The National Security Dangers of Demagoguery

Spencer, do you really find this so hard to understand. This is like the Hatfields and the McCoys. Both sides are so far apart (The Neo Liberals and the Neo Conservatives) they don't know anything else but hate for one another. I certainly don't think Republicans have the moral compass in the right place, but that certainly can be said for the Democrats as well.

The point here your not identifying (And as an articulate writer should be seeing) is how the infighting almost seems inherent to this TWO party system. Like we are always going to be stuck HAVING TO PICK between the lesser of two evils. Why is that? That is the question that would be refreshing for people in your profession to be asking…….instead…. you lead us to the same watering hole day in and day out. Be a REAL WRITER Spencer, challenge us for once.

Dear I. Mind,

When I was growing up in South Carolina in the 1950s and 1960s, the type of right-wing paranoia being spewed today by Robin Hayes (R-NC) and Michelle Bachman (R-MN) was limited to Southern Congressmen (all men in those days) and scattered wing-nut Republican Congressmen from places like Orange County (CA), hotbed of John Birch Society activity. Most other folks who spewed this stuff were viewed, as the Birch Society was generally viewed, as looney-tunes. The two-party system did not create the idiocy that Spencer is discussing in this post. In fact, as long as the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives, the general tone of personal relations between Congressmen on opposite sides of the aisle was cordial, not destructive.

The destructive partisan rhetoric did not arrive until Newt Gingrich manipulated the media to help him take down Jim Wright, Speaker of the House in the late 1980s. The tactic of partisan destruction worked so well with Wright that Newt continued to use it right through the Radical Right takeover of the Republican Party and of Congress. Since 1994, when the Gingrich Republicans seized control of the House of Representatives, until today, the mainstream media has been treating these idiots as legitimate participants in political discourse. But the Radical Right's “firewall” in the MSM seems to have finally collapsed under the sheer weight of the lies and slimy innuendos put out by Sara Palin and John McCain and their official campaigns. We can only hope that the MSM will keep its head clear after the election and return to applying reality-based standards to media reporting on the idiocy of the current Republican leadership.

The two-party system has existed in the U.S. for most of our history. The only time it came truly unglued was in the three decades between the demise of the original Federalist Party at the hands of Andrew Jackson in 1828 and the ascendancy of Lincoln's Republican Party when he was re-elected in 1864. At other times third parties have made a major push for a share of power (e.g., Populist Party in 1892 got 22 Electoral Votes) but their voters were absorbed the following Presidential election into one of the two major parties.

Multi-party parliamentary systems are also not immune from the extremist tirades that are at issue here. Wherever a party with extremist views commands a substantial following, we see the same type of garbage in public discourse. The current neo-Nazi party in Austria, for example, or the La Pen party in France, or any of the European national parties that have made “anti-immigrants” a major theme of their campaigns in recent years produce the same type of extreme criticism of the other paries – and often receive as good as they give from other political leaders.

In other words, the problem is not the number of parties, it is the existence of a party with truly extremist views that has enough popular support among voters either to rule, or to at least make a huge nuisance of itself in political dialogues.

Incidentally, the Electoral College is a major reason that the two-party system has been so stable in the United States. No third party has been able to get support concentrated in sufficient measure to win the electoral votes of states across regions. The third parties that have won Electoral Votes since 1864 have all been regional parties (Populists in 1892 in the Plains and Mountains, Southern Democrats in 1948 in the segregated South, George Wallace's American Independent Party in 1968 in the Deep South). In 1948 for example, Henry Wallace's Progressive Party polled just 18,000 fewer votes nationally than did Strom Thurmond's Southern Democrats, but Thurmond won 39 Electoral Votes in four states and Wallace won zero electoral votes.

Today many scholars and some pundits are calling for the abolition of the Electoral College and replacing it with national direct election of the President based on the national popular vote. If this ever occurs, there will be a little more possibility for third party candidates to become competitive. Until Obama's success with internet fund-raising can be “bottled” and utilized by third party candidates, though, the cost of entry into modern campaigns will probably limit modern third-party candidates to self-financing billionaires like Ross Perot (1992 and 1996) or Michael Bloomberg (who apparently considered making a third-party effort this year).

Dear I. Mind,

When I was growing up in South Carolina in the 1950s and 1960s, the type of right-wing paranoia being spewed today by Robin Hayes (R-NC) and Michelle Bachman (R-MN) was limited to Southern Congressmen (all men in those days) and scattered wing-nut Republican Congressmen from places like Orange County (CA), hotbed of John Birch Society activity. Most other folks who spewed this stuff were viewed, as the Birch Society was generally viewed, as looney-tunes. The two-party system did not create the idiocy that Spencer is discussing in this post. In fact, as long as the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives, the general tone of personal relations between Congressmen on opposite sides of the aisle was cordial, not destructive.

The destructive partisan rhetoric did not arrive until Newt Gingrich manipulated the media to help him take down Jim Wright, Speaker of the House in the late 1980s. The tactic of partisan destruction worked so well with Wright that Newt continued to use it right through the Radical Right takeover of the Republican Party and of Congress. Since 1994, when the Gingrich Republicans seized control of the House of Representatives, until today, the mainstream media has been treating these idiots as legitimate participants in political discourse. But the Radical Right's “firewall” in the MSM seems to have finally collapsed under the sheer weight of the lies and slimy innuendos put out by Sara Palin and John McCain and their official campaigns. We can only hope that the MSM will keep its head clear after the election and return to applying reality-based standards to media reporting on the idiocy of the current Republican leadership.

The two-party system has existed in the U.S. for most of our history. The only time it came truly unglued was in the three decades between the demise of the original Federalist Party at the hands of Andrew Jackson in 1828 and the ascendancy of Lincoln's Republican Party when he was re-elected in 1864. At other times third parties have made a major push for a share of power (e.g., Populist Party in 1892 got 22 Electoral Votes) but their voters were absorbed the following Presidential election into one of the two major parties.

Multi-party parliamentary systems are also not immune from the extremist tirades that are at issue here. Wherever a party with extremist views commands a substantial following, we see the same type of garbage in public discourse. The current neo-Nazi party in Austria, for example, or the La Pen party in France, or any of the European national parties that have made “anti-immigrants” a major theme of their campaigns in recent years produce the same type of extreme criticism of the other paries – and often receive as good as they give from other political leaders.

In other words, the problem is not the number of parties, it is the existence of a party with truly extremist views that has enough popular support among voters either to rule, or to at least make a huge nuisance of itself in political dialogues.

Incidentally, the Electoral College is a major reason that the two-party system has been so stable in the United States. No third party has been able to get support concentrated in sufficient measure to win the electoral votes of states across regions. The third parties that have won Electoral Votes since 1864 have all been regional parties (Populists in 1892 in the Plains and Mountains, Southern Democrats in 1948 in the segregated South, George Wallace's American Independent Party in 1968 in the Deep South). In 1948 for example, Henry Wallace's Progressive Party polled just 18,000 fewer votes nationally than did Strom Thurmond's Southern Democrats, but Thurmond won 39 Electoral Votes in four states and Wallace won zero electoral votes.

Today many scholars and some pundits are calling for the abolition of the Electoral College and replacing it with national direct election of the President based on the national popular vote. If this ever occurs, there will be a little more possibility for third party candidates to become competitive. Until Obama's success with internet fund-raising can be “bottled” and utilized by third party candidates, though, the cost of entry into modern campaigns will probably limit modern third-party candidates to self-financing billionaires like Ross Perot (1992 and 1996) or Michael Bloomberg (who apparently considered making a third-party effort this year).