"Time for a Third Party?"

                                                                     Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Time for a Third Party?”

February 16, 2024

 

“Third parties are like bees: once they have stung, they die.”

                                                                                                                                Richard Hofstadter (1916-1970)

                                                                                                                                The Age of Reform, 1955

 

As Professor Hofstadter wrote almost seventy years ago, third parties do not have an encouraging history in American politics. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive “Bull Moose” Party handed the election to Woodrow Wilson. In 1924, Robert LaFollette’s Progressive Party garnered 16.6% of the popular vote, but probably did not affect the election’s outcome. As well, Strom Thurmond in 1948 and George Wallace in 1968 ran effective campaigns but did not affect elections in those years. However, Ross Perot’s Independent Party in 1992 probably cost George H.W. Bush his re-election.

 

John Templeton once said that the four most dangerous words in investing are “this time it’s different.” Those words are ordinarily applicable to third party candidacies. However, this year does seem different. Assuming that the two lead candidates stay the course – not a sure bet – November’s election will be between two of the widely unliked (and least qualified) candidates in American history[1].

 

With Robert Kennedy, Jr. already in the race and with No Labels standing in the wings, perhaps the most comparable election would be that of 1860, which fielded four candidates: Lincoln was the Republican candidate, Stephen Douglas the Democrat, John Breckinridge ran as a Lecompton Democratic candidate, and John Bell from the Constitutional Union Party. When the smoke cleared on November 6, 1860, Lincoln had won just under 40% of the popular vote, Douglas 29.5%, Breckinridge 18.2% and Bell 12.6%. However, in terms of Electoral College votes, Lincoln was the clear winner, with 180 votes out of 303 cast.

 

Voters are often told that a vote for a third party means a vote for the opposition. In other words, Democrat leaders today tell voters that a vote for Robert Kennedy, Jr. is in fact a vote for Donald Trump. History suggests their warnings are justified, as no third party candidate has ever won the White House. In Shakespeare’s The Tempest Antonio speaks to Sebastian: “What’s past is prologue.” 

 

But the past is not always prologue? Humans have advanced, driven by those who dared to experiment, to try something new. Consider the telegraph, railroads, telephones, cars, airplanes, space travel, computers, the integrated circuit, and artificial intelligence. Our Founders, in 1789, chose a new form of government. They looked to the past but created something new – a representative, republican democracy, in which the individual was paramount and government limited. Three equal and independent branches were devised to help prevent any one person or branch from taking control. The government born in Philadelphia was, as Lincoln proclaimed at Gettysburg eighty-seven years later, a new concept in human history, a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

 

Today’s two political parties did not exist in 1789. It was not until 1828 that the Democratic Party was formed, as a vehicle to help elect Andrew Jackson. The Republican Party was formed in 1854 by forces opposed to the expansion of slavery. Today, neither party is what it was a generation or two ago. The country club crowd of the northeast, once solidly Republican, has become decidedly Democratic. Internationalists of the 1950s, once solidly Republican, have become, under Mr. Trump, anti-globalists. 

 

Today, two aging men (though younger than me) – one with obvious declining cognitive powers and the other a tactless, uncouth individual who threatens to dismantle NATO – head both parties. Is it not time to seek a third way? Or, if not a third way, is it not time for leaders of both parties to recognize their flawed choices and nominate someone who can move the country forward in a manner acceptable to the majority of voters? I recall once having lunch in the Senate dining room in the early 1970s. I remember the sense of camaraderie that permeated the room – Republicans and Democrats dining together. Famously, President Reagan and House Speaker Thomas (“Tip”) O’Neil, while poles apart politically, enjoyed a mutually respectful and affectionate relationship. And similarly, Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich had a mutually beneficial meeting of the minds. But I cannot imagine President Biden enjoying a drink with Speaker Mike Johnson any more than I could have imagined former President Trump sitting down to exchange stories with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi. That loss of political camaraderie has become the people’s loss.

 

No Labels was launched ten years ago, initially among House members, as fault lines between the parties widened and deepened. Today, fifty House members, split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, meet regularly. The House effort is led by Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA). Five years ago, No Labels began an effort to organize a similar group in the Senate. Today, their leaders include Joe Manchin (D-WV), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Krysten Sinema (I-AZ). Their goal is to find common ground, at a time when extremists from both sides dominate their parties, along with news and social media platforms. 

 

Will a Third Party, like the mythical Phoenix arise from the ashes of today’s political conflagration? I am unsure. My hope is that both parties recognize that their current preferences for President will lead to more division at home and to a more dangerous world abroad. Ironically, Democrats hope Trump is Republicans’ choice, just as Republicans hope Biden heads the Democratic slate. 

 

As I have written before, the Democratic Party, being more disciplined, is more likely to drop the Biden-Harris ticket than Republicans to dump Trump. However, as a conservative, it is my hope that Republicans recognize the futility of sticking with the flawed and (nationally) unelectable Donald Trump. They have an opportunity with Nikki Haley who polls well against Mr. Biden. But will she gain the necessary votes in the upcoming primaries? She does not generate the fanaticism of Trump followers, but she appeals to a broader array of voters. If both parties stick with today’s leaders, a Third Party candidate seems, to this observer, a likely alternative.  

 

 

 

 

---

---

[1] To be clear, in my opinion, it is not age that is the problem; it is the mental condition of one and the character of the other. Both, in varying degrees, are corrupt and neither seems to appreciate history. As to who is most corrupt, I leave that for you to decide. There is no doubt that Mr. Biden is cognitively impaired and we, the public, have no idea who is the puppeteer pulling the strings in his administration.  There is no debate about Mr. Trump being a boorish, loose cannon in a complex and multi-cultural world when tolerance and grasp are needed. Worse, he has become an isolationist just as the world is turning more dangerous. However, Trump’s appeal, we should not forget, is to those millions of forgotten men and women ignored by identity politics, elitism, and political correctness.

"The Ugliness of Politics - Is It Necessary?"

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Thought of the Day

“The Ugliness of Politics – Is It Necessary?”

December 27, 2021

 

“Politics is about power, the power to make people 

do what you want them to do, so that you gain leverage.”

                                                                                                                Bruce Thornton

                                                                                                                www.frontpagemag.com

                                                                                                                December 15, 2021

 

Democrats, who have failed on so many fronts in the first eleven months of the Biden Administration – immigration, inflation, COVID-19, crime, Afghanistan, China and Russia – have resurrected their nemesis Donald Trump, as a foil to promote their claim that the Republican Party “has,” in the words of Dan Kennedy of Northeastern University, “embraced authoritarianism and voter suppression” – a red herring to deflect attention from Democrats’ efforts for self-empowerment. Trump is demonized because, more than anyone, he is seen as standing athwart the federal regulatory Leviathan progressives have erected.

 

There is something bizarre about supposedly intelligent and well-informed columnists like Dana Milbank of The Washington Post and Jason Linkins of The New Republic, when they claim threats to democracy emanate from the Party that embraces limited government, free markets, deregulation and low taxes, rather than from the Party that supports greater regulation, higher taxes, packing the Supreme Court, nationalizing voting and (in New York City) allowing non-citizens to vote, while urging conformity, and censoring conservative speech on college campuses. The lead essay in the January 2022 issue of The Spectator concludes: “The transformation of free societies by bureaucratic stealth, corporatization, and end-of-world doom-mongering pose greater dangers to America democracy than do China or climate change.” Yet Barton Gellman of The Atlantic, in contradiction to common sense, calls Democrats “protectors of democracy.” 

 

Partisan progressive reporters have made the ludicrous charge that current media coverage of Mr. Biden is more negative than it was of Mr. Trump in his last year in office, an allegation my youngest grandchild would recognize as absurd. The accusation is a Trojan Horse to camouflage their own biases, displayed for four years in the discredited Russian collusion story, and now in a transformation of last January 6, from a protest that got out of hand into an alleged insurrection. Political criticism should be welcomed. But in this new world, criticism of Republicans is encouraged, while criticism of Democrats is treasonous. Jason Linkins headlined an article in The New Republic: “Is Criticizing Joe Biden a Danger to Democracy?” While he did admit that “blind fealty” is a hallmark of dictatorships (which it is), he overrode that admonition when he wrote: “…the GOP is the enemy of democracy, full stop…” Trump is an easy target. He speaks Brooklynese; he is an overweight, incurable narcissist, who speaks without thinking. Republicans have supporters in the media who are unfair in their treatment of Democrats, but the situation is David versus Goliath-like, with progressives controlling most of mainstream media, big tech companies, Wall Street, schools, universities, government bureaucracies, cultural institutions and professional sports. 

 

The arrogance of political elites toward those with differing opinions is mind-numbing. That White House press secretary Jen Psaki belittles those who ask tough questions is legion. Recently, she called Senator Joe Manchin a liar when he said “no” to the Build Back Better legislation. If Ms. Psaki had read The Wall Street Journal, National Review, The New York Sun or The New York Post over the past few months, she would have seen that Senator Manchin’s reservations regarding the legislation were well aired. In the preface to his unfinished book (published posthumously in 1856), The Old Regime and the French Revolution, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote: “…a man’s admiration of absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.” That is what we are seeing among the progressive branch of Democrats.

 

Trump can be personally insulting, but he is not condescending. But we did see condescension in the words of Barack Obama when, in 2008, he spoke at a fund raiser in San Francisco about working class voters in an industrialized Pennsylvania town: “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” And we saw it in 2016, when Hillary Clinton lashed out at Donald Trump’s supporters, as a “basket of deplorables.” We see that condescension in Nancy Pelosi’s and Chuck Schumer’s briefings We see it in the treatment of COVID-19. We are told to “follow the science,” with no admission that science evolves. The Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) – authored by Dr. Martin Kulldorff of Harvard, Dr. Sunetra Gupta of Oxford and Stanford’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, and which focused on protection of the most vulnerable while encouraging the non-vulnerable to resume life as normal – expressed “grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing Covid-19 policies.” The document, which was signed by 60,000 infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists, was ridiculed as “fringe” by Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institute of Health (NIH) and called “nonsense and dangerous” by Dr. Anthony Fauci. (Dr. Collins later resigned as director of the NIH after government documents suggested he lied to Congress when he claimed his agency did not fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Lab.)

 

Progressives who dominate the Democrat Party – more through fear than numbers – distort our past and forecast a dystopian future. The Founders, they tell us, were old white men who founded a nation based on oppression and slavery. They argue that 156 years after the end of the Civil War, a war fought to end slavery, we remain a “systemically racist” nation. We are, they claim, a nation comprised of victims and victimizers. As for our future, without adoption of their statist agendas and policies, racial tensions will increase, gender discrimination will persist, and man-caused climate change will bring an end to our world. A salad bowl has replaced the mixing bowl, as a metaphor for the American experience. Ignoring the economic consequences, Cassandras argue the world needs fewer not more people, and that capitalism creates economic unfairness. Yet, according to an NBC poll, cited by Frank Bruni in The New York Times in November, 71% of Americans feel the country is on the wrong track, a sense of pessimism reflected in Census Bureau numbers that showed the U.S.’s population gain in 2020 was the lowest increase on record. 

 

…………………………………………………..

 

What is wanted in this fractious political environment, where sanctimonious politicians belittle opponents and politicize issues like infectious diseases and climate change, is an injection of common sense, leavened with the good feelings and optimism of a President Reagan, who spoke of a bright future, a “shining city on a hill.” The reality is that the United States is a good nation with a diversity of free people, who have been infused by progressives with self-hatred and self-doubt. In truth, we are a mixing bowl, not a salad bowl. In 2015, 17% of marriages were interracial, up from 3% in 1967. In that same year, 39% of U.S.-born Hispanic and 46% of U.S.-born Asian marriages were between spouses of different races and ethnicities. In 1960, about 5% of U.S. women had a college degree. In 2020, that number was 38.3 percent. In 1992, among working blacks, 15.9% held a bachelor’s degree. By 2018, that number had increased to 31.2 percent. The U.S. has never claimed to be perfect, but its attractions and promises make it the most sought-after nation in the world for immigrants. We can achieve an era of good feelings. But our republic, based on ancient Western ideals, cannot be left to professionals. It requires the participation of the people.

 

In the December 27, 2021 issue of National Review, Peter Wood wrote: “The West, in its ideals, is a universal culture open to all, but always on the condition that those who hope to enter it recognize its unceasing demand to reach for those ideals that promise unity...” Political ugliness doesn’t have to prevail. We can, and we should, be optimistic for the future. But it requires study, confidence, effort and wisdom.