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Do We Need More Political Parties?
You probably missed the story last week. Former Democratic Presidential candidate and, briefly, a frontrunner to replace outgoing New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio, Andrew Yang, officially left the Democratic Party.
You remember Yang among the Democrats looking to challenge Donald Trump in 2020. But despite not surviving past the New Hampshire primary (he would endorse Joe Biden), he and his “Yang Gang” of enthusiastic, young-ish supporters garnered plenty of media attention. His signature issue was, and remains, Universal Basic Income (UBI). Everybody gets a check, and you don’t even have to work for the money.
The former attorney, health care, and education test-prep executive is no longer a Democrat and has started the “Forward Party.” It is a Political Action Committee that wants to morph into a political party. From Wikipedia:
Yang stated that he would have liked to have implemented the Forward Party’s platform within the Democratic Party. However, he felt that the implementation of ranked-choice voting and open primaries would be difficult to get the Democratic Party to support.
24 states have ballot initiatives and the Forward Party is organizing people to get initiatives, similar to Alaska Measure 2, in support of ranked-choice voting and open primaries on statewide ballots in 2022. The Forward Party will also be endorsing candidates, running as both Democrats and Republicans in the 2022 midterms, who support open primaries, ranked-choice voting, fact-based governance and modern effective government.
Yang stated that the Forward Party is not interested in running a candidate for president, but is focused on trying to decrease partisan gridlock within Congress and state legislatures. However, on the Forward Party website, the organization has stated if there was a demand amongst American voters for a third-party presidential candidate it would look to address it. The Forward Party has stated it may hold its own primary process to nominate a candidate prior to the 2024 United States presidential election.
Yang and his new PAC will focus on organizing to get initiatives or referenda on state ballots, including open primaries (you in whatever party’s primary you want for any office, regardless of your own registration), and “ranked-choice” voting.
Yang’s real target, aside from monthly UBI “stimulus” checks of $1,000 (or more) sent to every American (will Jeff Bezos even notice his?), is to end the polarization of our politics. The House Progressive Caucus promotes $2,000 per month stimulus checks until a year after the coronavirus pandemic ends (whenever that is) by issuing everyone their debit card that your friendly government will recharge monthly.
Why do Democratic policy debates always turn into bidding wars? It’s as if we’re being bribed with our own money.
Yang’s goofy UBI gambit should help get people back to work in some 10 million unfilled jobs currently, solving supply chain and logistics issues. And I’m sure it won’t be inflationary.
But the wisdom of UBI aside, a boomlet to increase the number of political parties is well underway, led in part by the New York Times.
America’s two-party system is broken. Democrats and Republicans are locked in an increasingly destructive partisan struggle that has produced gridlock and stagnation on too many critical issues — most urgently, the pandemic and climate change.
There is no reasonable or timely way to fix this broken system. But there is an alternative: more parties.
It is not so hard to imagine a six-party system — and it would not even require a constitutional amendment.
They would like you to respond to a 20-question survey to help you figure out in which of their proposed political parties you’d best fit. And while Yang and the New York Times are leading the efforts, they’re hardly alone. NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd is also embracing the idea, writing for MSNBC.com:
I’m not here to advocate a third party; that’s not the answer. Where on the ideological spectrum would a third party make sense? Certainly not in the center, as some would like to believe. “Moderates” by their nature want a little of one and a little of the other.
No, instead the solution is the same one that would help solve the problem of big corporations. If both parties split in two, the now-four major political parties would be far better at being responsive to their constituents and far more clear in what they were advocating.
The questions are, just how many parties, and why?
There’s nothing to stop anyone, including Andrew Yang, from starting a political party. There are dozens of political parties going back dozens of years, many of whom have appeared at times on ballots almost everywhere, including eight recognized political parties in Yang’s native New York (his parents immigrated from Taiwan). In 1992, millionaire businessman Ross Perot captured nearly one-fifth of the vote against incumbent George H. W. Bush and the winning Democrat, Bill Clinton. Four years later, running under the Reform Party mantle, he captured 8 percent. In neither race did he win a single electoral vote.
But in 1968, Alabama Gov. George Wallace ran for President on the American Independent Party ticket and carried five southern states, one North Carolina elector, and captured 48 electoral votes. Twenty years earlier, South Carolina Gov. Strom Thurmond won five states and one Tennessee elector, and 39 electoral votes on a “States Rights Democratic” ticket.
I could go on. There are scores of other examples of independents and third-party candidates appearing on ballots and capturing thousands if not millions of voters, including the 1860 election that gave us Abraham Lincoln. But you get the point.
Here’s how advocates like Todd explain why other parties don’t gain traction.
Currently, the biggest impediment to this idea is every election board in the country. Our elections are run by the two major parties to the point that they enact laws to make it extraordinarily difficult for any political party not named the Democrats or the Republicans to get access to the ballot.
And for this system to truly be successful, we’d need to redesign our presidential election system so that there was a runoff (or ranked choice) so that a minority didn’t end up electing the president.
There’s that ranked-choice voting scheme again.
This is the same Todd, in the same post, who complains that the major political parties have too much power, but GOP didn’t have enough “power” to stop Donald Trump from being nominated. Such classic tripe from an inside-the-beltway elitist – who do you think is supposed to have the “power” in America’s political parties and our government? That “consent of the governed” thing we’ve read somewhere. . . you know the thing.
If Americans want more “major” political parties, then Americans will find a way to create and support them. Or not. It will take time, hard work, money, and talent. Lots of it. It is no different, in many respects than starting a business. You need seed capital. You need willing and loyal customers based on a compelling sales pitch. You need to earn trust. And you need to deliver. Our politics operates just like our economy, for better or worse – free-market capitalism where the consumer, ultimately, decides who wins and doesn’t.
Yes, most western nations have multi-party democracies, with a significant exception – they are parliamentary democracies, where the legislature is the executive. People in parliamentary democracies, like Canada, vote more for the party than the person. Americans split their votes to reflect our system of checks and balances. How many of you have voted for, say, a Democrat for President but a Republican for Congress, or vice versa. Take 2020. Biden “won” the presidency, but the GOP gained seats in the House of Representatives.
Speaking of Canada, they have five or six “major” parties. But ultimately, either the Liberals or the Conservatives are in control and never with anything closely resembling a majority vote. The “ruling” Liberals “won” with about 31 percent of the popular vote. The others serve as coalition “partners,” perhaps “Kingmakers,” with influence over a few policies. Things always boil down to a choice of two major parties. You can look it up, starting with Germany’s election just a few weeks ago. And by the way, they don’t have “ranked-choice” voting in Canada (except within political parties, where it seems to work pretty well, even in Virginia’s GOP gubernatorial nomination this Spring).
Someone will note that our Founders opposed political parties, or “factions.” Several of them, including Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison, founded our first political parties.
So you want more political parties? Fine. Start here, pick your horse, and start riding. Go ahead, put your name on the ballot for the “Libertarian” party or maybe the “Green” party. But do you want to ultimately dilute the power of your vote by picking candidates who won’t win? You’re welcome to vote your conscience, but as for me, I’ll take your passions, my dollars, and my vote where it is most comfortable and will have the most influence. And that, my friends, is why we ultimately have two major political parties.
Oh sure, we whine about our preferred party. I have plenty of complaints about the Republican Party. I’ve heard my Democratic friends complain about their party. Nothing is ever perfect, but we know never to make the perfect the enemy of the good.
Good luck Andrew Yang. Your UBI idea is nutty, and most of your electoral reforms would undermine political parties. But you be you. Have at it. This is America.
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Third parties will never gain ground and become an institution like the two major ones. One of other two parties will appropriate their issues when it comes down to it. And I don’t think it’s desirable to have more than two parties. Yes, you might find a party that reflects your views better than one large one, but having three parties in congress makes for a government that never gets a majority consensus. Or rarely. The two parties work out their differences in the primaries. I think we have the better approach now.
So, he’s resurrecting the Mugwumps? Does someone else want to resurrect the Know Nothings?
I happen to like our system that has two majority parties forever at each other’s throats. Someone is always looking over your shoulder, whereas with three parties, you’d get a lot of back room deals between two parties to crush the other. Yang has the arrogance to think he is the smartest kid in the room, but all of his ideas to date have seemed rather stupid to me.
You must understand some economics.
I figure he’ll be pulling more from the left than from the right. I want them to fragment, while we don’t or worse than we do.
I like how the Secretary of State for WI negated the Green Party to and Kanye West candidacy to help Biden.
Third parties are just a distraction. The real fight is for control of the two major parties.
Speaking of rank choice voting, have they finished counting votes in the NYC election that was 7 weeks ago??
An excellent case against the clambering for more parties and more candidates.
I was working on a politically oriented website during 2003 through 2004, which covered GW’s run against John Kerry. One page was devoted to all of the candidates running during the primaries and general elections. I was amazed to find so many candidates and parties listed with the Federal Election Commission. (My recollection is that there were over a hundred candidates who had “taken out papers” and were on their local ballots. And at least twenty registered parties.) The point is that anyone can run.
The problem with having three or four or six parties is exactly as you’ve said–there’s no clear majority. A country has to make a decision as to who will represent them to foreign governments. Diplomacy is the most important work a president does.
The Republican and Democratic Parties perform some useful functions for the country. And they are well set up with volunteers who work ridiculously long hours to get an enormous amount of work done.
I understand the voters’ frustrations. But getting rid of the Electoral College and starting up other political parties that won’t be able to replicate the hard work the present two parties do, at least not for many years, are not good answers in my opinion.
Your second sentence is noteworthy – that’s exactly what’s happening in Canada, with lefty Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberals, who lead a minority government, cutting deals with the very left New (socialist) Democrats to advance a harmful agenda.
Probably works only in one direction. If we formed an alt-GOP, the GOPe probably wouldn’t cut deals with us to advance our agenda.
I heard that the Party People’s Party split off the Beebelbrox Party that offers UBI – Universal Basic Inebriation. No doubt will take some votes from the Dems…
I think it would be good to encourage Democrats to create third, and fourth, and fifth parties. Our side, not so much.
I think that ranked choice voting makes sense, with America being faced with the choice of Wokesters and Trumpsters. Imagine a race that has Trump, a Trump Clone, a Traditional Republican, a Conor Lamb Democrat, a Sherrod Brown Democrat, and an AOC Democrat. My votes would be
In Minnesota and in most areas all this does is either help Democrats or kooky progressives.
I used to think it would be OK for primaries if everybody approached it with integrity, but I’m not sure that is possible.
Duluth, Minnesota Democrats stopped using it because it obviously favored them over the Republicans so much. They are more conservative in that town.
It’s unbelievable. It happens in Minneapolis as well. It’s like they need quantum computers or something.
When Yang started talking about UBI I thought this was going to be constructive. He never talks about how the world came to this. I don’t think he has the slightest idea or anything.
This is a very good article written from a socialist perspective on the imbalances created by our financial system and central banking system. This is why people are talking about a UBI. This is why Socialism and populism are an issue today.
Just for the record, that guy is not using the word “inflation” properly here, but I think everybody gets what he saying.
We got into this mess because Congress and the central banks central planned too much so now we need to go to Full Communism to fix it.
Most of you probably saw those crazy articles about Biden’s OCC nominee. She was saying the exact same crazy stuff. I mean it’s just unbelievable that such an ordinary bureaucrat position could have a nominee like this but that is where we are.
I have been trying to explain this on ricochet for years and this is a very good article about it. That is what the right is dealing with politically because we haven’t really been conservative or libertarian for decades.
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/10/crypto-is-not-an-alternative
By the way Gary, would you please do the world a favor and think real hard about #14? Nobody at Principles First understands any of that, and you can be their guy. Also please start saying some thing about public policy once in a while.
Wow.
The fact you think ranked choice is better than what we have really belies your worship of Reagan. He never would have wanted that.
Maybe you need to relate to A Time For Choosing.
I wouldn’t say more political parties per se, but maybe 5-10x the number of congressional districts would be good.
Unfortunately the ruling party is Democrat and they will rig the next election so they are not about to split.
This is a great article about Zuckerberg ***renting the election system***.
https://thefederalist.com/2021/10/12/the-2020-election-wasnt-stolen-it-was-bought-by-mark-zuckerberg/
Reagan voted for FDR four times and campaigned for Truman. He had no time for wokeish Democrats, but got a great deal of support from veterans like Conor Lamb, and Labor Democrats like Sherrod Brown, and brought them over to a realization that big government democrats did not have answers for veterans or labor.
That really says nothing at all about favoring ranked choice.
Try again, Gary, at actually respond to what I said.
If your dare, which let’s face it, your history on direct challenges is pretty much to ignore them or, like this, answer some other argument. Does that work well in court?
I do quite well in Court. “Objection, lack of relevance.” “Sustained.”
For better or worse, being a mod or Editor does not include ruling on objections.
If one could get called on “lack of relevance” here, you would be in a lot of trouble.
Try again, Gary. Actually respond to what I said about Ranked Voting.
That is impolite and in violation of the Code of Conduct.
You say that Reagan never would have wanted ranked choice voting. I don’t see any evidence in support of that. Ranked choice voting was not proposed while Reagan was President, so he never took a position about it.
Oh, I would love to see another viable option, but …the Libertarians, the best alternative for most conservatives, have proven so staggeringly politically inept that they failed to gain any traction even against the two least appealing major party candidates in my lifetime back in primary season of 16. They deserve their continued failure at the national level and will continue to deserve it until they learn that politics must be a profession, not a hobby, to anyone who wants to win elected office.
Meanwhile in Germany, the Reds (SPD), Greens and Free Democrats (FDP) are in the final stages of forming a government almost guaranteed to fail. And the CDU is busy immolating itself offstage.
A CoC violation? Are you serious? No, you’ve got to be kidding.
You are going to have to explain how that is a violation of the CoC, Gary. Please flag me if you need too, though.
Reagan, unlike you, admired the system the Founders set up. Your desire to change how we have voted in elections in all this time is not something he would have wanted. I’ll go with the history of the man.
They need to quit fielding candidates above state legislature. They need to hold decent ground there first. On a national level the only thing they should worry about is marketing.
I object to the idea of politicians being a profession. It was not intended to be this way. And the professionalism seems to be all about personal enrichment and play-acting regarding professional ethics.