What a Multi-Party Political System in the United States Might Look Like

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Subject: What a Multi-Party Political System in the United States Might Look Like
smitty237 12/1/2008 4:52:34 PM

I've been kicking this topic around in my head for some time, and only recently took the time to put pen to paper (so to speak) and throw it out there for public consumption and discussion. It has almost become a truism anymore to say that the political system in this country is ill suited for anything other than a two party political system, but that is not necessarily the case. Other parties have managed to have candidates elected to U.S. Congress, but none have wielded the power or influence of the Democrats or Republicans. Still, it would be in the Senate and House of Representatives that a multi-party system could generate the most drama, especially if none of the parties could achieve a true majority. Suddenly parties would be forced to form political coalitions with other parties, and would probably be forced to pay more attention to the voters since coalitions could fall apart easily and quickly every two years (if not with every new crisis). No longer would the voters be forced to choose between the lesser of two evils (although you could argue that they would be forced to choose between the lesser of four or five evils). It is in the Presidential elections that a multi-party system has proven to be a spoiler in U.S. history. Third and fourth parties have usually only managed to pull the votes away from one of the two main candidates and help elect the other. This happened when Teddy Roosevelt ran as a third party candidate in the early 1900's, and happened again with Ross Perot in 1992 and Ralph Nader in 2000. The 2000 election presented an interesting scenario in which the winning candidate (Bill Clinton) won the election with a plurality, not a majority. The Electoral College is still what determines Presidential elections though, and it would be extremely difficult for other parties to make any headway in that system. I purposefully gave the parties generic names, so please don't focus on the names I gave the parties. I could have gave them names like "The Patriot Party", but this would have been meaningless because just about any party could claim that name without providing any clue as to their platform or ideology. The name "Christian Democrats" is probably the most unlikely name for a party because it would be seen in this country as too divisive and non-inclusive, but there are a number parties by this name in Europe and Latin America, so I used it here. Let me know what you think and maybe even contribute ideas for other parties that could exist in our political system.

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theBird 12/6/2008 10:56:32 PM

I don't know too much about Parlimentary systems, but don't they work on the principle that if party X gets 5% of the votes they get 5% of the seats? If so such a system would be a lot more likely to result in third parties getting a voice (nearly impossible for them not to have the voice for that matter!) In the US with our winner take all elections third parties are not really going to have much of a chance except at the local level, which is why you should all support your Local Libertarian!

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wjr1 12/8/2008 11:47:18 PM

No, theBird, they don't work that way. Generally parliamentary systems work by local district rather than proportional. So, an individual runs to be an MP in a district and goes to parliament based upon a direct victory. The majority party, based upon seats, forms a government.

If you look at the UK you see some of the real problems of the parliamentary system. There is no moderation of the majority party. So, you see Labour in the UK doing some very weird and anti democratic things that could not happen in the US or any place with an armed populace..

Our problem, generally, is not extremes but excessive continuity. We have a pernicious and aggressive bureaucracy that is unionized and cares only for itself. Any thought of either a politician or a bureaucrat being a "public servant" is long gone other than by exception.

If a revolution ever occurs we will hang many obscure bureaucrats and lawyers and probably ignore the politicians for the fools that they are -- after disenfranchising them, of course.

Come the revo!

Best,

wjr

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jastayme3 12/9/2008 1:13:29 PM

If a revolution ever occurs we will hang many obscure bureaucrats and lawyers and probably ignore the politicians for the fools that they are -- after disenfranchising them, of course.

Come the revo!

Best,

wjr

Revolutionaries tend to hang everybody, not just the designated opressor group.

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jastayme3 12/9/2008 1:15:40 PM

First though, perhaps one should question whether a system involving any parties would be, in fact, desireable. See if you see any relation to our present political circumstances.

From Washington's farewell address (Wikipedia) -

"20 I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally.

21 This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

22 The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.

23 Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight,) the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

24 It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

25 There is an opinion, that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the Government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of Liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in Governments of a Monarchical cast, Patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in Governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And, there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume."

Now Roman is to Roman, more hateful then the foe.

As we wax hot in faction, in battle we wax cold.

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ker 12/9/2008 5:41:50 PM

The General Eletric Party- Powerful corprote and meadia base. Very willing to use the unions and trial lawyers to knock down the it's ecconomic rivals, under the guise of taming capitalism. Militarie and ecconomic police very closly intertwined, as in which congressional district needs subcontractor trumps which sulution will work in the feild. Walking around moeny goes to the party organizers in American swing districts rather than to the comanders in combat and reconstruction zones but still come from milatairy bugget. Much effort is made to pretend that political prefrences can be graphed along a single axis. That way you can apear safe or "a fair compromise" buy posing/triangelating as moderate. These people will oporate under the name Democrates.

The Change. This party will avoid the use of the word party when posible. Internet and wealthy patrons hold it together. A strong tendency to go one hype to far prevents the Change from doing the helpful quality investegating of goverment practices. They hold out vauge hope for a future with out goverment but can't quite explain how to get there. Highly critical of all meaidea except their own. Never met two conspiracy therioys they could not weild together and blaime on the goverment of the United States of America. Highly distainful of practical solutions for incremental improvement because they only prope up the unfair system. Very prone to absolute thinking, war is always evil untill the Americans leave in discrace and then it's no longer war or news worthy. In a surprise move they embrase the theory of the 2nd Amendment as a way to broaden their long standing crusade against police and goverment abuse and apeal to former members of the right.

The Apropreators. They fund slush and back kicks. They don't much care what the head line on the bill is as long as it polls well. Their theroy of governace boils down to "they will never read all this." Apropreators know no one reads the House or Sennet bills and even fewer people read the confrence committee reports. They don't mind the voters getting out raged at big waste. From time to time they let some expendable member float a huge wastefuly expensive project to create more space for the day in day out midsize waste that butters their bread. It's my ecconomy stupid.

The Holy Huddle Party. They don't trust you so arn't going to tell you what they belive anyway. Starve the beast!

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Photon 12/25/2008 10:18:04 PM

If a revolution ever occurs we will hang many obscure bureaucrats and lawyers and probably ignore the politicians for the fools that they are -- after disenfranchising them, of course.

We could use some Stalinist type of massive purges among government officials. That will set this country back several decades, but we may have to bite the bullet and clean out this sad country.

Might as at it, what the Americans should have done with recent bailout packages is to play some hardball: 'Sure! We will put the printing press under overtime and dole out freshly-inked cash. No problemo ... absolutely fine, you corporate princelings! However, we need to restore the public confidence. This is not a trifling matter. Do you remember what happened in the '30s? Great Depression? Economic catastrophe? Not really. What happened was we lost public confidence and the economy merely followed. Don't you see? We need to have all of you hanged and dangling on the street lights along the Wall Street. Of course, this is an offer you cannot refuse ...'

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Vinnie 3/15/2009 5:48:21 PM

Interesting breakdown of parties, Smitty. I definitely agree with you that a multi-party system would certainly create a very different political landscape from today & would likely result in more choices of politicians that better reflected the wishes of each voter.

However, I'd suggest that in a multiparty system you'd see parties that more closely reflected average American's ideologies, rather than the ideologies of the policitians they currently vote for, as the latter are generally manufactured to appeal to as many of the segments of the existing parties rather than having a lot of appeal to one particular group (Sarah Palin being a notable exception to this rule). That being said, I'd imagine with our current electorate you'd get something more like this:

1 - the Populist Party. Basically leftist economically while right-of-center socially. This party would reflect the pro-union, pro-Church, and pro-civil rights branch of the current Democratic party, but would likely absorb to some degree the 'compassionate Conservative' groups within the Republican party. While likely this group would resemble the current Democratic party when it came to economic, foreign, and evironmental policy, it would probably be less supportive of abortion rights, more supportive of prayer in school, & not particularly engaged to issues regarding legalization of drugs, prisoners rights, etc. Foreign policy would likely be both isolationist miliatarily & protectionist economically. Would likely be a force in major cities, industrial centers, and rural areas in the Black Belt & Midwest.

2 - the Progressive Party. Would be especially vocal on liberal social issues, and left-of-center on economic issues but less so than the current Democratic party. Essentially a party of the liberal educated elite that the current Republican party tends to demonize -- would likely press for rights for all minority groups (ethnic, sexual, religious), strict separation of Church & State, and removal of laws that restrict social choices (i.e. pro-abortion, pro-legalization of drugs, pro-gay marriage). However, they'd be less commited to left-thinking economic policies & would likely be open to things like school vouchers, devolution of government agencies into free-standing nonprofits, and foriegn policy that supported globalization. Would likely be very environmentally concerned. While this party would represent die-hard liberals, it may also garner support from the South Park Republican set. Primarily a party of the Boswash & West Coast, but would have a significant minority following in every state, primarily centered around college towns & old-money neighborhoods of cities.

3 - the Family Values Party. Would likely be very conservative socially but only right-of-center economically. This party would reflect the interests of not just the truly socially conservative, but perhaps also those of the Tipper Gore element of the Democratic party. This party would be pro-censorship, pro-law and order, and pro-Church. However, they'd probably prefer regulating industry in certain circumstances & support some form of welfare state (although likely not directly run by the government). As such, while they will resemble the current Republican party quite closely, they would not have any problem with a big government that intruded in people's lives quite often, even if this meant higher taxes. Foreign policy would be somewhat expasionist but less so than the current Republicans & would likely slant towards defending Christianity. This group would probably do quite well -- possibly even be a majority party -- in the suburbs & exurbs across the country, while showing some diversity according to region (i.e. in Western states they may be more environmentally focused, while in the South they'd have closer ties to Evangelicals). However they would likely be nearly non-existent in representation in cities large and small, and would likely be only a significant minority in many rural areas.

4 - the Personal Liberty Party. Would be very right-wing economically but centrist, or even left-of-center socially. This party would be primarily focused on the interest of American business, and would as such prefer reduced taxation & regulation while supporting government stimulus of economic development as well. However, a strong element of this party would also be the pull-oneself-up-by-the-bootstraps mentality & would not be particularly concerned with policies that restricted free speech, reproductive rights, or employers rights. This party would probably be the one most against environmental regulation,

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sentinel28a 3/16/2009 5:01:10 PM

Bad idea, Photon. The problem with revolutions like that is they're very hard to stop. Robespierre had the best intentions in the world when he started the Committee of Public Safety, and those good intentions killed 25,000 people--most of whom had little or nothing to do with the revolution at all.

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ker 3/17/2009 6:10:07 PM

The Tea Party Party is comming to a city near you!

Another group is Unity 09. They might be an atempt by the administration and or DNC to keep the organized hard left out of the news cycals but in gear working for Obama on the down low. Obama need to avoid real challenges from his left. So he might want to give them some one else to attack. It is too soon to tell how this will work.

Plotting political tendences on a single axis is unrealistic. People are more complex than that. Having said that I will now use the short cut. Hard left, center left, center right and hard right are the four groupings we think about most easly. Great American leaders have been able to capture three of those four at the same time. Reagan had the Reagan Democrates FDR had his dime store new dealers (Republicans who wanted to do FDR's plan but spend a little less).

Obama really wants "Obama Republicans." His more elequent atempts at courting them during the campain are a thing of the past. They were followed by the Super Bowl party period but you got to get Republicans a lot drunker than that to get them to vote for Obama grade spending. Now, Obamas message is that W started it. It's a childish argument. You want to reply, "If W jumped off a bridge would you do it too?" It makes a little more sence if Obamas goal is to talk conservatives into just sitting politics out because no one loves them. Remember a vote for Jesse Ventura was a vasted vote. So telling conservatives that their votes are wasted in the two party system is an invatation out of the two party system. Obama needs to frustrate and intimidate the right but never fragment it. If the "leave us alone coalition" were free from the baggage of the appropreators and institutionalists it could honk Obama a good one on the nose.

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