If you wanted further evidence of the self-perpetuating work of the duopoly, Sarah Palin (after wooing the Tea Party) has told Tea Party members that they have no choice but to side with one of the two major political parties — presumably the Republicans.
In a prior column, I described how the two parties offer voters the same limited choice of change as Henry Ford’s offer to customers: you can have any color car as long as it is black. Palin voices the same monopoly on power as a fact in speaking to her supporters: “Now the smart thing will be for independents who are such a part of this Tea Party movement to, I guess, kind of start picking a party,. Which party reflects how that smaller, smarter government steps to be taken? Which party will best fit you? And then because the Tea Party movement is not a party, and we have a two-party system, they’re going to have to pick a party and run one or the other: ‘R’ or ‘D’.”
This is further evidence of how calcified and corrupted our system has become. Anyone unhappy with the current political system is told that “change” can go no further than switching between R and D. Until we break the hold of the two parties and incumbents, we will continue this mindless downward spiral in our system.
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Buddah Reproductive freedom is a more important issue to women. I agree the system is thoroughly corrupt. I stick with the dems and the catholics just as your man Kucinich does. Who is your third party candidate?
Vince T.
While Professor Turley makes a strong, reasoned case, I agree with you; however, what do you suggest people–regardless of party–do in the upcoming elections.
I now despise Obama almost as much as I do Bush & Co. Although I voted for Obama, I will never do so again. The decision not to follow through with the torture issue and the recent DOJ decision was the final threshold for me. The man cannot be trusted. While Mr. O is clearly not the abject fool that Bush is, his actions will bring as much dishonor and destruction to this Nation. Alternatively, because of the insanely religious nonintellectual persons represented by Palin et al.—who have hijacked my Republican Party—I also could not vote for any Republicans unless those persons strongly denounced Palin and the Tea Party movement.
I would vote for another Democrat for president/VP if both persons pledged not to seek a second term if they failed follow the agenda they pledged to the voters. Obama had all the support for which any candidate could ask and he squandered it with lies, hypocrisy, and continuing both wars while killing innocent civilians in Afghanistan.
Swarthmore mom,
While an important distinction, I submit it is not a critical distinction.
Ask yourself what is wrong with system. All paths in tracing the dysfunction of the American federal government lead to K Street. Corruption is equal opportunity. And right now the choices are oil fascism or pharma fascism.
You do indeed have a choice. But in the end it’s the choice offered by bad actors. One “side” just uses that choice as a stick while the other uses it as a carrot.
There are still some differences between republicans and democrats. One of those differences is freedom of choice. The republican platform is anti-choice.
Fiscal conservatives who vote Republican?
Like the ones who voted for Bush and Cheney and got trillions of dollars on increases in the national debt because of tax cuts for the super-wealthy?
Real smart fiscal conservatives.
If the system encourages bifurcation into two differences without distinction and ergo dysfunction and mal-/misrepresentation of the peoples interests, is not the remedy to reform the systemic structure to encourage diversity? Is not the answer to systemic ills a systemic fix?
In the 1858 Senate election debates, both Lincoln and Douglas were in agreement that the Constitution gave the federal government no power to interfere with slavery in the states where it existed at the time. The existence of slavery in the south was never a question before the debaters.
The burning issue instead was whether the government could halt the spread of slavery to the territories. The Dred Scott decision held that neither the federal government nor a territorial legislature could interfere with the inherent rights of slaveowners to take their slaves to any and all federal territories.
On Dred Scott, scholars seem to agree that Lincoln did not advocate disobedience to the decision. Lincoln took the view that the decision was binding on the parties, that is, Dred Scott and Sanford, but that United States had not been a party and was therefore not necessarily bound by its terms. Lincoln advocated that it be overruled by a future Court with different membership.
I agree with the scholars who say that Linclon used the Dred Scott decision to destroy the presidential ambitions of Douglas and to split the Democratic Party irretrievably, opening the way to a Republican victory in 1860.
In one 1858 debate he posed a question to Douglas: “Can the people of a Territory in any lawful way, against the wishes of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from their limits prior to the formation of a State constitution?”
If Douglas had answered “No,” he could have held the South, since he would have affirmed their reading of Dred Scott. But he would have lost northern Democrats, who wanted to preserve the rights of whites to settle the territories.
If he had answered “Yes,” he would have lost the South, since he would have rejected Dred Scott. He was destroyed by the relentless logic of Lincoln in the debate. So he could not be elected President, and the Democrats could not win the Presidency.
Douglas attempted to evade Lincoln with his Freeport Doctrine, but the doctrine failed to satisfy the South since it allowed the territory to exclude slavery, in effect, by refusing to enact a slave code. This was the same as a “yes” answer. He won the battle (re-election to the Senate by the Illinois Legislature) but lost the war (since he could not be elected President). Jefferson Davis denounced the Freeport Doctrine even as Douglas rode a steamboat through Mississippi after the election.
At the 1860 Democratic Convention, the southern delegates stormed out when the Freeport Doctrine was adopted as a convention plank. The Democrats, in their folly, split as a party and wound up nominating three candidates, allowing Lincoln to win with 39-40 percent of the popular vote.
Lincoln the log-splitter had used the debates to drive a fatal wedge into Douglas and the Democrats.
In 1860, the issue was not slavery in the south, but the expansion of slavery to the territories.
The Republicans were founded on a free-soil platform and opposed the expansion of slavery into any federal territories.
The Southern Democrats embraced the Dred Scott decision, and maintained that the federal government had no power under the Constitution to ban slavery in any territory at all. They held that the Fifth Amendment protected a slaveowners property rights in his slaves. They held that the federal government had a positive obligation to protect slave property everywhere — both in the territories and in the states under the fugitive slave law.
The Northern Democrats, led by Stephen Douglas, believed in popular sovereignty. They would have allowed the settlers in a territory to decide the issue. This was a total failure because it led to open warfare in bleeding Kansas. To get around Dred Scott, Douglas advocated his Freeport Doctrine.
Even though the Court had said that neither the Congress nor a territorial legislature could ban slavery, he said that a territory could ban it by simply failing to enact a slave code to provide local regulations to protect slave property. This enraged the south. The demanded a national slave code from Congress, and demanded that Douglas support a slave code in the territories, which he refused to do.
At the 1860 Democratic Convention, 2/3ds were needed to nominate a candidate. This gave the south a veto on the candidate. (This rule persisted until FDR had it abolished at the 1936 convention).
Douglas had a majority, but not 2/3ds, so he could not be nominated. But his followers used their majority to include the Freeport doctrine in the platform. The enraged southerners walked out.
Douglas was later nominated by a rump convention. The southerners, like the fools they were, held their own convention and nominated their own candidate.
The split vote delivered the election to Lincoln, the greatest American President and one of the finest persons who ever lived.
The Constitutional Union party ran on no platform except the Constitution.
Lincoln won a majority of the electoral votes with 39-40 percent of the popular vote.
Maybe I could step in here and we can take this conventional wisdom back to the election of 1860. There were Northern Democrats and Southern Democrats that easily handed over the election to the Republican Candidate.
Before the fundi’s get your shorts in a knot the Democrats wanted to keep slavery both sides the Northern and Southerns Democrats and the abolitionist Republican’s wanted to end slavery in favor of the free market. The Republican Candidate did not get any support from the south and still won.
Hence there were 3 or 4 major candidates in the election of 1860. 2 for the democrats 1 republican and 1 unionist.
You are right Vince Treacy. The country will be delivered to Palin or a man with similar thinking. As disappointed as I am with many of the things Obama has done and is currently doing, I will stick with him. I did not vote for Nader in 2000 either. The 2000 election changed this country. We probably would not be having this discussion about torture if Gore had been president.
The Tea Partiers are fiscal conservatives. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that they will likely vote Republican. That’s why liberals and progressives hate them. Telling them to support one of the two parties is pretty much the same as telling them their vote won’t have much effect unless they do. Unfortunately she’s right.
Is JT saying that his followers shouldn’t vote for a Democrat or a Republican? I’m waiting for that.
While JT is correct (the two-party system has a stranglehold on America), the obstacles must be removed before third party candidates can really become viable option. To suggest abandoning either of the two parties before the obstacles are removed would be ridiculous. Had Palin made that suggestion at a Tea Party, I would see it as telling them to waste their vote.
“Until we break the hold of the two parties and incumbents, we will continue this mindless downward spiral in our system.”
The essential problem with the third party theory is absolutely clear from the history of third parties the 20th Century.
Every single third party presidential campaign backfired on its supporters, often with disastrous results.
1912: Teddy Roosevelt did not think Taft was Republicans enough. He ran, and delivered the White House to Democrat Woodrow Wilson.
1924: Lafollette ran as a Progressive. He got a great number of votes, but he only increased the Coolidge landslide.
1948: The Progressive Henry Wallace was so incompetent (and so oblivious to the Communists who gave him all-out support) that he failed to stop the election of Truman. If Wallace had done any better, he would have delivered the nation to Tom Dewey.
1980: Jimmy Carter was not liberal enough for the liberals. So what did those fools do? First they pressured Ted Kennedy into a futile and inept primary challenge.
Then, as if that had not been stupid enough, they supported Anderson in the general election. The biggest fool was the owner of the New Republic, who told Mike Kinsey to write an editorial supporting Anderson.
They delivered the country into the hands of Ronald Reagan.
1992: Shoe on other foot. Perot runs as conservative. Clinton elected. Just the opposite of what the Peronistas wanted.
2000: To hell with Ralph Nader.
So go ahead with a liberal third party, and deliver the country back into the hands of Cheney, Palin, Yoo, and the Tea Partiers.
This time call it the Lemming Party.
Just don’t say that you weren’t warned.
She is essentially correct as anyone who wasn’t totally blinded by their hatred of her would see.
The Tea Party, if they wish to influence the government and be an effective part of saving America must work within the existing admittedly horribly flawed system. A third party – based on either American or Liberal ideologies – would just give the victory to the opposition.
No, Palin is right. The Tea Partiers for now must takeover either the GOP or the Dems, or strongly infiltrate both, in order to be effective.
She don’t look to bad on the eyes, yes, I use corrective lenses. Birthday party or suit?
Pied Piper, Pied Eye. Know that feeling well……
“Sarah Palin (after wooing the Tea Party) has told Tea Party members that they have no choice but to side with one of the two major … parties ….”
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Ah JT … she meant choosing between “birthday” and “costume.”
rcampbell–
Palin’s a leader for sure–the Pied Piper of Ratpublican Politics. This piper’s being paid well…unlike the one in Hamelin.
AY
It’s possible it might surprise some of the teabaggers. I think many of them truly believed Caribou Barbie was going to lead them unto a NEW dawn, to a newer, more radically right, angrier, more hate-motivated political party. They gave her $100K and she’s delivering them back to the GOP. That’s gotta take some of the shine off her pumpkin in their eyes. No?
I think our two-party system needs a lot of R&D.
And this should surprise who? Coming from a lady that still uses the original palm…..Palin….