On the Possibility of a New Party
It was precisely 150 years ago last June that a new political party was last successfully launched in the United States. In1856 the fledgeling Republican Party met in Philadelphia to choose its first presidential candidate. In 1860 Abraham Lincoln became the first Republican president.
There has been some talk around the country of the need for a new party. Could it possibly succeed against such long historical odds as these? History has shown that in the modern sense of a third party, meaning a personality driven or disgruntled faction running to make a temporary point within a strong two party system, the answer is no. Nor can an ill-defined movement arise to dislodge the well entrenched political and economic structures that have grown up around them.
Nonetheless there are some interesting comparisons between 1856 and 2006 to consider.
- In 1856 the Democrats had been the dominant party for 28 years. Tracing to the election of Andrew Jackson in '28 they controlled the White House for 20 out of the next 28 years. This came to be called the Age of Jackson and its followers Jackson Democrats.
- In 2008 the Republicans will have also been the dominant party for 28 years. They will have controlled the presidency for 20 out of the last 28 years including Ronald Reagan's two terms. He began what's been called the Reagan Revolution and its adherents are Reagan Republicans. Surprisingly, despite their party affiliations, both movements were radically, even irrationally, opposed to government and committed to gutting its power.
Once founded on the premise that government can't work, the traditional policies of such anti-government movements, as successful as they are as tools to consolidate power, are impossible to reorient to do anything but continue to let government grow worse. At the end of their run they leave the country hopelessly divided, devoid of prospects and noticeably unable to solve the largest problems confronting it.
The end of the Democratic reign came in 1860, with the election of Lincoln, and led us directly into the Civil War. The end of the Republican reign in power may be upon us.
The underlying lesson of these two eras proves that deconstructive, anti-government parties like the Republicans of today or the Democrats in 1856, at the end of their domination, may leave their opposition routed, but they also leave the nation and themselves exhausted and the entire political system emptied out, discredited and crippled from an inability to compromise for the public good.
In 2008 we are faced by a vast divide in the nation with problems growing on every side which the two parties are unwilling to face or unable to amend. Unless the Republicans find another Lincoln and a new ennobling cause equivalent to abolition it doesn't look as if they will be rising in 2008 but rather caught in very much the same position as they were in 1856, except this time spiraling downward instead of up.
As for today's Democrats, on the plus side, at least they don't believe in holding slaves any longer. Other than that, prior to winning a bare majority in the last midterm election, they had that same "been down so long it looks like up to us," deer in the headlights look about them that the Whigs had about them in 1852-54. Up to that time, the Democrats seemed to have been suffering from a kind of "battered party" syndrome - beaten, demoralized, refractory and listless, with no pride, guts, gusto or purpose.
Even as discredited as the Republicans had become and as tenuous as their hold on power, up until the very end, there was still no confidence that the Democrats would be vigorous enough to wrest control of Congress from them. Even at that, the clear sense is that the Republicans lost power in 2006 rather than that the Democrats took it from them.
Despite the current excitement running in Democratic ranks about a promising future for individual Democratic candidates, it is still hard to find a discernible policy which would commend itself to the people as a unifying force to consolidate the nation behind the Democratic Party. At this point they are still the default party, the only alternative to the Bush years, rather than a source of excitement and energy of their own.
Their current policies revolve around investigations and are primarily remedial and custodial rather than a means of defining any new energizing way forward for the nation. In this respect their future is not as promising as it might first appear. Barack Obama is an interesting personality but what can anyone with his lack of experience who is unwilling to separate themselves from the big money game of today's electoral politics really hope to achieve by way of engineering true change and reform once they are elected?
On the other hand, if someone like Hillary Clinton gets the nod and the Democratic Party starts partying again like it was 1992, expect the initial disappointment in the country to be palpable and watch as it continues to spread. This is not the way to forge ahead but the way back. A roster of presidents from 1988 to 2012 (at least) which would read: Bush - Clinton - Bush - Clinton, would not speak to the vibrancy of our democracy but to its complete exhaustion.
Does the mutual exhaustion of both parties simultaneously toady as in 1856 mean that a new party is imminent by '08? Not quite. But because party allegiance hovers at such a low historical ebb and neither party represents but a minority of interests even within its own constituency very well; it does mean that the ground is growing increasingly fallow for a new party to arise from the two failed ones we have today than at any other time in the last century and a half.
Despite the disingenuity of politicians who argue otherwise, arguably 70% of the American people still agree on 70% of the issues 70% of the time. This includes even such allegedly divisive, hot button issues as Roe v. Wade, Social Security and a determination to protect ourselves against terrorism. In fact, we are a united people divided primarily by the corruption of our two political parties.
Remarkably, despite the deep and profound agreements between us, our two parties never manage to find the sweet spot of consensus on anything for the good of the country. They prefer to waste 90% of their time (and all of ours) playing with and often inventing peripheral issues specifically designed to keep us apart. The growing restlessness of the electorate at their endemic ineffectiveness is growing stronger.
Today the only alternative party which seems prepared to rise into this vacuum of leadership is UNITY08. They have the right idea about ground up reform which would put power back into the peoples' hands. They have also attached themselves to the medium of the Internet which is the quickest and most economical way to generate interest and capital from a wide variety of people.
But is it aggressive enough? Is it enough to erect a passive alternative and hope for the other two parties to continue to flounder? The good will of our political system may not be presupposed. It will not reform of itself, it must be made to. With every fiber of their being the political operatives and their handlers will oppose real change.
One hopes that UNITY08 will soon enunciate a definitive set of principles which will clearly separate it from the Democrats and Republicans on all the major issues - beginning with Congressional, campaign finance, electoral and tax reforms.
All it will really take is a middle party to aggressively gather these disparate reins of policies into its hands to carve out its own policy center to generate real excitement for reform. The grounds for a revival are already prepared and possibility of a real political realignment is in the air. However, an opportunity like this only comes rarely. Change must be vigorously seized rather than just passively hoped for.
