Toward a Popular Front for the Liberation of the People of the United States from the Apparatus of the Global Warfare and Corporate Welfare State

At Politics Daily, Donna Trussel considers the overlap between the demands of left- and right-wing populists on a number of issues, and proposes a third party alternative to the Democratic-Republican two-party state in an article wondering if "Dennis Kucinich is joining the tea party movement":

Democrats and Republicans are now so divided and partisan that no legislation can move forward. And yet, with a few notable exceptions, it seems both Democrats and Republicans represent not the small investor or the average homeowner or the laid-off worker, but rather banks and big business. That's a conundrum if I ever saw one. The Poland analogy – a government that cannot govern – sounds apt to me. . . . In catastrophe is opportunity, as the saying goes. Ten years ago a third party could not work, but now, just maybe it can. A third party that stands for campaign finance reform, a balanced budget, full employment, the break up of companies "too big to fail," health care reform that looks after people instead of insurance and pharmaceuticals, an end to pork, and a one-way ticket out of town for every lobbyist in Washington.

Imagine a 2012 ticket of libertarian-leaning Ron Paul and socialist-leaning Dennis Kucinich, where they run on their common goals rather than their differences . . . A new third party will need a good name, one with no baggage. A name that suggests a democratic republic, but of course Democrat and Republican are already taken, not to mention ruined . . . Start from your common ground. The whole country is angry, and rightfully so. To everyone who ever dreamed of a real choice on Election Day: This is your chance. Seize it.

Overcoming the Reactionary Political Theology of the Two-Party State: Lesser-Evilism and Third Party Strategy

At Babeled, Jack Gamble argues that all third party and independent political movements will fail so long as voters remain incapable of liberating themselves from the mentality of lesser-evilism fostered by the ideology of the two-party state:

Did you vote for Kerry or against Bush? Did you vote for McCain or against Obama? . . . With most people voting against and few people voting for, the two party system will always prevail. People will vote for the guy most likely to beat the guy they hate and not vote for the candidate who most resembles their views . . . What Keeks and I both failed to realize is that neither of us particularly liked the guy we voted for. We just really hated the guy we voted against. As long as people vote against, bipartisanship will dominate American politics.

The politics of the Democratic-Republican two-party state is a negative politics of reaction: the vote for the lesser of two evils is first and foremost a vote against the greater of two evils. But what conditions must hold to defeat a politics that is defined as a system of competing evils? At The Think 3 Institute, Sam Wilson argues that this requires overcoming the fear of the ideological other:

Learning not to fear the liberal, in his case, should mean admitting (if not necessarily embracing) the likelihood of liberal victory during the time it takes to build a genuinely principled conservative movement. In other words, conservatives have to be willing to let the liberals win if that's the price of breaking the Republican party's stranglehold on conservative loyalty. Vice versa, of course, is equally true for liberals, progressives or others on the "left." In order to break the Democrats' paralyzing stranglehold on liberal loyalty, they have to be willing to let the conservatives win as the temporary price of their principled uprising. Neither conservatives nor progressives should assume that they can win in their first great effort, and they should realize that, conditions being what they are, their efforts will most likely mean the triumph of an apparently opposite ideology unless two great uprisings occur simultaneously. That's a prospect that might require conservatives and progressives (or libertarians or socialists) to really swallow their fears, because they really ought to collaborate and encourage each other to fight against their respective pillars of the Bipolarchy.

Sam thus argues that, in all likelihood, spoiled elections will initially result from a refusal to engage in favorite betrayal, but that this is a small price to pay in the effort to defeat the Democratic-Republican duopolist order. However, the threat of the spoiler effect can also be strategically minimized in the choice of one's political battles: for instance, when Libertarians challenge Republican candidates in districts where the latter generally run unopposed, or in which the Democratic Party is extremely weak, or similarly, when the Greens challenge Democrats in polities where they generally run unopposed or in which the Republican Party is extremely weak – the threat of "throwing" the election to the "other" side is virtually non-existent.

Toward a Popular Opposition to the Democratic-Republican Two-Party State and Duopoly System of Government

At Polizeros, Bob Morris has been a consistent voice in support of a popular left-right coalition against the Democratic-Republican ruling establishment, and a critic of the left's general dismissal of the tea party movement. Today, he relays comments from a tea party activist brainstorming a potential left-right alliance against the political status-quo:

Let’s brainstorm: what would a left-right alliance look like? The Goals: Democracy as George Washington wanted it: End the party system. End the “culture war”. End bailouts, have bailouts payed back. Do some Teddy Roosevelt style trust-busting – if a corporation is too big to fail, it’s a monopoly. . . . Improve civil liberties, government transparency, get rid of voting machines, increase turnout with vote-by mail, holiday on election day etc. Cut taxes for the middle class. Pay for it by taxing the financial industry. What else can left and right agree on? The tactics: Vote out incumbents. Vote in primaries for politicians who follow our rules: no mention of irrelevant scandals, no talking about culture war issues, no changes to legislation on culture war issues. No donations from corporations, not being caught alive with lobbyists. Boycott partisan media. Boycott a short, easily remembered list of corporations. Mostly media and donors to the status quo. Call-in-sick days in corporations that donate to politicians. Protests/pickets at high-price fundraisers, banks, lobbying firms Form local juries to debate local issues and pass (non-binding, at the moment) legislation. Form/join local markets, militias, and local currency systems. Skill sharing: Right teaches military skills, left teaches misc. (civil disobedience, scientific method etc.)

Morris writes:

Works for me. Coalitions mean you you don’t have to agree on everything, just on some things. Imagine what could be accomplished by a mass coalition of left and right working together. Why, that would be the worst fear of both DC and the banksters.

Reflecting on a number of posts and the ensuing discussions here at Poli-Tea, Liberal Arts Dude did some brainstorming on this very topic last October, writing:

There are a lot of things where Left and progressive activists and sympathizers share common ground with Tea Party activists. For example, if you implement a large-scale survey on “big picture”questions to both populations, I bet you will find a lot of overlap between the Left and Right. Examples of such questions might be:

• Do ordinary people have a strong voice and power in American democracy? Should they?
• Do the two major parties actually represent the interests of ordinary people? Should they?
• Is the country is being led effectively by our elected leaders from either of the major parties?
• Should a wider spectrum of perspectives, viewpoints and solutions be represented in public discourse and institutions than just Republican or Democrat?
• Do the mainstream political parties care more for their own internal interests rather than the interests of the country as a whole?
• Will you be willing to join a third political party or vote for a third party or independent candidate in an election?
• Will you be willing to participate in political activities and actions that are designed to address the issues above?

My belief on that overlap is where my hopes for a Left-Right alliance comes from . . . I am still a believer on the prospects of such an alliance happening in the future. After all, political efforts that function outside the purview of the Democrat and Republican parties are effectively marginalized in American politics. It’s not a big stretch to then ask the question: why can’t marginalized groups from both Left and Right combine forces and work towards opening up the American political system?

Bottum Up Resistance to the GOP's Attempted Top Down Take Over of the Tea Party Movement

The attempted public hijacking of the tea party movement by the GOP in Nashville, Tennessee has been met with some amount of resistance from independently-minded tea party activists. At the Militant Libertarian, Kurt Nimmo writes of the Nashville Convention:

It will be a parade of Republican statists with former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin leading the charge . . . Palin wrote for USA Today, “it’s a ground-up call to action that already has both political parties rethinking the way they do business.”

Ground-up? Tea Party candidates for the 2010 mid-term elections “will be expected to support the Republican National Committee platform,” according to Fox News . . . In other words, business as usual. . . . If the co-opted Tea Party embraces the Republican National Committee platform, it will finalize its mutation from a grassroots libertarian organization into an establishment statist tool pushing a national debt for the banksters, bloated government, taxation, perpetual war, and continued attacks on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights . . . Real Tea Party activists and supporters need to reject Palin, Huckabee, Gingrich, and the Republicans out of hand. They should be vocal about their rejection. Otherwise we will end up with another ideologue and teleprompter reading cigar store Indian for the ruling elite.

At the Constitution Party discussion forum, one poster seems to suggest that conservative activists should not walk away from the movement because of its association with the Republican Party, but rather redouble their efforts within it to steer it in a more productive direction. Impala writes:

Dear Fellow Constitutionalists: I hope you are becoming part of the Tea Party movement. If we don’t, America will suffer without us. We have a lot to offer and will help them stay on track. Some of us are critical of the movement. We are not going to agree on every thing . . . The Tea Party is not going to join us. We have to join them if we really want to fight what is going on in this country. We can always keep our constitutionalist identity and be a movement within a movement. I’ve gone to Tea Parties and am a part of that association. I am also a member of the Constitution Party. I invite you to any Tea Party that is in your area. We need them and they need us.

The Florida Whig Party draws a virtual line in the sand on its blog, writing that the "Republicanization of the tea party movement is disturbing and destructive":

While we have been in agreement in spirit with the Tea Party Movement, the time has come to make it perfectly clear that: The Florida Whig Party finds the Republicanization of the Tea Party Movement disturbing and destructive . . . While many are from the Ron Paul movement, a growing number are from formal Republican leadership positions and they are intentionally or unintentionally causing the Republicanization of the Tea Party Movement. . . . The GOP has gained control over the Tea Party because the Tea Party Members, like a substantial percentage of voters, have a mental blind-spot when it comes to the two-party system. The Florida Whig Party offers Democrats In Name Only (DINOs), Republicans In Name Only (RINOs), those who have No Party Affiliation (NPA), and the Independent with a fiscally responsible, mutually tolerant, and socially diverse home that staunchly supports the 10th Amendment a political home.

Is it possible that the GOP's public hijacking of the tea party movement could turn out to be a grave strategic error? Is it possible that the attempted coup will solidify resistance to the co-optation of the movement by the representatives of the establishment parties and their political apparatus? One thing is certain: if tea party activists do not fight to maintain their political independence, they will soon find themselves deprived of it.

Tea Party Revolution Suffers Defeat at the Hands of Red-Coated Loyalists to the Two-Party State, Some Carry On the Work of Real Opposition

The National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tennessee represents the public hijacking and cooptation of the tea party movement by the Republican Party. If the attempt proves to be successful, the tea party movement is effectively dead, defeated and absorbed by the entrenched powers it once claimed to oppose. As the Wall Street Journal reports:

In Nashville, the prevailing view was that the Tea Party should not seek to build a third party movement but work within the confines of the two-party system. "I suspect the Tea Party strategy is to commandeer the Republican machine," said Roger Webb, a 65-year-old freelance photojournalist.

In one short year, the tea party movement has gone from being a source of opposition to the ruling parties and powers that be, to a relatively reliable source of support for the order that ensures the continued dominance of the Democratic-Republican duopoly system of government. As conservative Republican propagandists of the two-party state continue their assaults on third party and independent activism, their foot soldiers argue that the best way to fight the Democratic-Republican political establishment is to become a part of it. Consider these "words of advice" to tea party activists from Anthony Del Pellegrino:

Apply that organizational ability and activism into taking over the two Parties that exist. Make those Parties the political organization that represent what you want them to represent, not what the establishment political class wants it to stand for.

This is not a strategy for victory, it is a plan for capitulation. Self-styled tea party "revolutionaries" have proven incapable of maintaining their political independence and are now effectively taking their marching orders from red-coated crypto-communist loyalists of the Democratic-Republican Party. Perhaps the simplest explanation for this development lies in the left's unwillingness to become involved with the movement almost from the very beginning and thus the GOP came to be seen as the movement's "natural ally".

It should be noted here, however, that not all tea party activists are so naive as to believe that the solution to the problem represented by the Democratic-Republican two-party state is to be found by accommodating the Democratic-Republican two-party state. In two little noticed stories reported last week, tea party activists in Connecticut and New York have begun efforts which may well lead to the creation of real independent third party opposition groups in those states.

Update: Writing at a Nashville Post blog, Kleinheider observes:

The tea party movement is dead. The one I was familiar with anyway. Judson Phillips held it down and Sarah Palin drove a stake right through its heart live last night on C-Span in front of an unsuspecting audience . . .

The movement, that came to be officially recognized almost a year ago but whose roots go back further than that, has been snuffed out and replaced in the public mind. The movement that began as a people’s movement of angry independent, libertarians and conservatives will now be thought as the movement of people like Palin, Dick Armey, Judson Phillips, Mark Skoda, etc. Essentially, a wholly owned subsidiary of the “Official Conservative Movement” and the Republican Party.

This new tea party bears no resemblance to the one that began a year ago as a reaction to the collapse of our financial system and the subsequent bailout. That movement of ragtag and unorganized libertarians, independents and conservatives was something new and unique.

Co-dependency and the Independence Caucus: Complete Dependency on the Democratic and Republican Parties is not Political Independence

Speaking of pretend-ependents, if you recall, last month I argued that the so-called Independence Caucus could be more appropriately termed the codependency caucus: though the group claims that its aim is "to take our government back from the "big money" special interest groups," in practice the organization actively supports two of the most pernicious "big money special interest groups" in the United States today, namely, the Democratic and Republican Parties. The Political Blotter reports on the group's efforts in California:

I spent a couple of hours yesterday with Bob White, the volunteer Northern California director of the Independence Caucus . . . The Independence Caucus was founded by a pair of Utah men, Frank Anderson and Monte Bateman . . . The idea [behind the organization] is that most, if not all, long-time incumbents on either side of the aisle are beholden to special interests, and that no incumbent is safe if citizens put enough time and effort behind a candidate they believe in . . . White . . . is responsible for California congressional districts 1 through 27. He’s been putting a lot of mileage on his car, crisscrossing the state’s northern half to hit every conservative gathering he can find, trying to identify potential “citizen candidates.” The only criteria, he said, are a commitment to fiscal responsibility and “adherence to the Constitution” – the candidate could be Democrat or Republican, he said, so long as they stick to those two tenets.

The central contradiction inherent to this position is plainly obvious: the group recognizes the failure of the Democratic-Republican duopoly system of government ("most, if not all, long-time incumbents on either side of the aisle are beholden to special interests"), but its solution is to support the reproduction of the problem by strengthening the dictatorship of the Democratic-Republican Party ("the candidate could be a Democrat or a Republican"). By excluding third party and independent candidates from consideration, and thus making membership in the Democratic or Republican Party an explicit criterion for consideration, the group makes a mockery of its moniker, pretending that complete dependency on the Democratic and Republican Parties is the criterion of political independence.

Pretend-ependents and the Tea Party Movement

Among those who support the dictatorship of the Democratic-Republican Party and the duopoly system of government, one frequently finds two interlocking positions articulated independently of one another: there are those who are incapable of imagining a politics other than that of the Democratic-Republican two-party state, the historical determinists, and those who hide their political cowardice behind a mask of political calculus and recommend accommodation with the Democratic-Republican two-party state, the political poltroons. As an example of the former, consider the following lines from Conservative Views for the Grassroots:

We will always have a two party system in the United States. We will always have a Republican Party and a Democrat Party. In the past several decades, a new party system had emerged and it is called the Independent Party. Honestly, I call it the confused party.

The very existence of a third party and independent political tradition in the United States refutes such an a-historical perspective on political reality. As for the political poltroons, consider Mark Tapscott's recent editorial in the Washington Examiner arguing that "third party is the wrong party for tea partiers." Taking the Tea Party Convention in Nashville as an opportunity to reflect on the movement, he writes:

The Nashville event is also producing more debate within and without the Tea Partiers about whether to organize as a third party, mount an assault to retake the GOP from its disingenuous establishment leadership, or to remain independent while seeking to influence both major parties from outside. The biggest mistake in this discussion is to frame the analysis around the third-party issue . . . Third parties have mostly failed thanks to immense institutional ballot access obstacles erected by the two major parties, and the challenge of overcoming geographic separation over vast differences in order to achieve timely concerted action.

Tapscott thus provides two arguments against third party activism: 1) the Democratic-Republican Party has erected numerous barriers against third party and independent groups in order to ensure their continued monopoly on elected office, and 2) it is difficult to organize groups dispersed throughout a large polity. In his very next paragraph, Tapscott admits that the latter is no longer an obstacle to any political organization:

But the Internet enables these new armies rapidly to overcome distance and resource limitations that would hobble a traditional third-party attempt, and instead focus effectively on bringing to bear consistent demands with widespread public support on decision makers.

According to this argument then, the only reason not to organize independent third party opposition to the Democratic and Republican Parties is because the Democratic and Republican Parties have made it difficult to do so. One might conclude from this that Tapscott suffers primarily from political laziness rather than political cowardice, but he goes on to argue that tea party activists should infiltrate both the Democratic and Republican Parties: "Why settle for half a victory [i.e. infiltrating the GOP only] when Tea Partiers have within their grasp as an independent third force to be the decisive influence in both major political parties?" Obviously, this would be no small feat, and raises a number of questions: if the group is powerful enough to infiltrate both the Democratic and Republican Parties, why settle for nothing more than influence within the Democratic-Republican Party? Why not declare one's political independence and stand in open opposition to the two-party state? In the present context, one might also ask: in what sense would the tea party movement constitute "an independent third force" in American politics if they are completely dependent upon the Democratic and Republican Parties for their representation? Perhaps we need a term for two-party statists such as Tascott, who pretend that political dependency on the Democratic and Republican Parties is actually political independence from the Democratic and Republican Parties. Maybe we could call them pretend-ependents.

Excerpts from a Series on 'the Terrible Two-Party System' with a Provocation Concerning Christian Liberty and Human Bondage

In the conclusion to a series of posts on "The Terrible Two-Party System" at Political Jesus, Rod of Alexandria makes "A Christian Case for Proportional Representation." The series begins by laying out the present political situation:

Today, US politics functions as a single-party two-party system. Anyone who has read their US history books KNOWS that this was not the case in the first 100 years of this Republic’s existence. Don’t believe me? Check here. There was the smallest glimmer of hope in the mid-1990s with the rise of Pat Buchanan, Ralph Nader, and Pat Buchanan as third-party candidates. But, the situation remains almost hopeless.

In the second post in the series, Rod compares "majoritarianism" with "consensus democracy":

The results in this system lead to disproportional representation; that is, that the majorities are often over represented. . . . Unlike in a majoritarian society, it is important for as many people as possible to be represented in a consensus democracy.

In the third part in the series, Rod argues that proportional representation is superior to plurality voting, and finally concludes by making "a Christian case for proportional representation" on the basis of Luther's theology:

Perhaps it is best if we begin with the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers developed first by Martin Luther. This is the Reformation notion that all members of the body of Christ have connections to God through Christ the mediator . . . If we expand this doctrine politically, in terms of representation, we must come to the conclusion that everyone has rights, given to them by God, and that they should be allowed to be represented by the person that they choose. Also, secondarily, since the priesthood of all believers is not a doctrine that was originally intended to sustain rugged individualism, representation must be seen as a power to be shared by all citizens in a free society. Thus, we have a theological undergirding for proportional representation.

It would be interesting to see how Rod squares the central contradiction of Luther's theology with the call for consensus democracy and proportional representation. In On Christian Liberty, for instance, Luther employs a dualistic metaphysics of body and soul to allow for the possibility of spiritual freedom despite the reality of human bondage:

A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one.

In other words, Luther's notion of Christian freedom is consistent with human slavery. Luther himself denounced peasants who were at least partly inspired by his teachings to rise up against their feudal overlords. During the Peasants' War, the protestant reformer admonished the "murderous thieving hordes of peasants" first and foremost for breaking an implicit oath of "submission and obedience" to their social and political masters.

Update: Rod has responded to my question regarding Luther's dualism, and sides against Luther's "two kingdom theory", concluding:

Dualism is unnecessary. Those who have been set free by the power of the Gospel are free in the world, to engage the world . . . a proportional representation system would benefit the church, third parties, the poor, and every American.

Thanks Rod!

The Andre Bauer Affair: Class Warfare and the Allegory of Elephants and Asses

The moral outrage that initially greeted the recent remarks by South Carolina's LT Governor Andre Bauer, in which the Republican gubernatorial candidate effectively compared families on government assistance with stray animals, has now given way to more nuanced political considerations. If you recall, at a town hall meeting in late January, Bauer related a childhood memory to illustrate a point about the "culture of dependency":

My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better.

Like so many of his fellow Republican and Democratic politicians caught in similar situations, Bauer defended himself by saying that his comments were "taken out of context." As reported by WSOC TV:

South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer defended the controversial comments he made about government assistance programs. He compared giving out government assistance to feeding stray animals. Bauer said his metaphor was taken out of context. He said it’s important that welfare doesn’t breed a culture of dependency.

At the Columbia Free Times, Corey Hutchins wonders whether the comments will help or hurt Bauer's effort in the Republican gubernatorial primary:

Is it possible that by not completely backing off his statements, Bauer could actually score points at the polls in the Republican primary on June 10? Retired Francis Marion University political scientist Neal Thigpen says maybe so. Because the voters in GOP primary elections in South Carolina tend to be very conservative, Thigpen believes Bauer’s stance could solidify support for him from those who share his views, much like U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson drew renewed support after shouting down President Obama. “My guess is there would be a lot of people who agree with him and it might be beneficial to him,” Thigpen says.

Indeed, it is not especially difficult to find commentary more or less in support of Bauer. In a letter to the editor of the Independent Mail, one reader writes that "Bauer Struck a Nerve":

The truth is always very hard for people to deal with, This is clearly the case regarding Andre Bauer’s comments. True, the choice of words could have been better, but the message is 100 percent on target. South Carolina has too many people dependent on the system. This costs taxpayers like my wife and myself plenty every year . . . The working people of South Carolina, the ones lucky enough to have jobs, cannot afford to keep handing out money to freeloaders.

In this response to Bauer's stated position, we see the political limit of the moral argument against his explicit statements, which can simply be brushed off by admitting to a poor choice of words, or by asserting, perhaps with some justification, that his comments were taken out of context. But effective political critique requires effective contextualization. A progressive with a sense of irony or a libertarian with a sense of principle might thus criticize the Lieutenant Governor for his willingness to engage in open class warfare against the poor even as his state provides massive welfare subsidies to multi-national corporations such as BMW and Boeing, and unabashedly feeds at the trough of the federal government: South Carolina is a free-loader state, which receives more money in federal tax dollars than it pays in federal taxes.

Further, should we not heed Bauer's grandmother's advice in partisan political terms as well? The stray animals of our political order are, of course, not mangy cats and dogs, but rather the elephants and asses of the Republican and Democratic Parties, whose lust for power leaves no house or home un-scavenged. Quit feeding these animals: because they breed. So long as they have a steady food supply, as measured in dollars donated and votes cast, they will continue to reproduce, especially those of them that don't think much further than the next election. We, the people, have to curtail this behavior because they don't know any better.

Groundhog Day Politics II: A Lost Opportunity for the Libertarian Party

Last week I reported on the two-way Libertarian-Republican special election contest to fill a vacant seat in Missouri's House of Representatives. Garnering 22% of the vote, Libertarian Patty Tweedle was easily defeated by Republican Nita Jane Ayres, who was supported by 77% of the voting public. Reportedly, both candidates were quite pleased with the results. From the Springfield News-Leader:

"I'm humbled by the overwhelming support that I have received in this," [Republican] Ayres said. "Now I'm ready to take that next step and start working in Jefferson City and working with others there to start putting the state's economy back on track." . . .

"I'm delighted with the votes that I did get -- 22.2 percent is huge for the Libertarian Party," [Libertarian] Tweedle said. "It shows me that there are many, many people in this district who are ready for another voice."

The "overwhelming support" for the Republican candidate and the "huge" Libertarian vote are overstatements, to say the least. From the same report:

Ayres got 77.8 percent of the vote in the 62nd District special election, defeating Libertarian Patty Tweedle 1,325 to 378. . . . Just 5.8 percent of the 29,013 registered voters in the 62nd District turned out to vote in the election. [Emphasis added.]

In other words, 94% of registered voters did not bother to cast a ballot in the election. If the Libertarians had run even a moderately aggressive campaign and garnered the support of just one out of every twenty registered voters, Tweedle would have easily won the contest. It does not appear, however, that Tweedle was running to win. A week before the election she was quoted in the Branson Tri-Lake News saying: "If I can get the conversation going about liberty and less government involvement in people’s daily lives, then I’ve accomplished something."

AR Senate: With Lincoln Down in the Polls Things are Looking Up for Independent and Third Party Candidates

Given that duopolized polls show Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln trailing her likely Republican opponents by significant margins, and given the relatively weak GOP apparatus in the state, not to mention its high percentage of independent voters, we may well see a competitive multi-party contest develop in the Natural State over the course of this year's election season. In the state's 2008 Senate election, the Republican Party did not even field a candidate against incumbent Democrat Mark Pryor, and Green Party candidate Rebekah Kennedy received 20% of the vote in the two-way contest. This year's Senate race will feature two independents, Trevor Drown and Ed Frizzell, as well as Green Party candidate John Gray. The Drown campaign has now launched its petition drive, writing in part:

Despite incredible pressure from the Arkansas Republican Party, who only make up 3% of the voters in Arkansas I still remain committed to replace Senator Blanche Lincoln as an Independent candidate . . . In Arkansas we have the right to put someone on the ballot using the petition process. This has never happened before for a US Senate Seat. It takes 10,000 signatures from Arkansas registered voters and we have 90 days to do this . . . On February 2, 2010, hundreds of Arkansans will hit the street with a petition in their hand seeking signatures all over the state of Arkansas. Their purpose, secure 10, 20 or in some cases more than 100 signatures from registered voters who are seeking to make history. Their goal, for the first time put an Independent Candidate for US Senate on the ballot for the general election in November 2010. Arkansas's largest group of registered voters choose to be independents. They make up 92 percent of all registered voters. For too long the two party political system has let them down. They are looking for a new breed of elected leader, one which will put them first above political party and special interest groups.

Cross-posted at Third Party and Independent Daily.

Dwindling Number of Duopolist Dead-Enders Continues Its Decline

It is a truism of contemporary political discourse – and a testament to its imbecility – that the Democratic-Republican two-party state and duopoly system of government constitutes a zero sum political game, such that one party's loss is equivalent to the other party's gain. This is likely one of the primary reasons why the professional political commentariat have such difficulty comprehending the rise of unaffiliated voters. Consider the wording of a recent Rasmussen report on partisan trends which found that the number of both self-described Democrats and Republicans is on the decline, while "the number of unaffiliateds has jumped to its highest total since 2007":

In January, the number of Americans identifying themselves as Democrats fell another tenth-of-a-percentage point . . . However [emphasis added] in January, the number of Republicans in the country dropped by nearly two percentage points . . . Currently, 35.4% of American adults view themselves as Democrats. . . . The number of Republicans is now down to 32.3%. . . . The number of adults not affiliated with either major party is now up to 32.3%. That’s the highest number of unaffiliateds since the summer of 2007.

Though a number of polling organizations have documented a surge in independent identification over the last year (for instance, Pew Research among others), Rasmussen Reports remained an outlier, until today. The dwindling number of dead-enders in the Democratic and Republican Parties barely constitute a two-thirds of the population when taken together.

Two New Third Party and Independent Blogs

Poli-Tea readers may enjoy two relatively new blogs that have come online in recent weeks, at least so far as I can tell. Start a Third Party Now relays choice quotes, editorial cartoons and article excerpts, and effectively calls for a third party revolution. In its "about" section, Jay Edward writes:

The masses of people walk around hypnotized. Hypnotized defined as believed falsehoods as true. While the country is still salvageable, the public somehow must wake up to the fact that neither party serves them, only their constituents [i.e. corporations? -d.]. The present path leads to ruin for the republic.

The second blog is entitled My Third Party and is a sister site to the Daily Puma. The inaugural post at My Third Party reads in part:

It seems nowadays that neither the democrats or republicans have been able to retain the kind of integrity that most would expect. There is such a constant parrying for position that the whole point of becoming a politician has been lost. . . . So lets use this blog for two equally important purposes. Lets support third party candidates all over the country by listing their blogs on this page, and lets also reward any political candidate willing to publicly renounce the sneaky internal 2008 democratic tactics that has splintered the democratic party.

Progressives and Libertarians Against the Politics of Infinite Deferral

Partisans of the Democratic-Republican two-party state are often willing to entertain the idea of third party and independent opposition to the political status quo; sometimes they are even willing to concede the superiority of third party and independent strategy over acquiescent accommodation with the ruling parties. However, more often than not, they do so with the caveat that "now is not the time," that it is more important to side with the lesser evil against the supposedly greater evil than it is to organize against the system of competing evils as such. This is the reactionary politics of infinite deferral, the primary ideological support for the reproduction of the corporatist Democratic-Republican two-party state. Independently minded progressives and libertarians recognize this canard for what it is. At FireDogLake, Michael in Ohio makes the case against the politics of deferral while arguing in favor of building a progressive third party:

At what point do progressives stop being Democrats’ whipped dogs and start acting like a movement capable of putting the Dems in their proper place as the party of the people? . . . My political activities now are focusing on the building of a viable third party as a tool of a reinvigorated and independent progressive movement. No efforts to reform the Democratic Party from within can succeed so long as the upper-level of the party establishment is able to crush dissent from within . . .

This won’t happen overnight; it will take decades for a fully functional progressive political organization to be built, and we will be opposed every step of the way by Democrats, Republicans, and corporations now empowered to spend as much money as their executives want to sway public opinion against us. But we have got to start sometime, and now is as good a time as any.

Those who claim this isn’t the right time will not tell us that the "right time" is never going to come — there will always be the next election cycle to worry about, too much at stake to "risk throwing it to the GOP." Never mind that all Democrats ever do is throw elections to Republicans simply by behaving like they’re members of their counterpart political party. We must ignore such admonitions and press on. There is no such thing as perfection in politics, to be the enemy of good things that will never come to fruition so long as the existing political structure continues.

Meanwhile, at the Campaign for Liberty, Adam de Angeli argues that "the lesser of two evils is really the greater evil":

It is a popular, understandable belief; an intuitive tactical judgment. But upon close examination, it is principally due to this belief that our politicians get away with betraying us. Indeed, it is essential for success that we defeat acceptance of the lesser of two evils. . . .

Rothfeld notes an example: Following the Columbine massacre, the NRA "A"-rated governor of Colorado, Bill Owens, introduced a set of anti-gun bills and a ballot initiative against gun shows. When a reporter asked Owens whether the move would alienate his conservative base, Owens arrogantly laughed, "what are they going to do, vote Democrat?"

This argument addresses the major problem with supporting the lesser evil: it leads directly to unaccountability. In this way, this argument is pretty tough. However, it still does not directly address the major argument about the lesser of two evils, which is that less evil is still preferable. Even if it does demoralize us, even if it does send a bad message to politicians, even if it is morally offensive, it is still pragmatic. However, this third potential counter-argument is one aspect of the larger, vital argument, and the one that must be made whenever the "lesser of two evils" argument is made: It just isn't true at all. . . .

What, then, is left to say of the "lesser of two evils" argument? Rothfeld calls it "the biggest lie in politics." Politicians use it to keep the base in line when they betray them. Parties use it to keep the herd from leaving the ranch. But sadly, it is an appealing argument, and many well-meaning and political activists will accept it, without realizing how embracing it actually sets the cause back.

Indypedia? Calling All Third Party and Independent Political Activists

Among the many hurdles faced by virtually all third party and independent political campaigns is overcoming a lack of name recognition and breaking through the mainstream media filter. Voters who may very well consider casting a third party or independent vote are highly unlikely to do so if they first become aware of alternative candidates in the voting booth. Currently, the top hits on a web search for “third party and independent candidates 2010" are an outdated IPR version of the list I maintain at Poli-Tea and the current version of that list, which becomes outdated on a weekly basis and is itself not entirely comprehensive. But what if there were a comprehensive Wikipedia-style public database of current third party and independent candidates for office in 2010? If this were among the top hits for web searches such as the one above, it could prove to be an invaluable resource for third party and independent activists as well as the public at large.

To work, such a project would require 1) significant input from third party and independent activists from across the country and across the political spectrum, and 2) a coordinated linking campaign by third party and independent bloggers to ensure that searches for “third party and independent candidates 2010" and related terms return the page in question.

I have attempted to get the ball rolling by creating Indypedia at Wiki-Site. If there is general interest, initial brainstorming is welcome in the comments as always.

[Cross-posted from Independent Political Report.]