To be honest with y’all, I actually like it when I can take a stand on an issue that’s likely the opposite of what you’d expect. As nice as it is to constantly be preaching to the choir, it’s a lot more fun to shake things up. Gets the old brainbox moving.
The Republican Party has drafted what’s being derisively called a “Purity Resolution”, in which prospective Republican candidates would have to adhere to seven out of ten bullet points in order to get the backing of the RNC. These points can then be considered the pillars of the party.
The resolution invokes Ronald Reagan, and noted that Mr. Reagan had said the Republican Party should be devoted to conservative principles but also be open to diverse views. President Reagan believed, the resolution notes, “that someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent.”
Hence the provision calling for cutting off Republicans who agree with the party on seven of 10 items. The resolution demands that Republicans support “smaller government, smaller national deficits and lower taxes,” denial of government funding for abortion, and “victory in Iraq and Afghanistan.” It calls on candidates to oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants and repealing of the Defense of Marriage Act.
Now before I continue, let me say I promise I’ll end with some snark, so if you don’t want me explaining why I genuinely think this is a great idea you can skip to the end and I’ll go right on back to being an asshole.
So then. The purity resolution. I’m sure everyone’s gut reaction to this was “oh my gawd this just proves that the GOP is about lockstep adherence and does not embrace diversity!” and then proceeded to tout that the reason the Democrats are great is that the party is more inclusive and lets in all comers as long as they have some vaguely similar set of morals and ideals.
To that I say: 2006 and 2008. Sure, the Democrats got a majority, but what has come of it? The mishmoshing of candidates from all ends of the leftmost 70% of the spectrum has made it impossible to get anything done. The part everyone forgot about having a 60-vote majority is that all 60 of those votes have to come from people who agree on things. The Democrats do not.
In Europe, party unity is simply a given. If you’re a Christian Democrat, if you’re a Conservative, if you’re Labour, or if you’re Socialist, you’re expected to follow along with the party’s set of beliefs. This has lots of advantages. For the voters, it means that if you vote for a certain candidate from a given party you can be pretty sure what you’ll get once he’s elected, even if you don’t know his exact policies. When a given party comes into power, you know what they’ll do. After all, they have a strict set of beliefs.
More importantly, it opens the possibility of multiple parties. One of the reasons the two party system has such a stranglehold on American politics is that the parties have no clear lines drawn. Liberal Republicans are more liberal than the most conservative Democrats. Most of the time, party allegiance is more nominal than anything. It manifests itself out of the need to pick a team in order to get some of the huge funds the two parties command.
So imagine if the two major parties gave themselves concrete principles and candidates had to adhere to them. There would be an enormous gap left behind for far-left liberals, far-right conservatives, moderates, everyone. There’d be parties all over the place, working together on some bills, fighting on others, all jostling for the well-being of the American people.
It’s worth considering that most Americans can’t imagine a multi-party system because the scenario they envision is a candidate winning a ticket with a tiny percentage of the vote, thus not representing the majority of the citizens’ wishes. This is because the two-party system has fostered an environment of divisiveness, where parties are all seen as being in mortal combat with one another, locking horns and battling for supremacy. They don’t get along, they don’t work together.
This is what feeds the machine on the national level. Parties morph and shift around largely in order to fight against the other side. Candidates are picked not due to their principles or capability nor voices chosen for their strength and insight, but for their ability to stick it to the other guy.
Look at the economic policies of the two major parties from 1993 to now. Republicans and Democrats flipped sides on economic restraint from Clinton to Bush to Obama. During the Clinton years, Republicans howled about being responsible with Americans’ money. During the Bush years, Democrats screeched that Bush was using taxpayer money like a credit card. Now under Obama the Republicans have taken the mantle of fiscal conservatism again.
Was this, at any point, due to some abstract concern for the national budget? Maybe for a select few, but not for the vast majority. Rather, they disagreed on why money was being spent. The Republicans during the Clinton years would have had no problems throwing money into invading Iraq then, and taxpayer funding of religious based abstinence education didn’t seem to ruffle any feathers. Conversely, the liberals are just dandy with taxes funding public health care.
Yet as elections roll around, adversarial two party politics lead to one party saying “the president is spending our money wastefully, I believe in being responsible with our money!” to loud cheers and the swaying of the middle 20% of voters who vote for that guy regardless of his actual principles.
Multiple parties force the government to work together. If Republicans and Democrats only held 35% of Congress each, with a Green Party and, say, a Labor party taking up the remaining two 15% chunks, to get any bills passed would require a massive amount of working together. No one party could say “this is what I want and that’s all there is to it” because they don’t have the numbers. Not to mention filibusters as magic stopping-the-bill wands would become a thing of the past as no single party would be able to roadblock a cloture vote.
So I say let’s do it. Both sides. Oh and here’s that snark:
The Republicans’ list includes a completely useless 2nd amendment declaration, one for Iraq and Afghanistan, one for Korea and Iran, one anti-gay platform, and one anti-immigrant platform. Their supposed health care point (#9) uses the words “rationing” and “abortion”, talking about protecting lives of “vulnerable persons” rather than declaring that they want to give more people health care.
So sure, Republicans, make that list. Then everyone will see what a terrible party you’ve got going and split you down the middle permanently. Also, basing it entirely on Reagan’s off the cuff remark? Way to move into the 21st century!
Several points.
1. Seven out of Ten is still likely going to get you SOME problems. I mean, if the Dems did this, we still might get a lot of Blue Dogs because they agree say, on abortion and gay marriage and the environment, but not about social programs.
But, seven out of ten is a good starting pont, and it at least ensures that you have some ground to work on. More importantly, you KNOW where the candidates stand on them. Having a big chart tih "Yes no" next to each candidate would certainly help with garnering votes/getting bills together, and it would educate the voter at least.
2. You're not going to get 2 parties. This is something that goes all the way back to the first parties: every time we have more than one, the other side wins. And the only time we have a new major party, it eats the old dead one. There has always been two functioning ones.
This creates a huge up-hill battle for a multi-party system. First you have the adherence to it by the populace – they cling to it out of habit. Then you have the political parties themselves wanting to keep it in place, because it's 1) what they know and 2) serves their purposes, and 3) could steal votes from them. BUt ALSO you have the issue that the system itself is built to accommodate a two party system.
So in order to get a multi-party system, you'd have to break things at the state and federal level and then rebuild them, while reversing 200+ years of history.
It'd be great. But so would a single payer option, gay marriage and houses on the moon.