MAGA loves to create conflicts and diversions, even when there is none really there. As we go into the election, they are up to their old tricks yet again – Name Calling and Mud Slinging. Such is the case with the pseudo-party named the Democratic Socialists of America or DSA. Let’s be clear, this is not a new communist party. They are not fielding their own candidates nor are they some radical left-wing extremist. The DSA candidates are just a faction within the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
Now in the interest of fairness, SOME DSA activist (not candidates, just activist who are not brave enough to run for office) do argue for THEORETICAL reforms like abolition of the Electoral College, and the faction does tend to attract a few Marxist; but when you look at the actual candidates, you find people who have more in common with FDR, JFK, and even Ronald Reagan than you do Lenin and Stalin. They aren’t scary people who want to overthrow the government, they are reformers. They are petitioning for a return to our Constitutional roots. They want the America we had before the current Fascist took over. The DSA is also not some Red McCarthyistic Horde. They are a small subset of the Democratic Party (about 100-200K) who want a people focused democracy. MAGA wants to drum up a new Red Scare smear campaign because the policies of the DSA shine a spotlight on the corruption, graft, nepotism, and influence pedaling that keeps MAGA in office.
In recent years, we have experienced a worst-case scenario with the two-party system. Extremists on both sides of the aisle refuse to negotiate and debate issues, instead relying on razor thin majorities to cram legislation through. Both parties prefer what the Founding Fathers would have termed TRYANNY to governance. Destructive party policies, no matter how devastatingly stupid they are, get passed by the slimmest of margins (sometimes one vote) or the whole process gets overridden by extraconstitutional executive powers. Opposing views are suppressed and ignored. Party loyalty is coerced. The only vestige of democracy that remains are elections and even those are being undermined.
In our elections, we no longer have candidates that run on principles and issues, only stances. Voters are asked to vote for the LEAST BAD candidate rather than the best. Election campaigning is more about vilifying the opponent than listening to the constituents. People with no understanding of the political process, diplomacy, or public service – so called “outsiders” – are deemed better than seasoned experts. We live in the world turned upside down.
The two-party choice leads to endless cycles of back-and-forth policy changes. Democrats look to grow the economy and push social programs: Republicans argue for lower taxes and stronger defense. Back and forth the pendulum swings and no progress is ever made. That’s when things work as they are supposed to.
Enter a disrupter, someone who has no respect for American institutions or the rule of law and suddenly our system is in freefall. Most of American jurisprudence is tradition and respect, not law. When these traditions are ignored, the safety net falls away and since one party will always have a plurality in Congress, that party is dominant and difficult to constrain. This is the risk of the Two-Party system.
When everything is binary — R or D; Conservative or Liberal; Right or Left; Us or Them – then the system devolves into petty partisanship. Republicans become fascist, Democrats become anarchist; Socialists become communist, etc. The system spirals into bickering and the parties become unified blocks opposing not the policies of the opposition but rather the opposition itself. The two-party system will ultimately destroy America – UNLESS THERE IS A THIRD (or more) OPTION. This is what party factions like the DSA, the Tea Party, and the various independent politicians can provide. If we elect these sorts of people, who run on principles rather than labels, we can break up the red and blue blocks in politics and begin to have a democratic republic again. We need dissenting voices.
The answer to this pendulum of left vs right politics is either 1) not political parties or 2) more political parties. The ideal of no party is great but impractical. Special interests will consolidate power until a party is formed. That is what happened in 1800 and if we abolished the DNC and GOP tomorrow, by 2028 there would be new parties formed in the vacuum left behind. In most democratic republics, there are multiple parties and this forces to form coalitions, to negotiate with opposing voices, until a working majority is formed. If we cannot live up to Washington’s ideal where only men of principle aspire to office, then we need so much diversity in politics that that diversity creates principles.
George Washington, in his farewell address to Congress in 1796, warned of the dangers of party politics. “However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.” Sadly, Washington’s warning has become prophetic. Unprincipled men (not just Trump) have seized the reins of government and are imposing a tyranny upon the American people. Elections won’t solve this problem because when Trump hand his cronies are gone, a new counter tyrant will appear and the cycle repeats itself.
We need MORE third parties not fewer!
Want to have the
Regimental Brewmeister
at your site or event?
You can hire me.
https://colonialbrewer.com/yes-you-can-hire-me-for-your-event-or-site/
Michael Carver -- Historical Interpreter/Reenactor 