The Downfall of the Two Party System

I intially started this as a response to Weir's comment about the difference in Congressional voting patterns between Republicans and Democrats, but as is so often the case I found that I had more to say about it then I first realized and thought it deserved to be a topic in it's own right.

I believe that we are currently witnessing the downfall of the two-party system. To be sure, it will be a slow, painful, agonizing death but I think that we've seen the cracks in the foundation already and those cracks will just widen given time. Allow me to elaborate.

The fundamental weakness of the two-party system is, unsurprisingly, its binary nature. Outside of the primaries, you don't get a diverse range of choices on the issues. You don't like candidate A or candidate B's position on a particular issue? Tough luck; pick one. This can be overcome when the system is functioning at its best, and that's when there is a semi-clear line of demarcation between the two parties that occurs at or near the center of the political spectrum. In that scenario it's fairly clear what each party stands for and when you elect more members of one party you can have a reasonable expectation of their priorities and you can also expect that they will more or less vote together. But the fundamental flaw which cannot be overcome in this system is that you have no good method of registering discontent with the ruling party other than to vote for the other side. That often leaves the electorate in the awkward position of voting for someone they don't ideologically agree with, just because they're fed up with what the current party has been offering. And small wonder that these voters are fickle and will abandon you the first chance they get; they never agreed with you in the first place!

But the real breakdown occurs when one party, rather than being spread throughout their half of the political spectrum, becomes ideologically clustered around the last 20% of it (as the Republicans have). Then, by definition, the other party is left to cover the remaining 80%. That might seem like a good thing for the party with the wider base, but it actually becomes a huge hindrance. You've got somebody who is 10 "points" right of center in the same party with someone who is all the way left. At that point the question becomes less "why can't you two stay together on an issue?" and more "why the hell are the two of you in the same party?"

Here's the other problem. The Democrats don't actually cover the remaining 80% of the spectrum abdicated by the Republicans. At heart, most Democrats are left of center. So they move to the right to try and fill the void left by the Republicans but they're not going to go all the way to 30 "points" right of center. I'd say they're probably only going about half that far - to about 15, but let's not get hung up on the numbers since they're pretty arbitrary anyway. The point is that you've now got a fairly sizeable gap in ideology between the two parties and that's a huge problem. When the two parties each inhabit an entire half of the political spectrum, the members in the middle aren't too far apart, no matter which party they belong to. That makes compromise feaible and, since they are by definition compromises by centrists, they tend to be pretty good ones. But now that you've got a gap in ideologies between the parties - forget it. It might as well be a chasm as far as compromise is concerned.

So the result is depressingly logical: complete gridlock when the Democrats are in charge and lots and lots of legislation that the majority of the country disagrees with when the Republicans are in charge. Taken in this context, it makes all the sense in the world that the period of our greatest prosperity (recently) occurred when we had a Democratic president with a Republican congress (94 - 2000). We avoided the gridlock of the Democratic congress while at the same time the Republicans were forced to come back towards the center to avoid a veto.

So is this unavoidable? I don't think so, but it will take a lot of time and, most importantly, a lot of courage from a small group of people (but then again isn't that the recipe for most major changes?). I used to think that the Republicans would be the ones splintering. That the fiscal conservatives would disassociate themselves from the religious fundamentalists and return to the center. I think they had a chance to do that, but that ship has now sailed. They realize that their base, while extremely passionate, is small and thus abandoning the party for the center would most likely just lead to political obscurity. Some (like Bob Barr) went to the Libertarian party and political obscurity was indeed the result (unless you consider .4% of the vote in the 2008 Presidential election to be "relevant"). Others (like Jim Webb) flipped and joined the Democratic party. But most just shuffled to the right along with their colleagues.

So what about a new 3rd party springing to national prominence? I just don't see it happening. Perot had a chance to do it in the early 90s but he was only interested in getting himself elected; the creation of a viable 3rd-party alternative was not on his agenda. Nader's Green Party? I don't think they'll ever have mass appeal, even among the left. Libertarians? There was a time when I'd like to have thought that but then something changed. I went to one of their meetings and they are just an incoherent mess. The Economist hit it right on the head when they said that they can basically be put into two groups: anarchists and drug decriminalization advocates. Hardly a platform with mass appeal.

So, yes, that leaves the Democrats as the most likely to fracture, and I'll give you a script for how it might happen. They lose power in either 2010 or 2012. The Republicans then proceed to pass a lot more legislation that is horribly unpopular. At some point they probably get us involved in another war too. The people once again get fed up with them and give the Democrats another go. The Dems take control and all the same gridlock happens again. The electorate is fed up with them yet again, but they also still remember that the Republicans haven't done anything they agree with for a long time. So then the key will be that a small group of important and popular Democrats have to get fed up as well. And it would probably have to be a group of either just retired or those thinking about retiring who don't have a whole lot to lose. It would be a big risk but if you got enough people to jump at once and enough momentum you could basically have a microcosm of how Obama overtook Hillary in the primaries. If you are able to move people from "well that's nice, but it'll never happen" to "wow, there might really be something here" you can do anything.

Hey, I can dream can't I?