The two party system - the good news

In my previous post I painted a rather dark picure of the future of American politics after the self destruction of the Democrat party. It was a deliberately one-sided view. Now I would like to offer some reasons for hope.

For starters, the loss of one party would not in fact leave the other party utterly devoid of restraint. It so happens that we have another mechanism in place to deal with this. It's called the separation of powers. Here's how it works... suppose the Republicans maintain absolute control over both the White House and Congress for an extended period of time, long enough to become a bit tipsy from the power. There's still the Supreme Court. Conspiracy theories about the 2000 election aside, the fact is the Republicans do not control the judicial branch. It's not uncommon for the highest court to strike down one or another practise with regards to terror suspects or Guantanamo Bay inmates. The administration does *not* always get its way, even on issues concerning national security.

Some of the more dimwitted folk on the left half of the political spectrum chortle with glee whenever this happens. I think they don't fully grasp the implication: that the Democrat party may be expendable. Beware when someone else does your job better than you.

Now, this doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned. As we've established previously, putting a brake on the dominant party is an extremely important function. As a matter of sound engineering, we should have more than one system in place to perform the function. If one should fail - as seems to be happening right now - the other can act as a backup. But what if the backup also fails somehow?

We shouldn't take a chance of this happening. Basic common sense says we should use the reprieve given us by the backup to repair the other system, and without delay. So how do we repair the two party system?

Well, if history is any guide, the system can repair itself. Soon after our Constitution went into the effect, the politicians of our Republic divided themselves into two opposed parties, and they were *not* the Democrats and Republicans. On party was called the Federalists. The other was... wait for it... the Democratic Republicans.

Eventually the Federalists self destructed in a manner closely parallel to what we see happening now with the Democrats. And then there was only one major party. The Era of Good Feeling, they called it. It didn't last. With no external challenge worth taking seriously, internal differences of opinion became dominant, and the part split in two. One half became the Democrat party. The other half was the Whigs, which later morphed into the Republican party. The two party system had arisen from its ashes.

Since then, these two parties have traded places, first one dominant, then the other. There have been third parties galore, but they rarely amounted to anything. Nothing lasts forever. The Democrats are going the way of the Federalists. What will happen next?

I suppose I should mention Hillary Clinton at this point. She's not as far out left as Howard Dean, and she' tacking to the right lately. She could be a candidate for the Presidency in 2008. But she's not the chairman of the party. And the only reason she's not a political extremist is because she's too unprincipled to have any set political position. She a flagrant opportunist, an oily insincere career politician. In a word, she's a Clinton.

She's way smarter than Dean, and she knows what she needs to do. She needs to distract everyone's attention to the madman behind the curtain - Dean, and she needs to make everyone forget everything she's ever said or done before she feinted rightward. Well, she knows how to distract, but she's got a problem. The Repulicans and the bloggers won't let her get away with it for a minute. It ain't gonna happen.

If the Democrat party manages to rebuild itself as a credible political force, it won't be under a Clintonista. Maybe Joe Lieberman can do the job. But it'll be a tough sell regardless.

The more likely scenario is the the Republican party will split in two. What makes this plausible is it's exactly what happened last time. It's not obvious to everyone right now, but there are mahjor differences of opinion in the Republican ranks, and always have been. No, I'm not talking Neocons vs realpolitik. The Henry Kissinger types are finished. And forget the Buchananites. They're a fringe. If they split off, they won't be a major party.

I'm talking big business vs small business. The corporatist faction will have all the money, and that still matters, but not as much as did before blogs. It will matter ever less as time goes by and the blogs take over from other communication channels. The small business faction will be populism done right. Free enterprise! Equality of opportunity! Low barriers to entry for enterprising, hard working American entrepreneurs! Lower business taxes, and no corporate welfare! These are old-fashioned conservative values, and they are in direct conflict with the corporate world.

There's also the Religious Right vs the civil libertarians. This is a significant divide, but I don't see it as enough to split the party along. I'm betting the rift will form along the big business vs small business fault line.

Oh, and the existing third parties? Sorry, not likely. If they ever have a chance, it's now, when things are in flux. But I'm not sure they ever have a chance. They'll enjoy a brief feast of protest votes, but the hollow shell of the Democrat party will be fighting for those same scraps. Then the Republican party will divide in two, and that will be the end of that. The Greens will be as marginal as ever, if not more so. The Libertarians will see their members defect to one or the other of the two new major parties. What's left of the Democrats will probably merge with the Greens, and no one will even notice.

The great and awful thing about the Web is you can't disown your words. You're on record, cached who knows where. Even if you delete a post, it may not be entirely gone. (Remember Michael Moore's Payback Tuesday?) In ten years or so, I'll either be proven right, proven wrong, or proven partly right and partly wrong. That's the chance we all take. So here goes nothing.


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