James Coke
2022-11-13
The political pundits are busily commenting on the American mid-term elections. Almost everyone expected a far stronger Republican showing and is now looking for reasons why the electorate once again proved the pollsters wrong. Two reliable conclusions are abortion rights (a liberal issue) being of greater import than the economy (a conservative issue), and Trump continuing to divide the conservative vote by vilifying other Republicans who do not adhere to his personal platform. In contrast, Biden’s low popularity does not appear to have negatively influenced the Democrat vote.
Most interesting for us are the two things Americans do agree about; a) the two-party system is broken with almost half of voters now not affiliating with either leading party ; and b) trust in American democracy itself is wavering with two thirds of voters viewing it as threatened. Voters are much less able to agree on why and how it is threatened. This falling trust in the workings of government and its electoral process is shared globally.
The establishment parties, including third parties like the Greens and Libertarians, develop platforms and related policies that cater to a specific worldview and desired demographic. They are top-down in structure, national in scope, and the standard for measuring party loyalty. A candidate must vote with his or her party block consistently to receive the campaign funding, endorsements, and legislative favors essential to winning an election. Politics is not about governing in the US; it is about gaining and protecting the influence that sustains power.
As frustrating as this is to voters who want policy action, the two-party system has endured since 1856 and rarely lets an outsider into the contest. Party affiliation, or at least being a reliable caucus member is required to be appointed a committee chair with the power that affords. Significant donors know the odds of third party success and so allocate their resources to the establishment most likely to deliver rewards. Campaign finance reform, independent re-districting post-census, and changes to the electoral process itself have long been identified as necessary to effect reform. The established powers have thus far proven effective at nullifying them all. As a result, a dangerous radicalism is emerging that rejects ‘elitist capture of the system’, and seems ready to rethink the viability of the US Constitution itself.
We have written extensively about the breakdown of trust in government and how important is the bottom-up social contract in designing electoral and governing institutions, policies, and economic priorities that best serve human flourishing. We have long appreciated the wisdom of America’s Constitutional framers in setting up a federated system of local (State-based) policy action and separation of powers. The original design served the country well during its first 100 years.
The size and scope of Federal Government exploded in the last century (a good proxy is the number of pages in the Code of Federal Regulations ), and is highly correlated with the increasing share of US households that pay no Federal income tax . We may be nearing the final stage of dependency and bondage in Alexander Tytler’s eight stages of a democracy (or at least its fiat currency – Ed.) when the people discover they can ‘vote themselves largesse’ – or at least representatives that will deliver personal benefits from the public purse.
It is for these reasons that we find the value proposition of the alternative ‘Forward Party” interesting. It purports to be a viable third political party in American governance, organized as a ‘bottom-up’ movement without a specific platform. Its only defined position advocates for changes to the electoral process itself. It appears at its essence to serve as an umbrella organization within which political candidates of all stripes can share political infrastructure funded organically without special interests.
The party seeks first to recruit and support candidates at the State, County, and Municipal levels closest to the people, and only later to participate in national offices. It readily admits that politics and policies will and should differ at the local level, so party members may themselves represent widely varied views.
At the national level, Forward believes institutional capture via party loyalty no longer allows Congress to govern as an arbiter among many independent representatives. It believes its party machinery will provide just such a forum, and the result will deliver prevailing party candidates that can best represent a diverse country independent of any single party in a restored Federal legislative process.
But what exactly will this forum look like if the party is successful in recruiting large numbers of internally competing candidates? How will party participants agree on one candidate (since it will not be adopting a platform position) to represent them in each national race? Or will they put forth several candidates and let the voters decide? In this later case we have the same situation faced by an independent candidate today appealing to voters without a party label. Few are successful.
Presumably the party will nominate its candidates after vigorous debate in an open format that relies on the very electoral methods they advocate be adopted nationally. But unless the party delegates can agree to a protocol that ensures agreement, they may face the same internal acrimony that has split political movements before. It will be interesting to see how they navigate this. Unity is always a challenge in a diverse culture unless imposed top-down in the very ways resented by the population.
The value of Forward may well be not its candidates but its causes; specifically laying out a set of implementable actions that will reform the broader electoral system and return it to the representative and federated role of its founding design. It would be a great service indeed if Forward could help channel voter energy into reclaiming America’s greatness as an intentionally inclusive and diverse democracy centered on the needs of its local communities. This would mobilize attention toward the local politics that are of most relevance to voters. Downsizing national governance in favor of local would also rapidly unwind the national polarities that America’s stultified two party system relies on for fodder. It might reverse Tytler’s stages for a while.
America’s founding fathers understood that Georgia and New York had numerous irreconcilable differences. But they could both agree to a mutual defense and open commerce. The Federal Government should be in the business of doing those things the States cannot, and those things on which the States agree. The rest of the business of government should be as local as is feasible.
The mid-term elections serve once again to remind us how difficult diversity is to govern centrally in a country of 333 million people. We remain expectant that someday soon voter angst and a crisis of trust will reach a point where our governing institutions must again be accountable to the people. We remain encouraged that, in the words of Winston Churchill, “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other possibilities”.
Notes:
1 Gallup. “U.S. Political Party Preferences Shifted Greatly During 2021”, January 17, 2022. [https://news.gallup.com/poll/388781/political-party-preferences-shifted-greatly-during-2021.aspx] Retrieved November 13, 2022.
2 Edelman Holdings, Inc. “Edelman Trust Barometer 2022”. [https://www.edelman.com/trust/2022-trust-barometer] Retrieved November 13, 2022.
3 Mercatus Center. “The Searching for and Cutting Regulations That Are Unnecessarily Burdensome Act of 2014”. [https://www.mercatus.org/publications/regulation/searching-and-cutting-regulations-are-unnecessarily-burdensome-act-2014] Retrieved November 13, 2022.
4 Tax Policy Center. “Distribution of Tax Units with Zero or Negative Income Tax”. [https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/model-estimates/tax-units-zero-or-negative-income-tax-liability-august-2021/t21-0163-distribution] Retrieved November 13, 2022.
5 Forward Party. “Moving Forward Together”. [https://fwdtogether.org/#differentbydesign] Retrieved November 13, 2022.