructed to function: to the benefit of the ruling criminal-political class.

Consider in this context the language that has come to dominate the debates between the gubernatorial hopefuls in Massachusetts. Independent Tim Cahill argues that the two-party system is broken because it exists only to advance the interests of the parties. From the Boston Globe:

Timothy P. Cahill, the state treasurer who won office as a Democrat and is running for governor as an independent, reached out to voters of all stripes yesterday in a live chat on Boston.com, defending his decision to run as a fiscally conservative independent instead of a libertarian or Republican.

“I am running as an Independent because I believe that the two-party system is broken. I don’t think either party has a monopoly on good ideas,’’ he wrote. “I am looking to do what’s best for the people of this state, not advance the tired agenda of a political party.’’

Interestingly, at a recent forum featuring Republican gubernatorial front-runners Christy Mihos and Charles Baker effectively agreed with Cahill's assessment:

"Charlie Baker and I are gonna work to rebuild this party and the two-party system," Mihos concluded. "The first thing is to stop spending money we don't have," said Baker in closing

One hears this sort of rhetoric from Republicans and Democrats all the time: "our political system is broken, but we will fix it." The ironic thing, of course, is that Republicans and Democrats are the problem; and so, by definition, their election represents either the reproduction or exacerbation of that problem. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to the problem represented by the Democratic-Republican two-party state: vote third party and independent.