The Tyranny of the Two Party System in the US

What Lessons are there to Learn from the Outcome of the 2004 US Election?

The post election commentary in the US is divided between questioning the accuracy of the count of votes, or wondering whether the Democratic Party had to pay more attention to discussing "moral" values as part of its election activity. Outside the US, there is discussion about whether there is some social flaw in the American character that has led them to 4 more years of a George Bush Presidency.

While these considerations may provide a way to review what happened in the recent US election, they fail to raise questions that take a broader view. For example, such questions could include:

Traditionally, it is not that one can affect change in a situation unless one also tries to understand the nature of the problem. In the 2004 election, many people committed themselves to trying to replace George Bush. The call was to vote for "anyone but Bush".

Early on the Democratic Party narrowed its sights to John Kerry as the candidate. From there on, the "anyone but Bush" meant a vote for Kerry, arguing that he could realistically defeat Bush. The Democratic Party challenged the effort of Ralph Nader to provide an alternative, removing him from the ballot in whatever states possible. The Green Party decided not to campaign vigorously anywhere that the campaign might pose a threat to the election of Kerry (Green Out Jeffrey St. Clair). Several activists who had backed Nader in the 2000 election urged voters to vote for Kerry rather than Nader this time. Despite these efforts, Bush now has a second term in the White House.

One party, with two wings

One of the problems with the 2004 election strategy of those hoping to defeat Bush, is that there was a mistaken understanding of what it means to be "realistic" in the kind of "two-party" system in the US. In a country like Germany, for example, a vote for a smaller party, like the Greens, made it possible for the Social Democratic Party to win re-election in 2002. In the US, however, such a vote, as with the Nader vote in 2000, could not be combined with the Gore vote, to give the Democratic Party the White House.

What this means, one is told, is that in the US, the votes for a candidate who is not from one of the two major political parties, are wasted votes. Thus, in the 2004 election, there was a determination to encourage a vote for the Democratic Party candidate, regardless of his position on important issues, such as the war in Iraq.

The Democratic Party in the US has a long history of deciding that it will pursue the vote of those who might otherwise vote Republican. With no external left opposition, the Democratic Party accepts the issues as the Republican Party presents them, but proposes it can implement the Republican agenda better than the Republicans will. Though this is not necessarily true on every issue, on the fundamental issues of foreign policy, and of domestic policy issues to support that foreign policy, the two parties form one party, with two wings. Essentially, in the US, on these important issues, both the Democratic or Republican Parties, will implement the same foreign policy. (For example, Clinton carried out the sanctions against Iraq and enforced the No Fly Zones. Bush then argued that his policy of invading Iraq was just a continuation of the Democratic Party policy. And Democrats in the Senate voted with their Republican colleagues to give Bush the authority to invade Iraq.)

In the recent US election, the bipartisan foreign policy was to continue the war in Iraq. The Republicans promoted this policy, as did the Democrats, though Democrats differed on how the troops might be better supported. Thus the spectrum of discussion on the war in Iraq was limited to the narrow framing that accepted the war as continuing. The only discussion during the election campaign between the Democrats and Republicans was how best to carry out this foreign policy.

Once the election issues were narrowed to "choosing" between the Democratic and Republican candidates, both of whom were committed to continuing the US war and occupation of Iraq, there was no means to explore the problem, no broad ranging discussion to determine other options. The spectrum narrowed to how to carry out the policy, instead of considering whether it was an appropriate public policy. There was no chance for the public in the US to consider the issues and to actively debate them, no chance for the ideas of those outside the US to impact the discussion in the US.

The Republican Party has spent many years and much money to develop a press that will support its agenda, and to spread the rationale and virtues of it far and wide. In an article in the September 2004 issue of Harpers Magazine ("Tentacles of Rage", Harpers Magazine, vol.309, no.1852, September 2004 1sep04) Lewis Lapham, editor of Harpers describes the 30 year process of the creation and consolidation of a media to promote the conservative agenda.

The Democrats also have a set of newspapers and other forms of media that function to present their version of the conservative agenda. For example, they have their think tanks like the Progressive Policy Institute, to spread their variation of the neo-con foreign policy objectives.

The 2000 Presidential election was determined by the Supreme Court, a process not provided for in the US constitution. Despite the closeness of the election, Bush claimed he had a mandate to make radical changes in the US laws, such as with the US tax laws. Considering this background, it should be no surprise that replacing such a presidency would not be as simple as getting out the vote for the candidate of the other major political party. Traditionally, a movement of people who find a way to analyze and then respond to the problems is needed to change a difficult political situation. Early on the Howard Dean campaign encouraged such a movement. The Democratic Party, however, saw this as a problem, and soon their conservative media and party apparatus were mobilized to defeat the Dean anti war candidacy.

Need for broad public participation and discussion

Thus the problem with the recent US election is not merely that the vote was not counted accurately. The problem is that the broad ranging discussion and debate on the crucial issues of US foreign policy and its impact on domestic policy, never happened. The August 2004 demonstration in New York City, preceeding the Republican Convention put, 500,000 people in the streets with their signs, showing what they felt was important for the election campaigns ("End the Occupation of Iraq and Manhattan"). A sign of life in the primary elections were the 600,000 people who rallied behind Howard Dean. There is good evidence that an anti war position is held by a majority of US voters. But mobilization of those with the sentiment expressed in the Dean primary campaign and in the August 29, 2004 anti war demonstration was discouraged by those who argued that the only "realistic" alternative to Bush is Kerry.

The significance of advocating that those who opposed the Iraq war and occupation, were to be quiet, and to work for the Democratic candidates, was to encourage both the Democratic and Republican parties to veer further to the right. Without a media or movement of people advocating a progressive foreign and domestic policy, the lines of discussion were narrowed, and there was no means of seeking a mandate for change.

In the 1960s, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) organization in the US recognized the need for broad public participation and discussion in order to effect change in the US political process (Participatory Democracy From the 1960s and SDS into the Future On-line by Michael Hauben) These students realized that only active participation and discussion among the people could create the momentum and alternative agenda that was needed to change the reactionary activities of the 2 major parties. Similarly, in recent times, as with the recent presidential race in South Korea, a democratic movement which encourages active participation in both setting the goal and figuring out the tactics, has made it possible to make a change in the political parties in South Korea (Think Tanks sollen Stimmung schaffen und lassen die Grenze zwischen PR und Journalismus verschwimmen).

The 2004 US election is over. Hopefully along with it, will go the belief that it is adequate to tell people they should rely on the vote as a means of making a change in an entrenched conservative political system.