The Third (Straw) Man and the Art of Controversy

When the apologists of the two-party state and duopoly system of government confront advocates of third party and independent politics, one of their most common strategies is to set up a third party straw man.  The straw man fallacy is one of the most common rhetorical sleights of hand employed in our political discourse.  Instead of confronting an argument head on, and directly refuting it point by point, the speaker misrepresents the position he is arguing against, and then refutes the misrepresentation without ever addressing the actual point(s) of contention.  In his Eristical Dialectics, widely known as The Art of Controversy, Arthur Schopenhauer likens this stratagem to a diversion:

This trick consists in stating a false syllogism. Your opponent makes a proposition, and by false inference and distortion of his ideas you force from it other propositions which it does not contain and he does not in the least mean; nay, which are absurd or dangerous. It then looks as if his proposition gave rise to others which are inconsistent either with themselves or with some acknowledged truth, and so it appears to be indirectly refuted. This is the diversion, and it is another application of the fallacy non causae ut causae.

We find this strategy at work in an opinion piece for North Carolina's Times-News Online by Stephen Black.  Typically, a rhetorical sleight of hand is cleverly hidden within an argument or discourse.  Surprisingly, however, Black's argumentative strategy is effectively announced in the very title of the article: "Third-party miracle workers? Yeah, right."  Try as I might, I have yet to find a single article on the internet in which a third party or independent advocate asserts that third party or independent politicians are capable of performing supernatural acts, though this position is imputed to them on a fairly regular basis by the apologists of the Democratic and Republican parties.  Black writes:

We need a third political party, the columnists and talking heads shriek.  Yes, friends, it is the cry of the desperate once again. Let us have a third party made up of members of the same human race that has bollixed things up so hopelessly in the past.  Oh, but these third-party members will be different. Somehow. They won't be tempted by booze, sex, money and power like those Democrats and Republicans.

These third-party boys and girls will be decent and idealistic, unlike the Democrats and Republicans. The third party will be made up of members with no thought of being re-elected or rewarded like the Democrats and Republicans. Their only goal is to steer America into a problem-free future. No recession. No racial issues. No war. Only peace and prosperity.  In other words, third-party members won't be human with the same nature as Democrats and Republicans.  Let us visit Mars. Perhaps we can find some creatures on that planet who resemble third-party members . . .

Politicians, believe it or not, are ordinary human beings. Third-party politicians would have to be, if not Martians, then angels. They would have to be if they are to be different from the regular two-party politicians.

So, the argument here is that supporters of alternatives to the Democrats and Republicans believe that third party and independent politicians would be superhuman representatives capable of resolving the problems of war and peace, racism and discrimination, wealth and poverty, and so on, by mouthing the proper incantations and waving the magical political wand.  Of course, this argument is completely absurd, which is why it is a straw man.  Ironically, however, it may well be that there is an element of projection at work here as well.  Is this not precisely how Democrats and Republicans portray their own favored candidates?  Is this not the foundational belief for the Republican Church of Ronald Reagan, the Democratic mythology of Camelot, and the Cults of George Bush and Barack Obama? 

The difference between a third party or independent representative on the one hand, and a Democrat or Republican on the other, is not ontological.  It is political!  And that is the point.  An Independent politician will not be able to magically resolve the wars abroad.  But he or she would likely forward a position that is excluded from our discourse by the Democratic-Republican party duopoly.  An Independent politician will not be able to magically solve the nation's economic problems.  But he or she would be able to address them from a position that is not hobbled by the ideological orthodoxies of the major parties.  And so on.  The election of third party and independent candidates to the US Congress, state legislatures and local councils would not automatically result in the passage of landmark legislation.  But it would change the balance and relations of power in those institutions, while providing a voice for those who are unrepresented by the Democratic and Republican parties. 

Aside from his specious arguments against third party and independent political advocacy, the commentator above provides only one argument in favor of supporting the two-party system.  Actually, 'argument' is probably too charitable a term, since the claim is another fallacy, namely, the appeal to tradition.  Another excerpt, now from the conclusion:

We the people must understand that the two-party system made up of saints and sinners and every which way in-between is a system that has worked in the past. . . . We the people, however, must learn to instruct our leaders to compromise, not draw lines in the sand. . . . Compromise makes sure that everybody gets something. That is healthy government. . . . We the people who are deeply concerned about our nation can change our government for the better. We must, however, utilize the two-party system and the politicians we already have. We do not need to usher in a new system or another party. To believe this will change the direction our government is heading is merely sticking our heads in the sand.

The appeal to tradition – i.e. we must stick with the two-party system for all time because it worked at some point in the past and is the system we are stuck with in the present – is a fallacy because it rests on the denial of circumstantial, situational, historical, political and social change.  A bipolar, two-party state is literally incapable of representing the myriad interests that make up a diverse, multi-polar society like the United States today.  Arguably, the majority of Americans go without representation in government, whether adequate or inadequate.  To believe that doubling down on the Republican and Democratic parties will change the direction our country is headed is to stick one's head in the sand.

A Conscientious Objection to Political "Science"

Judging from their comments and commentaries in the mainstream media, it would not be much of an exaggeration to say that political scientists are among the most reliable and reactionary supporters of the Republican-Democrat party establishment and ruling political class in the United States today.  Except, perhaps, for those deluded pundits who naively believe that political science is both non-political and "scientific."  Consider a recent op-ed in the LA Times by Seth Masket and Hans Noel, two political "scientists" from the University of Denver and Georgetown University, respectively.  Entitled "Don't Look to a Third Party Candidate," Masket and Noel argue against the very idea that a third party or independent candidate could win the presidency, and furthermore assert that even if one did, he or she would be stymied by a partisan Congress.

Their argument against advocacy for a third party presidential candidate boils down to one simple point: it's too hard.  It may be difficult for some to believe, but the position of these political "scientists" is literally that no one should support alternatives to the Democrats and Republicans in any presidential election because it's too difficult.  One need not wonder how specimens such as these might have counseled the leaders of the American revolution.  They begin thusly:

Why wouldn't the solution to our nation's problems be a moderate president, without ties to the usual suspects, who is free to simply do what is right?  The problem is, it's not going to happen. What's more, we really don't want it to.  It's not going to happen because the major party candidates have three huge advantages. They are already organized. They have built-in supporters. And our electoral institutions favor the largest two parties.

First of all, there is no substantive difference between "being organized" and "having built-in supporters." So their three huge advantages can be reduced to just two right off the bat.  Secondly, the fact that our electoral institutions favor the Democrats and Republicans is neither a coincidence nor a simple stroke of fate or luck.  The Democrats and Republicans have rigged our institutions to consolidate and maintain their grip on power.  The fact that our electoral institutions favor them is therefore conditional upon the fact that they are organized, thereby eroding the distinction between the two remaining advantages distinguished in the screed.   They continue:

To win the presidency, you have to campaign across the country. You have to build a campaign in state after state — from scratch. You have to assemble lists of donors and databases of voters to contact, and you have to develop a base of volunteers who can carry out the vital tasks of organizing and campaigning precinct by precinct.

This is meant as an argument against a third party or independent presidential campaign, but it should be noted that the same holds for any Democratic or Republican presidential campaign as well.  Taking this point to its logical conclusion, we'd have to conclude that no one should ever run for president because it's difficult, even with the huge advantages conferred by a supportive party apparatus.  And yet people do run for president, even though it is difficult. Indeed, people do things that are difficult all the time, despite the fact that they are difficult.  If everyone allowed the possibility of failure to deter them from doing anything, nothing would ever get done.  Failure is always an option.  But success is always a possibility.  They continue: 

Keep in mind that about 40% of the country votes Republican and about 40% votes Democratic in a presidential election no matter who the candidates are. Even if you could win over some of the less committed voters in the middle, it would be very hard to pull away those committed partisans. At best, an independent candidate could win 20% to 30% of the vote. 

The assertion here is demonstrably false.  Over 40% of the country doesn't even vote in presidential elections.  Less than 30% of the country votes Republican and less than 30% of the country votes Democrat.  Democrats and Republicans rarely obtain support from a majority of eligible voters even when you tally their votes together.  In most elections it's considerably less than that.  The political scientists then go on to reference Duverger's "law," to make the institutional or procedural argument against third party presidential candidates, and their abject cynicism shines through.  Excerpt:

Duverger's Law, named after Maurice Duverger, the French scholar who most explicitly articulated it, boils down to the idea that voters are strategic. In a winner-take-all election, they know there's virtually no chance of the third-most-popular candidate winning. Better to help determine which of the top two candidates wins. So they vote for the least objectionable of the candidates with a real shot at winning.

So the ideal candidate for these two political scientists is not the best candidate, or the most representative candidate, but rather the major party candidate who is not as objectionable as the other major party candidate.  This is nothing more than the old lesser evil argument dressed up in academic jargon.

Masket and Noel then argue that even if a third party candidate were elected president, it would be difficult for him to accomplish anything in his program because he would have no allies in a Congress dominated by professional partisans of the Democratic and Republican parties.  Here they essentially return to their initial argument that if something is difficult it is not worth doing.  Finally, they conclude by asserting the metaphysical claim that the two-party state is a "natural" phenomenon, and urging readers to work within the two-party state.  Excerpt:

All of this seems unfair. Why should these two parties have such an advantage? That's the wrong way to look at it. The Democrats and the Republicans are not our overlords. They are us. They are the natural creations of politically concerned citizens who want to make a difference . . . If you're not content with the way this country is being governed, one of the best ways to change it is to get involved with one of the existing parties and work to nominate and elect candidates at all levels of government who will fight for the things you care about. . . . Pining for an independent, third-party dictator is not only a waste of your time, but if you somehow got what you wanted, you'd quickly find it wasn't what you wanted at all.  [Emphases added.]

Of course, there is nothing "natural" about the dictatorship of the two-party state.  It is a wholly artificial construct created and maintained by self-interested lawmakers whose loyalty lies, first and foremost, with the Democratic and Republican parties themselves.  The assertion that the ruling two-party state is a "natural" or "organic" phenomenon is nothing more than obscurantist, metaphysical nonsense.

For some reason, these "scientists" furthermore fail to observe one of the most self-evident political phenomena in the United States today: the Democratic and Republican parties no longer represent the people of the United States and the people of the United States increasingly no longer support the Democratic and Republican parties.  If you wanted to end abortion, would you get a job performing abortions?  If you wanted to end the death penalty, would you sign up to be the state's executioner?  If you want alternatives to the dictatorship of the Democrat-Republican two-party state, why would you join the Democratic or Republican party?

An Unwitting Dialectic of the Two-Party State and Multi-Party Government

The ideology of the two-party state is a nest of contradictions.  When confronted with a thoroughgoing critique of two-party government, and a convincing case for the necessity of expanding the scope of political representation in the United States, the apologists of the ruling parties often fall back on a stock set of counterarguments.  Among the latter is the claim that the Republican-Democrat two-party state already effectively functions as a multi-party system.  Democrats and Republicans alike will point to the various sub-factions of the Democratic and Republican parties and say: "We already have a four party system!" or some such nonsense.  Consider a recent opinion piece by Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson, entitled "Three Party Government."  In the introduction, he writes:

As the budget process in Washington lurches from crisis to continuing resolution to debt limit scramble — with Congress seemingly incapable of dealing with fiscal issues without the prospect of immediate financial collapse — it is worth considering the structural reasons for this seriousness deficit. Some view the culprit as partisan polarization or the disproportionate power of Senate minorities — both of which play a role. But the main challenge is this: Our two-party system has produced a three-party government. [Emphasis added.] 

This assertion might come as something of a surprise to the millions of Americans who live in states where the two-party system has degenerated into one-party government, not to mention those who recognize that the Democratic and Republican parties are essentially unified in their opposition to representing the interests of the American people in accord with the nation's Constitution.  Nonetheless, Gerson argues that despite the split within the Republican party between the "tea party freshmen" and "mainstream Republicans," the GOP caucus in the Congress functions for all intents and purposes as a unified whole.  He then continues:

On fiscal issues, the Democratic Party is really two parties. One consists of European-style social democrats, represented by leaders such as Nancy Pelosi . . . The other Democratic Party is socially liberal and pro-business . . . 

This is, in other words, nothing more than the old split between the supposedly moderate "blue dogs" and the alleged "progressives" in the Democratic party.  Gerson asserts that this split is the source of the "third party" in the US Congress: the Republicans, the blue dog Democrats and the social Democrats.  Ironically, however, though Gerson spends the entirety of his column arguing that this effectively amounts to three-party government, he nonetheless concludes the exact opposite.  Excerpt:

Again and again, Democratic leaders have failed to produce budget approaches that unite 90 percent of their caucus. This is not entirely their fault. The ideological distance between social Democrats and pro-business Democrats is wider than any ideological gap on the Republican side. If pro-business Democrats were formally independent as a party, like the Liberal Democrats in Britain, they might be tempted to form a coalition government with Republicans — using their influence not only to block the proposals of social Democrats but to gain a share of power. But America’s two-party system doesn’t allow for this strategy.  [Emphasis added.]

So, according to Gerson, our two-party system has produced a three party government, but America's two-party system doesn't allow for such a thing.  Were there any reason to believe that someone like Gerson is what you'd call a "dialectical thinker," perhaps one would be inclined toward a charitable reading of the contradiction between his premise and his conclusion.  But it appears to be nothing more than the product of a rhetorical ploy, or maybe just plain laziness or sloppiness.

Despite Gerson, however, perhaps the contradiction is productive after all.  As the apologists of the two-party state themselves argue, the two-party system has effectively resulted in a kind of multi-party government, as evidenced by the various factions that constitute the Democratic and Republican party coalitions.  But, at the same time, it does not allow for the political expression and ultimate representation of these myriad competing interests – which are to be expected in a country as large and diverse as the United States –, because they are always and everywhere subordinated to the interests of the ruling parties themselves.  Political freedom and independence today begins with freedom and independence from the Democratic and Republican parties.

On the Naturalization of the Two-Party State

In response to calls for third party and independent political activism, apologists of the two-party state and duopoly system of government will often seek to naturalize the system they support to inoculate it against criticism and critique.  On this view, the Democrat-Republican two-party state is not seen as a contingent historical-political formation, but rather the "natural" and necessary result of a metaphysical dyad inherent to American political philosophy, or an "organic" development from the structure of the political system itself, and so on.  What is lacking in such accounts is any mention of the agency of the interested parties themselves, as if the reigning two-party state were somehow born whole from the head of Zeus.  In this way, the monopolization and consolidation of all political power in the hands of two narrow, top-down, factionalist groups is made to appear self-evident, immutable, unquestionable.  We can see something similar at work in a post at Crank Crank Revolution, articulated from a position that is not unsympathetic to third party activism.  It begins:

Much has always been made about the "broken" two-party system in this nation. The arguments tend to fall into two alternating categories of "I'm sick of all the polarizing partisanship" and "There's not a dime's worth of difference between them," both of which represent completely different sentiments and occur at reasonably equal regularity depending on one's preconceived ideology and the current state of the parties in question.

The solution is--always--some sort of mystical messianic third party. I'm not against third parties in general--like I mentioned yesterday, they bring fresh, innovative ideas to the political marketplace--but they rarely, if ever, have a genuine chance at gaining power. And, despite what most people believe, this isn't because the Republicans and Democrats have constructed a biased system that inherently perpetuates the current party system.

It is indeed true that the election of third party and independent candidates will not result in the magical solution of myriad political problems.  But, today, the election of Republicans and Democrats only serves to ensure that those problems will simply be reproduced and exacerbated.  The funny thing on this score is that it is Democrats and Republicans who fall prey, time and again, to the messianic political impulse, in which the Republican savior will deliver us from the Democratic demon or the Democratic messiah will deliver us from the Republican rogue.  (For more on this, see the "messianism" category here at Poli-Tea.) 

The post at CCR goes on to argue that the two-party state has naturally resulted from the structure of the American political system, beginning from the assumption that Republicans and Democrats have not consciously constructed a biased system that perpetuates the two-party state and duopoly system of government, and hence their strangle-hold on political power and representation.  The latter is, of course, demonstrably false.  Republicans and Democrats have in fact constructed an elaborate and highly discriminatory system aimed precisely at perpetuating the two-party state and duopoly system of government.   One might point to any number of this system's multifarious aspects:  district rigging and gerrymandering to benefit Democratic and Republican incumbents, a highly restrictive ballot access regime which puts onerous burdens on third party and independent candidates while lowering the bar for Republican and Democratic candidates, the public subsidization of the primary elections for Republican and Democratic candidates, the refusal to include third party and independent candidates in public forums and debates, and so on. 

Supporters of the two-party state often argue that the US two-party system results from the fact that coalition building happens before elections take place in the US, whereas in multi-party parliamentary systems coalition building happens after the fact.  The CCR post continues:

Unlike most other democracies, the United States isn't run as a parliament. In, say, a European system, there are usually four or five parties, all across the political spectrum. After an election, various parties will form coalitions and govern. In the United States, we've simply skipped that coalition-forming step.

Pretty much throughout the history of our nation, we've always had multiple parties. They just aren't organized as separate entities . . . Republicans generally represent a coalition of religious evangelicals, suburbanites, businessmen, and the military, while the Democrats have a coalition of laborers, progressives, cities, Catholics, and environmentalists.

The pre-election coalition-building argument is not especially convincing as an account of the genesis of the two-party state, at the very least because coalitions are sometimes formed almost on a vote-by-vote basis in the US House and Senate.  It is true though that "we've always had multiple parties."  There is a long history of third party and independent political activism in the United States.  The argument here, however, is that the two-party state effectively amounts to a multi-party system because there are discrete factions within the Republican and Democratic parties:

What might be a Green Party in, say, France, or Germany--which also generally represents far-left sentiments--is simply a faction within the American Democratic party. Likewise, what would be a nationalist party in Europe would be a faction within the GOP.

Actually, the US Green Party is not a faction of the Democratic party.  It is in fact a separate entity.  Similarly, the US National Party and the American Nationalist Party are separate entities from the GOP.  If anything, the wide array of third party and independent political organizations in the United States demonstrates the breadth and depth of the public's discontent with the two-party state and duopoly system of government.  Few Americans think that they are well-represented by Democrat-Republican party government.  A new Rasmussen survey, for instance, finds that just 16% of likely voters think the country would be better off if most incumbents were re-elected.  Only 40% believe their own representative should be re-elected.  The reason for this is not difficult to discern.  The Democratic and Republican parties do not represent the people of the United States.  They represent the interests of the Democratic and Republican parties.  

On Learning from One's Students: the American Academic as Reactionary Apologist of the Two-Party State and Duopoly System of Government

Reading through some of the reaction to the UK's general election on this side of the Atlantic, I was struck by a difference between the responses of American college students, on the one hand, and American college professors, on the other. Obviously, the excerpts that follow are by no means comprehensive nor necessarily representative. However, they nonetheless prove instructive: these professors profess nothing but reactionary support for the existing relations of power and the ruling political class; they could learn a thing to two from their students.

Opinion pieces in two student newspapers emphasize the need to expand choice in US elections while stressing the importance of facilitating the creation of a more representative government. Both call for experimentation with proportional representation. From the Daily 49er at California State University Long Beach, a piece entitled, "British Elections Highlight Plurality System Flaws":

A central platform of last week’s British elections was the need for electoral reform. In other words, the U.K. recognizes the flaws of a winner-take-all or plurality system . . . A plurality voting system encourages the formation of two dominant political parties. In this country the Democrat and Republican parties are the beneficiaries of this system . . .

Compare this to a proportional representation system. This type of system encourages a multitude of political views and discourages the domination of two parties. This is achieved by awarding political parties legislative seats based on the percentage of votes their candidates receive.

An opinion piece in The Dartmouth from Dartmouth College, entitled "Open the Field," sounds similar tones:

In the United States, we use single-member plurality districts to elect members of Congress. This system has a number of consequences that are positively toxic for our country. The most pressing of these problems is that these electoral rules nearly always create a two-party system . . .

utter lack of responsiveness by Democrats and Republicans creates massive frustration for millions of Americans and contributes to the voter apathy that is pervasive in our political system. . . . A proportional representation system with a reasonable threshold for inclusion (to avoid repeating the mistakes of Israel’s Knesset, where any party can get seats with under 2 percent of the vote regardless of legitimacy) would fix most of these problems, and make our system more democratic, accountable and responsible.

Two professors, on the other hand, take the opportunity provided by the British elections to argue against the very idea of third party and independent political activism, and in favor of restricting political choice to the false choice between the Democratic and Republican Parties. At The Daily Beast, an associate professor of journalism and political science at City University of New York, Peter Beinart, responds to those who argue for third party and independent alternatives in the United States, writing:

Good luck with that. The more you know about what’s happening in Britain, and the more you know about the history of third-party candidacies in the U.S., the more dubious the whole idea becomes.

Beinart then goes on to "debunk" a series of mis-representations, slogans and talking points relating to third party and independent politics that pass for common wisdom in the corporate media and the American academy (if time permitted, it might be interesting to respond to his piece point by point). Ironically, however, and like so many apologists of the ruling political class, Beinart fails to note that the more you know about what's happening in the United States, and the more you know about the history of the Democratic and Republican parties, the more dubious the idea of reproducing the reigning two-party state and duopoly system of government becomes.

In the second piece, a guest post at Balkinization by David Schleicher, the assistant professor of law at George Mason University School of Law provides an informative and interesting comparison of plurality voting and proportional representation, but concludes by arguing that more should be done to discourage third party and independent political activism in the United States. Schleicher writes:

However Britain reforms its political system, let's hope they do something. And let us use its example as a lesson. If the United States persists in having a FPTP elections, we should use our election law rules to ensure that we get the benefits of using that system. Our election laws should encourage a healthy competitive atmosphere inside the parties so that groups try to succeed inside the two-party system. And should we keep the oft-criticized rules that discourage the development of national third parties. Abandoning these rules, or closing up our primaries, would lead us to where Britain is today.

Yes, the Democratic and Republican Parties have clearly not been allowed enough leeway in debasing our discourse and poisoning our politics; gerrymandering and district rigging are the very embodiment of "healthy competition"; and the ruling parties effectively represent the tens of millions of Americans they systematically disenfranchise in the interests of maintaining and expanding the global warfare and corporate welfare state.

While Republicans are fond of arguing that academics are nothing but Democrats with advanced degrees, and Democrats often fancy academics as objective observers or enlightened technocrats – the two above specimens suggest a third possibility, namely, that American academics profess nothing but reactionary support for the existing relations of power and the ruling political class, the reproduction of the two-party state and duopoly system of government. They could learn a thing or two from their students.

Update: In the comments, Shawn provides a link to a post at his Ranger's Arrows blog taking aim at the Beinart article mentioned above. Ranger's Arrows, by the way, is aimed directly at the two-party state: end the duopoly.

On Reaction: the Lesser-Evilist Hides His Political Cowardice Behind a Veil of Political Calculus

Over the last few days, I've had occasion to refute a number of claims by conservative and libertarian leaning infiltrationists who support practical accommodation with the Republican Party rather than principled opposition to the Democratic-Republican two-party state and the duopoly system of government. At FireDogLake, Jason Rosenbaum provides an opportunity to debunk the supposedly progressive case for accommodating the Democratic wing of the global warfare and corporate welfare state. Rosenbaum writes: "To the pissed off progressives: Don't be Naderites." Unfortunately, Rosenbaum proves incapable of mounting an original argument against third party activism and in favor of supporting the ruling two-party political establishment. Like so many of the lesser-evilists among us, he hides his political cowardice behind a veil of political calculus:

in a plurality voting system, if you don’t vote or if you vote for a third party, you are actually helping the candidate you least want to see in office, because in a plurality voting system it’s a zero sum game.

This highly disingenuous argument is beloved by the supporters of the Democratic-Republican two-party state. Their affective attachment to it, however, does not make it true. In reality: in a plurality voting system, if you vote for either of the major party candidates, you are voting to reproduce the ruling order and the two-party political status-quo; you are throwing your vote away, deluded by the illusion of a free choice. Rosenberg is thus only capable of offering a false choice in solution:

First, you can agitate to change the voting system. It’s a long road towards a voting system that better represents the will of the American people instead of shoehorning them into voting for the lesser of two evils, but it’s a worthy fight and you’d find a lot of support.

Second, you can work to change the party from the inside. That means primary challenges, organizing powerful groups within the parties, taking over party infrastructure – you know, all that Crashing the Gate stuff.

Rosenberg then contrasts third party political strategy with the primary challenge strategy, writing:

The people who voted for Nader in 2000 sent the country backwards and didn’t help reform the Democratic party. By contrast, Howard Dean and his followers mounted a powerful primary challenge and then proceeded to take over large parts of party infrastructure and create real change. It’s a lesson on how to do things, and how not to do them.

Of course, in the 2000 presidential election, as in every election, it was those who voted for the establishmentarian candidates, the anointed representatives of the global warfare and corporate welfare state, George W. Bush and Al Gore, who "sent the country backwards" with a conscious strategy of reactionary lesser-evilism. Beyond that, Howard Dean is an odd choice as an example supposedly demonstrating the superiority of the primary challenge strategy over independent opposition to the ruling two-party political order. Dean, of course, lost the Democratic primary to John Kerry who lost the general election to George W. Bush. However, Dean was certainly instrumental in helping to build the reigning Democratic congressional majority. Yet, as that Democratic majority has done nothing to scale back the global warfare and corporate welfare state, but rather strengthened it, and Dean himself has come out against the health insurance industry bailout being pushed by that majority, one wonders what "real change" Rosenbaum is talking about.

In effect, Rosenbaum's arguments against third party and independent activism, against opposition to the ruling political balance of power, are indistinguishable from those put forward by any given propagandist of the two-party state and the duopoly system of government on a daily basis. Ironically, with the appropriate substitutions, one can find the exact same claims put forward by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and his assorted Republican ditto-heads. But this is not surprising. The argument in favor of the lesser evil and the primary challenge is neither progressive nor conservative. It is purely reactionary. The lesser evilist hides his political cowardice behind a veil of political calculus.

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.

On Courage: Political Calculus as Political Cowardice among Apologists of the Two-Party State

At Democratic Underground, Time for Change provides a short history of progressive third parties in the United States, from the rise of the Republicans in the mid-nineteenth century to that of the Green Party in the late 1990's, and argues for the necessity of progressive third party activism to counter the corporatist agenda of the ruling Democratic-Republican two-party state. Balancing the concerns of Democratic lesser-evilists with those of principled progressives, he concludes:

The corporate takeover of today's Democratic Party is far from complete, and as a whole, the Democratic Party is still much better and much more progressive than the Republican Party. It is right to be cautious about voting for 3rd party candidates when we risk giving control of our country to the Republican Party by doing so, as happened in the 2000 presidential election.

But it is also right to be very concerned about the current direction of the Democratic Party. And by the same token it is right to consider how support for progressive 3rd party candidates could be used to push the Democratic Party in a more progressive direction. That is what the Progressive Party of the early 20th Century did, and consequently we saw a great many progressive ideals passed into law . . .

Our country is hungry, starving for a new type of political party, a party that is free of corporate control. The history of third parties in our country shows that they can accomplish a great deal . . . It could happen again, any time.

Indeed, it could. And for those who support the dictatorship of the ruling Democratic-Republican Party and the duopoly system of government, this possibility represents something approaching an existential threat. Among Democrats and Republicans, the dismissal of third party and independent political activism as the definition of political irrelevance or counter-productivity thinly veils the underlying fear that motivates their political activity. Examples abound. Considering the future of the tea party movement at Right Wing News, Donald Douglas comes right out and says it:

I'm especially worried that the tea parties coalesce into a formal third-party movement to challenge the Democrats and Republicans in the two-party system.

On the other side of the duopoly divide, Jane Hamsher's criticism of the Democratic Party's corporatist agenda has made her a target of ire among progressive establishmentarians. Responding to her critics, she writes:

the editor of the Nation is granting its legitimacy to a post which attempts to stifle criticism of the president and dismisses it as “Naderite,” equating the “progressive agenda” with “what’s politically advantageous for the President.”

Hamsher's apparent surprise at this reveals one of the many self-deceptions that form the psycho-ideological basis of the two-party state. Partisans of the Democratic and Republican Parties cannot be anything other than apologists of the ruling order and the political status-quo. That they convince themselves otherwise does not change this simple fact. Their concern with ensuring that everything changes just enough so that everything remains the same is symptomatic of an unwillingness or inability to relate to the existing political order in a critical register: their political calculus is predicated upon nothing more than political cowardice.

Third Party Tea Party: Independence or Co-dependence?

A new poll from Rasmussen presented respondents with a three-way generic ballot test, asking them to choose between Democrats, Republicans and a Tea Party candidate. The generic third party tea party candidate came in second place:

In a three-way Generic Ballot test, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds Democrats attracting 36% of the vote. The Tea Party candidate picks up 23%, and Republicans finish third at 18%. Another 22% are undecided.

Among voters not affiliated with either major party, the Tea Party comes out on top. Thirty-three percent (33%) prefer the Tea Party candidate, and 30% are undecided. Twenty-five percent (25%) would vote for a Democrat, and just 12% prefer the GOP.

Among Republican voters, 39% say they’d vote for the GOP candidate, but 33% favor the Tea Party option.

The poll also found that a large plurality of voters desire a third party:

Forty-one percent (41%) of all voters nationwide say Republicans and Democrats are so much alike that a new party is needed to represent the American people. Republicans are evenly divided on this question, while Democrats overwhelmingly disagree. However, among those not affiliated with either major party, 60% agree that a new party is needed, and only 25% disagree. Men are far more likely than women to believe a new party is needed. [Emphasis added.]

Consider duopolist Republican ideologue Ed Morrissey's take on these findings at Hot Air:

Fortunately, there is no such thing as a Tea Party, er, Party, which Rasmussen asked respondents to assume when answering this survey. It would take too long to form such a party, and as the results above show, it would be a self-defeating process, especially in 2010. This reflects the damage done to the GOP during 2001-6, when voters thought they were electing small-government, fiscal-restraint politicians, and wound up instead with porkers who spent hand over fist. [Emphasis added.]

Morrissey's solution to the problem faced by the GOP is quite telling:

The key in 2010 is to have the GOP represent the Tea Party brand, and the only way to do that is to firmly insist on fiscal restrain and reduction of government as the platform for the election. The Right needs to put aside all of its usual hobby horses and focus on the message from the Tea Party movement. If they need an excuse, call it a moment of national crisis as the Democrats attempt a takeover of the health-care and energy industries.

It is difficult to imagine a more cynical political ploy than that which is proposed here. Morrissey admits that the problem with the Republican Party is that they say they stand for small government and fiscal restraint but do not in reality act in line with that rhetoric. His proposed response is not fiscal discipline, the limitation of government and the expansion of freedom, but rather a "rebranding" campaign bolstered by alarmist hysterics, the declaration of a national crisis. This is a call for nothing but more of the same. And thus Morrissey is nothing but a craven apologist for the political status quo. It is no coincidence that his position stands upon the three pillars of duopoly ideology that I outlined back in October: historical fatalsim (third party activity is "a self-defeating process"), hysterical alarmism (it's a "national crisis") and political impatience (it would "take too long" to build a third party). Ironically, in actuality, continuing to support Republicans and Democrats in the hope that one day they will act in accordance with their rhetoric or the Constitution is a self-defeating process; it is already too late to reform either of the major parties, indeed, there is little if anything in them worth salvaging rather than ravaging; and the dictatorship of the Democratic-Republican Party is the greatest political crisis facing the people of the United States.

Digust Discussed: the Duopoly Dialogue and an Alternate Reality Cable News Political Debate

For ideologues of the two-party state and the duopoly system of government, perhaps the most incomprehensible dynamic at play in recent public opinion polls is that distrust of and discontent with the Democratic majority, in particular, and government in general, has not translated into support for the GOP. At Mirror on America, Angry Independent relays word of an NBC/WSJ poll which found that 46% of respondents favored a strong, credible independent candidate for president in 2012, with 30% opposed to the idea and 20% expressing neutrality. Unsurprisingly, the main WSJ article on the poll does not mention this finding in its report, though it does register the public's "total disgust with Washington".

Angry Independent also provides video of a discussion on the poll's findings from Chris Matthews' MSNBC political game-show, Hardball. Of course, ironically, Matthews appears deeply ignorant of the fact that the "debate" and "discussion" format of his program perfectly embodies everything that is wrong with the duopolized dialogue characteristic of political discourse under the conditions of the two-party state. Matthews first introduces the segment's leitmotif – namely, widespread discontent with both Democrats and Republicans, and by implication the two-party system as a whole, and a correspondingly high level of support for independent, third party alternatives to the duopoly charade – and then goes on to introduce his two guests, Todd Harris and Steve McMahon, apologists and shills for the Republican and Democratic Parties, respectively. One wonders if it has ever occurred to the producers of infotainment programming that they could invite an advocate of third party or independent politics to discuss such matters, rather than continue to allow representatives of the two completely discredited factions of the nation's ruling political class to dominate our political discourse. It might at least make such discussions interesting. Allow me to provide a transcription of the discussion from the video embedded below, supplemented by the imaginary inclusion of a potential third party to the matter:

Matthews: We're back with Steve McMahon and Todd Harris for our politics fix, with our new NBC Wall Street Journal poll out today. Look at these numbers. 65% of the country trusts Washington to do the right thing "only sometimes". 46% of the country likes the idea of creating an independent third party to field a presidential candidate in 2012. That's very high, by the way, historically, 46 %. And 57 % of the country blames both parties for partisanship. Todd, it looks to me like it's a curse on both houses, they don't like either Democrats or Republicans. Least of all your party, I must say. Least of all.

Discredited Republican Shill: Well, you know I'll tell you what, with numbers like that I tell you who I wouldn't want to be, and that's the party in power, because they might be saying a pox on both houses, but there's only one party in power right now that controls every lever of government in Washington, and that's the Democratic Party. They are on the ballot just as Republicans are. I would not want to be sitting on top of those numbers trying to ask for two more years of being in control

Discredited Democratic Shill: Todd, Todd, Todd, you don't want to be the party in office, is what you don't want to be when you look at those numbers, but what you also don't want to be is the party of "no," which this party, Todd's party has become, the party of "no."

Matthews: Well, suppose the country's in a "no" mood. What do you think, advocate of third party and independent politics?

Independent Advocate: Yes, well, thanks Chris, first I'd like to point out that I wasn't even invited onto the program today. Apparently, you thought it was appropriate to only consult representatives of two completely discredited special interest groups, namely the Democratic and Republican Parties, to discuss the fact that the majority of Americans no longer find Democrats or Republicans to be credible representatives of the public interest.

[Cross talk]

Independent Advocate: Secondly, perhaps you'll be surprised to hear it, but I completely agree with the discredited shills to my right and to my left. And here's why. As Todd says, he wouldn't want to be the Democratic Party right now, and as Steve points out, he wouldn't want to be the Republican Party. However, like most Americans, I wouldn't want to be either of you. And that's the point, that's just what the numbers in these polls are showing. And that's precisely what the American people are saying. They're perfectly capable of seeing the present system for what it is. They're fed up with the false choices offered by the party bosses, they're fed up with the lesser and the greater evil, they're fed up with two-party charade, and they're fed up with two bit hacks like Todd and Steve delivering cynical apologia for the two-party political status quo and regurgitating talking points cribbed from one of their respective party's preferred PR flacks.

Matthews: Well, we're out of time, we're gonna have to leave it there. Thanks.

Duopoly Ideology and the Falsification of Reality

In its most extreme form, duopoly ideology amounts to nothing less than the overt falsification of reality. As I argued in a post on the ideology of the two-party state last week, the "limits of two-party ideology become readily apparent when one attempts to think third party and independent politics within the frames established by duopolist narratives and categories. The logic literally begins to break down, miring the thinker in both contradictions and tautologies." The conservative Republican enthusiasm for Doug Hoffman's third party campaign in NY's 23rd has led to the proliferation of such contradictions, in their most extreme form, precisely because the stance requires the partisan duopolist ideologue to fully endorse a third party candidate while still retaining credibility as a partisan duopolist ideologue, thus heightening the contradiction. Rush Limbaugh provides us with a prominent example of such dialectical gymnastics at work.

Since the first national tea party mobilization in April, Limbaugh has been a vocal opponent of independent and third party political activism. On April 16th, Limbaugh argued that the "tea parties were a great success, but [conservatives must] resist the third party temptation . . . there's a possibility that this is going to lead to a third-party movement, and that's death," as I emphasized at the time. In July, Limbaugh struck similar tones: "I'm telling you, there's a lot of talk about third party out there; that we ought to go third party. No. Let me tell you who ought to go third party, the people that hijacked our party" (see here also).

Yesterday, to justify his support for third party candidate Doug Hoffman, Limbaugh proffered the assertion that NY's 23rd "isn't a third party race"! We're all familiar with some version of this argument by now: Conservative Party candidate Hoffman is the "real" Republican, while the Republican candidate is a Republican-in-name-only; Hoffman will join the Republican Party once he's elected etc. Limbaugh's position is more well-developed, and so it offers a more nuanced perspective on the ideology that sustains the two-party state even in the defense of third party advocacy. However, one interesting thing about the radio host's monologue is – though he immediately hedges the statement – he begins from what can only be termed a radical independent or third party proposition, namely, that there is no difference between the Democratic and Republican Parties. Astounded that the GOP is running ads against Hoffman, Limbaugh states:

The Republican Party, as constituted, is as dangerous to this country as the Democrat Party is. "But, Rush, party loyalty is party loyalty, and the local Republican committee up there has endorsed Scozzafava." So? I'm saying the two parties are the same. I guess I need to amend it a little bit, but, man, when I saw that they were running ads, as I say, [it] ruined two hours of my day.

He then goes on to elaborate the circumstances of the current situation. Since Limbaugh emphasizes that this "teachable moment" is extremely "nuanced," let's consider his reasoning at some length:

In New York, the rules allow for very strong third parties in certain elections. The Conservative Party in New York generally, now, only runs candidates when the Republicans are liberal. Otherwise they don't work against the Republicans to help the Democrats, but here, you have an off-year election, you have an extreme liberal Republican. This is not a RINO. This is not a Republican-in-name-only. This is an extreme liberal Republican who may as well be a Democrat . . .

NY-23 is a special election. There was no primary. Doug Hoffman would have challenged Scozzafava in the Republican primary had there been one. He would have had the backing of New York's Conservative Party as is often the case there. You have to understand that the Conservative Party does not look at themselves as a third party. Only do they get in gear when the Republicans nominate some liberal. Ronald Reagan opposed third-party races because he believed that conservatives needed to take back the Republican Party . . .

Hoffman wanted to run as a Republican. He is a Republican. He was passed over by the GOP, who picked Scozzafava instead. So he's running on the Conservative Party ticket because the GOP passed him over, but this is a wake-up call for both parties . . .

I know the temptation for a third party is tempting, but right now conservatism is on the ascendancy, it's actually good to be a conservative, and this is the time to reassert control over the Republican Party. It's not going to be easy but the Democrats, the far left didn't go out and form a third party. They took over the Democrat Party . . .

So a lot of prominent Republican conservatives are stepping up here and look, I want to emphasize on this third-party business again, in a functioning two-party system the primary system is the check on the worst impulse or impulses of the party bosses. That's the theme here that I think people need to understand because it's easy to understand, and it's right on the money . . . When you have primaries, the rank-and-file cannot only overrule the party bosses, they can actually make the party bosses behave better.

Limbaugh thus argues that since this is a special election for which there was no primary, and since New York has a strong Conservative Party, and the Republican establishment's candidate is unpalatable, it is necessary to support the third party candidate Hoffman, who is a Republican, and who represents a third party that "does not look at themselves as a third party"; but, otherwise, conservatives should focus on infiltrating the Republican Party because that's what Reagan advocated and because the far left did not form a third party but rather infiltrated the Democratic Party.

First, we should register the deep irony of the fact that the "far left" here functions as a strategic model in Limbaugh's thinking. Nonetheless, infiltrationist strategy refutes itself. Conservatives and libertarians have been "taking over" the Republican Party for upwards of forty years, when has this strategy ever succeeded?

Second, Limbaugh emphasizes the importance of primaries: "in a functioning two-party system the primary system is the check on the worst impulse or impulses of the party bosses," he continues, "when you have primaries, the rank-and-file cannot only overrule the party bosses, they can actually make the party bosses behave better." Perhaps it has never occurred to Limbaugh that, in a functioning democratic republic, the people should not have to "check" the "impulses" of any "party bosses". Indeed, that the impulses of party bosses need to be checked at all is evidence that a "functioning" two party system does not function to the benefit of the people, the "rank-and-file." In the end, the best check on the Republican and Democratic Party political establishment is third party and independent opposition to the two-party system.

Finally, we come to Limbaugh's ideological falsification of reality. He states: "the Conservative Party does not look at themselves as a third party. Only do they get in gear when the Republicans nominate some liberal." Actually, the Conservative Party of New York State is not affiliated with any other party, national or local, though they are affiliated with the American Conservative Union. Limbaugh is correct to state that they often only nominate a separate candidate for a given office when neither the Republican nor Democratic candidates is deemed acceptable. However, it is in precisely these cases that the Conservative Party effectively functions as an independent third party against the stooges of the Democratic-Republican duopoly. And this is the case in the present race. How does the Conservative Party describe itself? On its "history" page, we read:

The Conservative Party was formed in 1962 to restore a meaningful choice to the voters of New York State. At that time, the three existing political parties espoused the doctrinaire liberal philosophy of the welfare state at home and the collectivist ideology abroad. In just four short decades, the party has grown from a small band of conservative-minded men and women to a statewide organization of almost 170,000 individuals dedicated to the traditional American values of individual freedom, individual responsibility and individual effort.

From a humble beginning garnering 141,000 votes on ballot Row F, our principles have attracted Empire State voters in sufficient numbers to raise the Party to Row C and twice received over a million votes for our candidate in a statewide election. From the founding of the party, it has been successively chaired by Kieran O’Doherty, J. Daniel Mahoney, Serphin R. Maltese and Michael R. Long. Through the leadership of these men and the hard work of committee members, the Conservative Party elected James L. Buckley to the U. S. Senate, William Carney to the House of Representatives, Serphin R. Maltese to the State Senate, Rosemary R. Gunning and Charles Jerabec to the State Assembly, and numerous county, city, town and village offices.

No matter how Limbaugh and his duopolist ilk choose to spin it, Doug Hoffman is a third party candidate, and his candidacy proves that third party candidates are viable contenders for public office.

Political Utopianism and Duopoly Ideology

One indicator of the weakness, if not the political bankruptcy, of the two-party system are the justifications marshaled to support the idea of working within either of the ruling parties. Indeed, the very fact that it is deemed necessary to defend such a decision, which not long ago would have simply been viewed as a matter of course, demonstrates the depth of the public's discontent with the duopoly system of government. This is not to say, however, that these apologia are convincing, at least as intended. Rather, they serve to underscore the debility of Democratic-Republican politics and the corresponding ideology of the duopoly.

One Democratic candidate for a seat in the Georgia House of Representatives in 2010, Jim Nichols, justifies his membership in the Democratic Party in the following terms:

Its generational . . . I came of age during the Bush years. If you are looking for a short and sweet reason why--in the two party system world--where you have to choice a lesser of two evils--I choose to get involved in Democratic Party politics because Bush Conservatives have done a great deal of damage to our national and economic security.

This rationale reveals not only the negativity but also the invalidity of the lesser-of-two-evils argument. Not only is it a purely negative position, i.e. the Democratic Party is superior because it's not the Republican Party and vice versa, in the above form it is also completely arbitrary: if the perceived problem is that the Republican Party has "done a great deal of damage" to the country, then one could also reason that the appropriate solution is not to oppose the GOP, but rather to join it, and change it from the inside. The latter argument is put forward, for instance, by Jordan at Generation Patriot in a post entitled 'Why I Joined the GOP.' He writes:

I'm not a big fan of our two parties. I think the Democrats are just like they were at the turn of the century. Big money, big power, big ideas with little room for the views for consequences . . . The Republicans are no better though . . . And that's a reason I joined: to fix the GOP.

Though he correctly identifies the form and structure of the duopoly system as a primary cause and elementary part of the many political problems facing the country, he considers the possibility of third party activism only to dismiss it:

Third parties are dead and will be dead for a while due because of GOP/Democrat “bi-partisanship” on campaign finance laws that restrict such parties from ever gaining any power. I joined the GOP because, honestly, I had no other choice . . . I'd rather star the ball rolling with a current party than spend decades working a third party that'll barely get noticed at all.

It is highly ironic that the prospect of third party activism is so often rejected on the basis of the assertion that it would take too long to build up actual opposition parties, while it is implicitly maintained that the Republican and Democratic Parties can somehow be "fixed" over the course of the next election cycle. For some reason though, it's third party activists who are considered utopians! As Jordan himself admits:

For most of the 20th century, Republican presidents and Republican congresses have hardly held to their word on things like entitlements, spending, corruption, cutting down decades of old Progressive/new liberal fat off the Constitution.

Arguably, it would take much longer to reverse such a long-standing historical trend than it would to build a new organizational network that is already moving in the right direction, and is neither burdened by the monstrous apparatus of the mass parties nor subject to the dictates of their apparatchiks. As James Hogan points out at Average Noone, the Republican and Democratic Parties represent their own interests first, and those of their constituents second, if at all. The Educated Imagination supplies an apropos quote from Northrop Frye:

It will be too bad, I think, if democracy suffers from a sense of fixation about its own political machinery. It is possible that voting on grossly oversimplified issues for candidates who are controlled by political machines rather than by electors may be something that in time to come we shall decide is a bit expendable.

Ideology Trumps Ideology

If and when it is called, the special election in New York's 23rd CD will likely be a three-way race between Democratic candidate Bill Owens, Republican Dede Scozzafava and Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. In my first post on the contest, as you might recall, I quoted Red State's Eric Erickson saying, "If Dede Scozzafava is the best the New York Republicans can come up with, let’s just hand the district over to the Democrats." In response, I noted that Hoffman entered the race specifically in opposition to Scozzafava's liberal positions on a host of issues before the Democrats had even named their candidate, and wrote that Erickson's attitude:

perfectly encapsulates the duopolist mentality fostered by the binary ideology of the two-party system. However, unlike the Red State Republican ideologue, conservatives in New York do not give up so easily.

It is therefore worth mentioning that Erickson has now come out in support of Hoffman. The post is worth quoting at length, if only for the novelty of reading a dogmatic duopolist make a strong case for a third party candidate:

I am on record repeatedly saying that disaffected conservatives should not agitate for a third party. It truly makes no sense. Ballot access laws in the fifty states make it extremely impractical to mount a third party challenge except in very rare cases. Historically, those cases are premised on individuals who, once off the national stage, see their third party collapse, see e.g. Teddy Roosevelt and Ross Perot.

There are, however, some situations where exceptions must be made in order to pressure the Republican Party of a particular state into doing what is right. The opportunities rarely arise because there are not a lot of viable third parties out there. One state where there is an exception to my “no third parties” rule is New York.

In that state, the local Republican Party did everything possible to screw the national Republican Party . . . Now the race in NY-23 pits two liberals against each other in the two major parties. Sadly, the person furthest to the left is the Republican, Dede Scozzafava . . .

Conservatives and Republicans should rally around Doug Hoffman as a viable alternative to Dede Scozzafava. Hoffman has more in common with the people in NY-23 and is closer to the Republican Party on issues across the board.

We don’t need a third party in this country. And it is too hard to set one up anyway. But there is a viable third party in New York that conservatives can use to remind the GOP what happens when the local Republican Party rejects the Republican platform. Above all else, we must make sure Scozzafava is defeated.

Having a Democrat in that seat would be better than Scozzafava because the media could not resist the story line that the GOP is moving left just when Americans are moving back to the right. Scozzafava would hurt NY-23 and she would hurt the GOP brand nationally. Doug Hoffman is the guy we should rally around.

Let's catalog his arguments for and against third party activism. Against third parties, he states: 1) they are not viable, 2) they are impractical, 3) historically, they have not been particularly successful, and 4) the US does not need a third party. Fortunately, it is not necessary in this case to refute each of these assertions point by point, since Erickson supplies the counter-arguments himself. In support of the Conservative Party candidate, he writes: 1) the candidate is viable, 2) he is reliably conservative, 3) his election would pressure the Republican Party to move in a more conservative direction, while punishing the local party branch for straying to the left, and 4) it would undermine predictable narratives in the mainstream media.

Arguably, each of these points could be said to hold in virtually every election featuring third party or independent candidates on the ballot. First, viability is a matter of perception. Paradoxically, third party and independent candidates are often not perceived as viable precisely because people who say they would vote for a viable third party or independent candidate do not support them. Just voicing support for, or consideration of, a third party or independent candidate changes their viability quotient, for lack of a better term. Hoffman, for instance, is now likely a more viable candidate simply because Erickson has come out in support of him. Next, third party and independent candidates are more reliable than representatives of the Republican and Democratic Parties because they are not beholden to a massive party apparatus and the wide array of lobbyists and special interest groups that fund it. Moreover, the inclusion of any third voice in a duopolized debate will necessarily provoke a reaction on the part of the major party candidates, pushing them in one direction or another. And this, finally, of itself, would force a change in the media's stock narrative plot-arc for any given election.

By far, Erickson's most sweeping claim is that: "We don’t need a third party in this country." Ironically, however, he proves the opposite. Defending himself against potential backlash from partisan Republicans, he thus asserts that his support for Hoffman's third party candidacy is the exception that proves the rule against third party activism. And sometimes ideology trumps ideology.

Spoiling for a Fight III

One of the great ironies of the duopoly system of government is that precisely because third party and independent candidates for office are systematically marginalized by a wide array of exclusionary political practices, their power is magnified beyond all proportion to their actual relative strength. The so-called spoiler effect might be considered as proof of this proposition. We're all familiar with the scenario: if the number of votes received by a third party or independent candidate exceeds the margin of victory between the Republican and Democratic candidates, assuming one of them wins the race, and this third party or independent candidate's positions are said to approximate those of the losing duopolist, it is concluded that the contest was spoiled. The implicit – and likely false – assumption here is that the third party and independent voters in question would have voted for the losing duopolist candidate were it not for the alternative choice on the ballot. Hence the bipartisan fervor to keep third party and independent candidates off our ballots at all costs. But this is pure speculation and cannot be known with any reasonable degree of certainty, unless one were to interview the great majority of those voters. That the latter is not done is yet another example of the ways in which third party and independent voters are marginalized by everyday duopolist praxis.

If the spoiler argument has any merit, it is to be found in what it reveals about the psychology of disappointed and disenchanted partisans of the duopoly parties. The spoiler argument rationalizes their loss by scapegoating third parties and independents, and thus allows them to avoid assuming responsibility for that loss, while robbing their opponents of responsibility for their success. The power of such rationalizations in still apparent today among liberal Democrats who bristle a the thought of Ralph Nader's presidential campaign in the 2000 election. Consider, for instance, this recent post by Digby at Hullabaloo:

nobody believed that an incumbent Vice President in a roaring economy would have a race so close that the Republicans could steal it. But we know differently now don't we? And you would think that the Democratic establishment would also know that because of that, it may not be a good idea to alienate the left to the point where they become apathetic or even well... you know. It can happen. It did happen. Why the Democrats persist in believing that it can't happen again is beyond me . . . the fact remains that if a slice of the left hadn't been so disgusted by the New Democratic, mushy centrism of the Clinton years, he would have won. [Emphasis added.]

While Digby finds it incomprehensible that the leadership of the Democratic Party would not implement a progressive, left-wing agenda, the assumption that they would do so is equally mystifying. 'Credo quia absurdum' is among the most powerful tenets of the duopolist's political faith. On the right, there are still many who believe that the Republican Party stands for, and is capable of delivering, small government conservatism. At Gay Patriot, B. Daniel Blatt argues that the GOP can succeed if it returns to its principles, and in the process provides us with virtual a mirror image of Digby's position:

since the first Tea Parties in February, growing numbers of Americans have publicly expressed their opposition to increased government spending . . . With a Republican President and Congress not holding the line on spending, many of those conservatives became disenchanted with the GOP and either didn’t bother to vote or registered their disapproval by pulling the lever for a Third Party candidate or even the Democrat . . . With polls showing a growing distaste for big government and a solid conservative plurality, Republicans have great opportunity to recover from the losses of the preceding two election cycles.

Duopolist are fond of the historical argument against third party activism, which states that, if history is any guide, third parties do not stand a good chance of success in attaining their stated political goals. However, if recent history is any guide, neither do the duopoly parties. And progressives and conservatives alike will certainly revisit the record.

Against Historical Fatalism: the Politics of Possibility

Agitation for third party activism on the right continues to rile partisans of the political status quo. As I noted in 'Tea Partisanship,' John Hawkins of Right Wing News is an unabashed apologist for the duopoly system of government and lesser-of-two-evils voting. At Townhall, he has published an article entitled, "Three Reasons Why a Successful Third Party Wouldn't Solve Anything." Though he initially proves incapable of supplying his readers with anything other than the usual duopolist platitudes, the brunt of Hawkins' piece ironically reveals the inherent weaknesses of US two-party politics.

If you're reading these pages, you are likely already familiar with the article's first set of arguments against third party activism: such efforts have been unsuccessful in the past, a third party would take too long to build, and in the meantime it would strengthen the Democratic Party. Like his fellow advocates of the duopoly parties, the author makes virtues of historical fatalism, impatience, and lesser-evilism. The second half of the article begins from the premise that the hypothetical third party effort under consideration is successful:

At long last, the Republican Party goes into the dust heap of history and the new purer third party rises up, phoenix-like from the ashes to take its place. Then, everything would be right with the world! Well, not exactly.

Since the assumption is that this party simply replaces the Republican Party, Hawkins' argument no longer effectively applies to third party activism, and thus his critique inadvertently and ironically provides a number of strong arguments against the reigning two-party system and in favor of third party politics. He first mentions, but dismisses, "the possibility that the Democrats would rig the rules of the game to make it all but impossible for an opposing party to get back into power." Of course, the system is already rigged in this fashion by bipartisan consensus: the Republican and Democratic Parties have fixed the rules, at local, state and federal levels, to ensure the exclusion of oppositional parties and voices from the nation's politics. This, of itself, is reason to support independent and third party efforts to expand the scope of political representation in government.

Next, Hawkins writes, "the exact same people who are ruining the Republican Party would move over to the third party and ruin it, too." This is not so much an argument against the hypothetical third party, as it is an indictment of the Republican Party and the rampant opportunism that drives duopoly politics. Yet, it also reveals the author's inability to conceive of a politics different from that peddled by the Democrats and Republicans, and divorced from the duopoly form. This becomes clear in his final point:

the Libertarian Party, Constitution Party, Green Party, etc. are much purer than the Republican and Democratic parties -- but there's a reason for that: they're not in power. They don't have a leech class that just wants to keep their cushy jobs. They don't get to hand out earmarks that indirectly put hundreds of thousands of dollars into the pockets of their families, friends, and political allies. They don't have to take electoral considerations into their policy positions because they don't ever get elected to anything. It's easy to be pure when you're on the outside looking in. When you have skin in the game and doing the right, but unpopular thing may cost you the job of a lifetime.

Though the Republican and Democratic Parties are certainly filled with parasites who trade political favors for campaign contributions, and have no aspirations beyond gorging themselves and their friends at the public trough in the service of their careerist political ambitions, this does not imply that an effectively organized and disciplined opposition party could not defend itself against the trappings of power. In a piece on the outlines of a successful third party at The Jacksonian Party, A. Jacksonian points out:

To even think of forming a party that is different, one needs to put forward a different schema for it to come about. It does no good, whatsoever, to recreate the exact, same party structure of other parties as we have all been witness to what happens to those structures in the way of corruption and influence over time.

The Libertarian Party platform states, "political parties should be allowed to establish their own rules for nomination procedures, primaries and conventions." Internal self-regulation is the first defense against political corruption. The Green Party, for instance, does not allow its candidates to accept corporate campaign contributions. Parties may freely decide to term-limit officials elected on their ballot ticket, as multiple chapters of the Modern Whig Party have done (ex. Delaware and New York). On a related note, Shafeen Charania makes this precise point in a post on focus and discipline, advocating for the self-imposition of term limits by elected officials interested in changing the reigning political status quo.

Hawkins' piece demonstrates, yet again, the unwillingness or inability of duopolists to imagine a political organization different from those of the duopoly parties, and a form of politics not constrained by the two-party straitjacket. Fortunately, not everyone on the right or the left has resigned themselves to historical fatalism and lesser-evilism. At The Daily Conservative, Patrick Britton writes:

Every couple years we vote and every couple years we chose the lesser of two evils. As a conservative I a can no longer accept the half wits the Republicans push on me. As a Democrat you should no longer allow your party to decide your worth. There’s an unnecessary stigma around third party candidates. They are not ‘the other choice’ anymore. They are the clear choice. The only way to break the cycle is to stop repeating the cycle. Simple enough, I urge you to vote Libertarian, to vote for the Constitution Party; to vote for anyone who speaks for freedom.

Update: A number of other folks have weighed in on Hawkins' piece. At Renew America, Mark West focuses on Hawkins' various false assumptions, while Rust Belt Philosophy emphasizes the ways in which he simply misses the point.

America's Fastest Growing Third Party

What is America's fastest growing third party? The question seems straightforward enough, and the answer would appear to be easily quantifiable: one need only determine which party is increasing its membership at the fastest rate. Yet the proliferation of new parties over the last few years complicates the issue. If an activist founds a new party and convinces just one more person to join, membership instantaneously doubles. The most recent and reliable tally of voter registration numbers I have been able to track down is from late 2008, at Ballot Access News. Perusing the third party political web, however, one might begin to wonder just how many "fastest growing" parties there are in the United States. I count at least seven, in no particular order:

• An article from May at the Constitution Party website begins, "The Constitution Party, the fastest-growing third party, is poised to pick up the pieces of the broken Grand Old Party as more Americans consider the option of an alternative choice."

• The welcome page for the Green Party states: "The Green Party is America's fastest growing political party."

• America's Third Party calls itself, "America's fastest growing political movement."

• The introduction at the Libertarian Party website reads: "The Libertarian Party is America's third largest and fastest growing political party."

• A post from last year at the Boston Tea Party site is entitled: "The Fastest Growing Party in America."

• In June, the Modern Whig Party blog wrote that "the Modern Whig Party has attracted media attention as "the fastest growing mainstream political movement in the nation.""

• In a press release from the National Committee of America's Independent Party, we read: "The American Independent Party is the nation's third largest and fastest growing political party based on voter registration."

Of course, though comical, this is not meant to slight the above parties. If anything, it underscores the vitality, and the level of competition between them, as well as the widespread interest of voters across the political spectrum in alternatives to the duopoly charade. But it also raises the issue of truth in politics.

Cognizance of the tenuous relationship between political rhetoric and what is called 'the truth' is likely as old as politics itself. In Plato's Republic, for instance, it is famously asserted that a 'noble lie' is necessary to maintain social and political order. Today, as the corporate media have taken to accepting the truth claims of preferred politicians and ideologues of the duopoly parties at face value, it sometimes appears as if the greater portion of independent and amateur political commentary consists in nothing more than exposing the lies of the author's political opponents, present company not excluded. The cynics among us may well be justified in wondering whether the chains of lies and distortions peddled by the political class are not primarily intended to deceive, but rather simply to keep us busy while they go about their business.

The plasticity of truth, however, allows for it to be bent without necessarily being broken. It is in this gray area between truth and lie that much of our contemporary political discourse comes into its own. This holds as much for the partisans of the duopoly as it does for their opposition among third parties and independents. The intensity of political competition virtually requires it.

Unimaginative Apologetics, Refuted

IPR relays word of a discussion between Parker Ward and J.C. Allen in the Letters to the Editor section of Louisiana's Shreveport Times. Allen is the chairman of the Caddo Parish Republican Executive Committee. Ward is a young conservative political activist who recently left the GOP for the Constitution Party. In a letter to the Shreveport Times, Ward explained the reasons behind his move and made a pitch for the Constitution Party:

I left the GOP because it is moving away from its Christian Conservative Constitutional roots and is no longer for less federal government, less taxation, and more expensive, beloved, and valued liberty. I believe our politicians in D.C. are making a mockery out of the highest governing document in our land, the Constitution. People say we are no longer under the old Constitutional laws; I would have to say to you, why, yes we are, friend. The Republican Party is moving to the Democrats former bearing and inching themselves more rapidly to socialism. What can we, the Constitution-loving Americans, do to keep our Constitutional rights? We are losing rights and freedoms left and right under both parties. If we are going to preserve the America we love then we need to get up and put our money where our mouths are.Change your voter registration to Constitution Party, run with that party, and only vote for candidates who will stand up for the Constitution of the United States of America.

Allen's pathetic response is duopolist boilerplate, but the very fact that the chairman of the local Republican Executive Committee found it necessary to respond at all demonstrates the fear of effective local third party activism that motivates partisans of the duopoly parties. In response to Ward, Allen writes:

While some conservatives may feel that the Republican Party has abandoned them, it is this party that remains the only hope for conservative principles to again emerge victorious. It is important that these conservatives realize that it will be much easier and take less time to mold the Republican Party into its previous conservative image than to build a new party into an effective alternative, which history has shown rarely happens. Historically, conservative, minor third party efforts have accomplished just the opposite of what was intended. For example, Ross Perot's party drained off enough conservative votes from the first President George Bush to ensure the election of Bill Clinton. Independents, although not a party, wield more power as a voting block than almost all of the minor parties put together. Yet Independents have very few elected officials, control very few, if any, committees in legislatures and have held very few governor seats. They can, however, make a difference in election outcomes . . . The state and local Republican organizations will continue to court the conservative Democrats and unaffiliated in an effort to attract these voters to help build a stronger conservative base in the Republican Party that can make a difference.

Ideologues of the duopoly parties really are an unimaginative bunch. Since March, when I first started maintaining Poli-Tea, I have responded in one way or another, and on multiple occasions, to all of the arguments put forward here by Allen, of which there are four: 1) the brute fact argument, 2) the argument by impatience, 3) the historical argument, and 4) the spoiler argument. First, in the present context, the brute fact argument is a mere assertion, and, ironically, it is unsupported by the facts. Allen states that the GOP "remains the only hope for conservative principles to again emerge victorious." This claim is completely undermined by the dialogical context in which it is uttered. That conservatives are leaving the Republican Party for the Constitution Party proves that the GOP is not their only hope. Next, the argument by impatience is often coded as pragmatism. Allen writes: "it will be much easier and take less time to mold the Republican Party into its previous conservative image than to build a new party into an effective alternative, which history has shown rarely happens." Again, no facts are supplied to support this assertion. It is noteworthy, however, that Allen sees the problem primarily as one of 'image' and branding, rather than substance. Conservatives do not desire the mere appearance of conservatism, they want an effective alternative, which is why they are seeking out third party and independent alternatives to the duopoly charade. Thirdly, the historical component of Allen's remark is, of course, technically true. Ironically, however, the Republican Party itself is the best evidence of the fact that third parties can become major organs of political power. And finally, just for fun, let's assume that the spoiler argument does indeed hold water, but also that it cuts both ways. If President George Bush had the decency, for the good of the nation and the future of conservatism, to withdraw his candidacy for president, he never would have spoiled Perot's chances of defeating Clinton in 1992.