Unbelievable. (0.00 / 0)

the two-party system is hardwired into the Constitution

No, it is not.  The writers of the Constitution did not envision a political system dominated by two parties.  They did not even envision political parties at all, so there was no "hardwiring" of it into the Constitution.

To maximize their influence, progressives should caucus and agree to vote together on all legislation as a group and to negotiate compromises with other blocs within the Democratic coalition.  This requires some Democrats stepping up as real leaders.

And if no such leaders are to be found within the Democratic Party, or if such leaders are actively prevented by party and the corporate-owned media from being recognized publicly (as was the case with politicians like Kucinich, Edwards, and Gravel), what then?

Progressive primary challenges should focus on replacing members of the New Democrat Coalition rather than the Blue Dogs in order to strengthen the leftmost position when compromise is eventually sought

And when or if such primary challenges fail, what then?

The Democrats are ill-suited to being a minority party.  Because they are effectively multiple parties joined together, the Democratic coalition falls apart when in the minority because there is not majority power to bind the coalition together

That's been the case with Democrats as a majority party as well, as the last three years and especially the last six or so months have proven.  So how then do you propose to change this?

If the U.S. shifted to a parliamentary system right now and the two-party system fell apart, a left-of-center government would probably resemble the current Democratic status quo in the House of Representatives, with a prime minister perhaps resembling Nancy Pelosi or perhaps Steny Hoyer.

That's an awfully big leap.  On what basis do you make this conclusion?

To fedupliberal's question of what a progressive disenchanted with the Democratic Party should do, my short answer is to advocate for the formation of and give support to a progressive sub-party within the Democratic Party.

How many decades now have we been doing this and coming up short?  Two, three, or more?  The trend is Democrats shifting ever more to the political right, not the left.  Genuine progressives are being shut out of the process altogether.

Look, the only way you're going to apply enough pressure on the Democrats to change their tune is to put the very real threat of losing power into them.  That can only be done by a combination of third-party challenges and progressive blocs joining in alliances therewith.  Otherwise, expect the party as it stands now to keep moving to the right.  It's not going to listen to left-wingers if it knows it can count on us to compromise our principles at the ballot box every time.

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by: Michael Kwiatkowski @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 12:14:34 PM CDT

Quite believable (0.00 / 0)

When I say that the two-party system is hard-wired into the Constitution, what I mean is that the two-party system is encouraged by things such as the particular form of federalism that we have, the Electoral College.  It wasn't intended, but it was a natural result at the time of the founding and this country and the Constitution works to support the status quo, once established.  It would probably take a catastrophic event like both major parties imploding at the same time to change the system without a massive Constitutional re-write.

If the Democrats have bad leaders, then the Democrats fail.  Also, I suggest quote possibly that some of the people you mention as possible leaders have failed to captivate because they were bad leaders and not simply because they were held down.

If progressive primary challenges fail, then progressives fail.  I deny the sentiment that progressives would have a slam dunk victory if only the playing field were level.

I feel reasonably confident in my prediction of what a multi-party center-left coalition might look like.  I think that a center-left majority will often depend on offering enough to get a Blue Dog-like party to decide that it is better off in a center-left rather than center-right coalition.  I suspect that a multi-party system in the US will resemble Israel more than any other country.

My whole point is that it's not always easy for progressives to get things done in this country and that's not always because the left is being held down.  I don't go for that Bush-like "failure is not an option" BS, preferring instead to take a realistic look at the political landscape.

Now, I happen to agree that the left needs to present a credible threat.  I think that the "progressive block" strategy is limited because it relies upon finding issues where Republicans and Blue Dogs vote opposite of each other.  I do believe that the left needs to be willing to pursue a course of mutually assured destruction in an attempt to sway the rest of the party, but I fear that progressives will pussy out once we get closer to 2012 because they will fear that a President Palin will appoint a Supreme Court that is willing to overturn Roe v Wade when the proper strategy should be to threaten to bring exactly that scenario about.

If I were the progressives in Congress, I might consider a few things.  I might threaten to create a budget crisis shut down the federal government the way the Republicans did in 1995 if there is no strong public option on health care and I would be willing to follow through on that threat.  Or maybe House progressives should agree to hand the speaker's gavel and all of the committee chairmanships to the Republicans while claiming that the rest of the Democratic Party has become indistinguishable from Republicans.  Now, those are real threats compared to the gnats that are third-party and primary challenges and progressives in Congress might win some real concessions if they were willing to follow through.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both

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by: Anthony de Jesus @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 13:13:58 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Not at allbelievable. (0.00 / 0)

I fail to see how the Electoral College favors only a two-party system.  If it did, Abraham Lincoln would never have been able to lead the formation of the Republican Party and win the presidency.  Subsequent laws have been passed over time which make duopolizing the system much easier today than it was even a century ago, but this does not mean that the two-party system is inherently hardwired into the Constitution.

It might help your case that progressive Democrats like Kucinich, whose brother Frank passed away this week if it means anything to you, have failed to rise to the occasion rather than simply be shut out if you could effectively demonstrate how they have failed to lead.  You didn't do that; you simply stated that they have.

You're going to have to adopt the "failure-is-not-an-option" mindset simply because the nature of the various crises we face do not allow us the luxury of settling for half-measures and baby steps.  Global Warming didn't wait for us to pull our collective heads out of our asses.  It has progressed to the point where if we don't do something now, we're all screwed - BIG time.  For example, did you know that we're looking at a severe shortage of phosphorus, a vital component in fertilizer, within a few decades unless we abandon chemicals and till-farming in favor of manure and no-till methods?  This crisis will occur within our lifetimes, or toward the end of them, depending on how soon we enact comprehensive reforms.  Look up the June issue of Scientific American if you don't believe me.  You really do not realize the severity of the situation.

You're correct that progressives have done a lot of waffling under when election time draws near.  We're in agreement on that.  Where we seem to disagree is exactly how we're supposed to get progressives out of what I can only describe as a form of political brainwashing , wherein we are convinced by a very brutal and effective establishment campaign of fear and abuse that browbeats us as a movement into shutting up and doing as we're told.

What incentive have you got for holding recalcitrant Democrats accountable for their misdeeds?  You have to have something to back up the primary strategy, because if that fails the right-wing Democrats can take it for granted that the left will, albeit grudgingly, support them.  The best mechanism therefore is to go with building a viable third party.  As I pointed out in my most recent diary entry, there are historical precedents for how and why strong third parties change the political dynamic.

You mention a government shutdown tactic akin to what the GOP pulled in 1995.  This might work, but again, we're talking about a political party that has grown used to caving in even among the rapidly diminishing progressive wing.  It would seem to me that one way to create the event you describe might be for the Congressional Progressive Caucus to switch over to a newly-created or reformed third party, tell Democrats that they will caucus with them only so long as progressive demands are met, or else they caucus with no one and send control back to the Republicans.  Granted, the chances of this are somewhere between 'not gonna happen' and 'fat chance, buddy.'  Nevertheless, it's worth trying.  And if that fails, we can try something else.

The underlying point, however, is that the current strategy is not working.  As the Roosevelts - Theodore and Franklin - argued, we must have the courage to try even if it means we sometimes fail.  Trying and maybe failing is better than not trying at all.  So how about it?  Instead of dismissing the third party approach out of hand, why not give it a try and see where it takes us?  The alternative is to keep using the same failed method and continue to decline as a political movement.

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by: Michael Kwiatkowski @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 14:24:53 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I'm not inherently opposed to a third party effort (0.00 / 0)

I just don't see a good proposal for one out there. I'm leaning towards the notion that the best chance to change things is to create such devastation that we are forced as a nation to do away with the Constitution and start over.  Maybe we should have let all the banks fail and started something worse than the Great Depression.

My evidence that Dennis Kucinich is not a leader is that I can't think of anything where he has actually influenced anything.  He always seemed more like a grandstanding buffoon doing kooky things like having a contest to win a date with him. If Howard Dean can force the media to give him some attention, why can't Kucinich?  I also suspect that the Progressive Caucus showing some spine on a public option could be due to the leadership of new co-chairs Lynn Woolsey and Raul Grijalva and that such leadership was lacking before.  Leadership is more than having a big mouth and voting the right way.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both

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by: Anthony de Jesus @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 17:08:23 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

no person with integrety could be influencial (0.00 / 0)

in a system such as the one we have now.

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by: Dameocrat @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 18:19:03 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I don't see an alternative. (4.00 / 2)

We've heard for decades that we must support the Democrats and not split the ticket.  And for decades, the Democrats have drifted further and further away from representing the working people, and more and more have become the party of big business.

Our Democrats go to Congress and get rich selling their votes, soliciting and accepting bribes, and ignoring the devastation of the lives of working people in this country.

Where are the impassioned voices in Congress standing up against the further exporting of American jobs?  Where are the impassioned voices in Congress, horrified to learn that Americans no longer can afford healthcare because the doctors, drug dealers and hospital groups all charge too much for most people to be able to afford it.

We see Obama yesterday hug a woman who has no insurance.  I hope his new campaign isn't going to be "Have You Hugged A Cancer Patient Today?"  I'll bet she'd rather he'd slipped her a check to buy some treatment so maybe she could live.  She got cancer, the insurance company raised her premiums to $1800/month, she can no longer afford it.  The same story is repeated all over the country.  Why hasn't Congress done anything about it?  Why do we see so many Democrats saying "No" to any help for the citizens?  We all know it's because they take so much in bribes from that industry.

So what is our alternative?  Exactly what have the Democrats done to help the average person in this country?  Nothing that I can see.  

I'd say go with a third party, a Progressive Party, and include as part of the platform that no politician who runs on that ticket can accept more than some nominal amount for campaigning.  Very small.  Last 3 months, maybe.  Issue an on-line platform, place for comments.  That's it.  No more circus.  

And come up with a platform.  All we do is run from fire to fire.  Come up with a cohesive platform for the party.  Anybody who agrees with us can vote for Progressives.  

I'm so disgusted with the Democrats that I would not give them a penny.  You know I keep getting e-mails from Obama asking me for more money?  The nerve.  He has put up new roadblocks to information, is trying to keep the public from learning that the "new" energy policy was apparently written of, by, and for the oil and coal companies, that he's raking in the big bucks from the healthcare industry by doing nothing to help the people, he's escalating the wars.  He's not being honest.  And we know the Congress is just as corrupt as can be.

I'm about ready to pull my Obama bumper sticker off my car and mail it to the White House.  

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by: NABNYC @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 15:35:39 PM CDT

Did someone say, "platform?" (0.00 / 0)

1. Fighting for Economic Justice and Security in the U.S. and Global Economies

• To uphold the right to universal access to affordable, high quality health care for all.
  
• To preserve guaranteed Social Security benefits for all Americans, protect private pensions, and require corporate accountability.
  
• To invest in America and create new jobs in the U.S. by building more affordable housing, re-building America's schools and physical infrastructure, cleaning up our environment, and improving homeland security.
  
• To export more American products and not more American jobs and demand fair trade.
  
• To reaffirm freedom of association and enforce the right to organize.
  
• To ensure working families can live above the poverty line and with dignity by raising and indexing the minimum wage.

2. Protecting and Preserving Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

• To sunset expiring provisions of the Patriot Act and bring remaining provisions into line with the U. S. Constitution.
  
• To protect the personal privacy of all Americans from unbridled police powers and unchecked government intrusion.
  
• To extend the Voting Rights Act and reform our electoral processes.
  
• To fight corporate consolidation of the media and ensure opportunity for all voices to be heard.
  
• To ensure enforcement of all legal rights in the workplace.
  
• To eliminate all forms of discrimination based upon color, race, religion, gender, creed, disability, or sexual orientation.

3. Promoting Global Peace and Security

• To honor and help our overburdened international public servants - both military and civilian.
  
• To bring U. S. troops home from Iraq as soon as possible.
  
• To re-build U.S. alliances around the world, restore international respect for American power and influence, and reaffirm our nation's constructive engagement in the United Nations and other multilateral organizations.
  
• To enhance international cooperation to reduce the threats posed by nuclear proliferation and weapons of mass destruction.
  
• To increase efforts to combat hunger and the scourge of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and other infectious diseases.
  
• To encourage debt relief for poor countries and support efforts to reach the UN's Millennium Goals for Developing Countries.

4. Environmental Protection & Energy Independence

• To free ourselves and our economy from dependence upon imported oil and shift to growing reliance upon renewable energy supplies and technologies, thus creating at least three million new jobs, cleansing our environment, and enhancing our nation's security.
  
• To free ourselves and our economy from dependence upon imported oil and shift to growing reliance upon renewable energy supplies and technologies, thus creating at least three million new jobs, cleansing our environment, and enhancing our nation's security.
  
• To change incentives in federal tax, procurement, and appropriation policies to:
  
  

  (A.) Speed commercialization of solar, biomass, and wind power generation, while encouraging state and local policy innovation to link clean energy and job creation;
  
  (B.) Convert domestic assembly lines to manufacture highly efficient vehicles, enhance global competitiveness of U.S. auto industry, and expand consumer choice;
  
  (C.) Increase investment in construction of "green buildings" and more energy-efficient homes and workplaces;
  
  (D.) Link higher energy efficiency standards in appliances to consumer and manufacturing incentives that increase demand for new durable goods and increase investment in U.S. factories;

  
  
• To eliminate environmental threat posed by global warming and ensuring that America does our part to advance an effective global problem-solving approach.
  
• To expand energy-efficient transportation choices by increasing investment in synthesized networks, including bicycle, local bus and rail transit, regional high-speed rail and magnetic levitation rail projects.
  
• To preserve prudent public interest regulations that encourage sustainable growth and investment, ensure energy diversity and system reliability, protect workers and the environment, reward consumer conservation, and support an expanding marketplace that rewards the commercialization of energy-efficient technologies.
  
• To protect, preserve, restore, and where reasonably possible expand wild lands and animal and plant populations endangered by human activity, reasonably compensating businesses and homeowners for damages or losses incurred by such.

5. Abortion Rights and Legal Reductions

• Codify the 1973 Supreme Court Ruling on Roe vs Wade by passing HR 5151 -- the Freedom of Choice Act.
• Pass legislation and encourage community leadership to, among other acts: Increase funding to child placement services (foster care agencies); increase funding for comprehensive sex education programs that are proven to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies; increase awareness of the protective benefits of proper use of contraceptives, and increase access to them; increase funding for educational programs to spread awareness of sexually transmitted pathogens including viruses and bacteria, and their effects upon the human body; increase funding for prenatal care for unwed and low-income mothers; and expand daycare and nanny services to assist low-income families and single parents who choose to keep their children after birth.

6. Gun Control and State Militias

• Adopt reasonable gun control laws that keep guns out of the hands of criminals, while preserving the 2nd Amendment right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms.
• Restore full control of the National Guard units to their respective states, maintaining both a federal standing military and the individual state-controlled and regulated Militias.

7. Legalizing Marijuana

• Legalize marijuana, and regulate it like tobacco and alcohol.
• Increase funds to existing education and rehabilitation programs; create new programs and expand existing ones where necessary, to reduce addiction; pass common sense drug laws that focus on rehabilitation for non-violent offenders; and engage parents and community leaders to educate their children on the dangers of drugs.

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by: Michael Kwiatkowski @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 16:13:40 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

reform the Dems = best option / shaming Ben Nelson (0.00 / 0)

     I recently got the following note, in an email from Howard Dean's organization, Democracy For America:
*****
A month ago, Ben Nelson, a conservative Democratic Senator from Nebraska said he would not vote for real healthcare reform. He actually called the choice of a public healthcare option "a deal breaker."

Sen. Nelson's stonewalling didn't last long, because DFA partnered with ChangeCongress-org to push back. With phone calls from DFA members, blog ads, and an aggressive mailer to influential Democrats in Nebraska, we asked if Senator Nelson will sell out Nebraska for $2 million in contributions from the insurance industry. Within two weeks, Sen. Nelson caved, flipping his position and promising he won't support a Republican filibuster.
*****
    In 2008, Nader, Kucinich, and FDR all had the same chance of being elected... and FDR has been dead for several decades.
    The way I see it, there are three political groups in America today:
1.Republicans (They basically say openly that they want to sell America to the corporations, and that if you are poor and get sick, you deserve to die.)
2.Typical Democrats (They get elected because they are perceived to care about ordinary Americans, but then all too often get corporate payoffs and vote against the interests of ordinary citizens. However, if you reveal their hypocracy, as DFA did to Ben Nelson, you can get them to do the right thing.)
3.Progressives (They would do the right thing if elected... but how likely are they to get elected? What happened to Nader in 2000 and 2004? How well did Kucinich do in the primaries? Darcy Burner is great... but did she win a seat in congress?)
    Chris Bowers has had some great things to say about a Progressive Block. And I understand why progressives despise ConservaDems and Blue Dogs. But over the last fifty years of American history, only one third-party candidate ever got close to the presidency. That was Ross Perot, and he was a billionaire who was able to spend millions of his own dollars to buy access. (And Perot was included in the 1992 presidential debates because Bush Sr. correctly believed that Perot would draw support away from Clinton; Perot drew support away from both, and reduced the size of Clinton's 1992 mandate.)
    If you cannot persuade Warren Buffet or George Soros to run as, or heavily finance, a progressive third party candidate, then history suggests you will not succeed. And if your only goal is to threaten ConservaDems by saying "play nice or else I will take my ball and go home", then I think a combination of primary challenges and DFA-style "shame on you" media attacks is the best way to make the Democrats act like Democrats.
    And NABNYC, I understand that you don't want to give money to any Dems that are fake-populist sellouts. But besides supporting individual progressive Dems (like Dennis Kucinich, Alan Grayson and Eric Massa) you could also support organizations like MoveOn and DFA. Even ConservaDems like Nelson can be shamed into doing the right thing; how much chance is there that Newt Gingrich could have been talked into supporting a public option? He would sooner have gotten "I heart Communism" tattooed on his forehead.

1 Corinthians 13:1 (KJV) - "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal."/ GOP = Greedy Old Privatizers or Greedy Old Privateers?

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by: Christian_Dem_NY @ Fri Jul 03, 2009 at 06:53:59 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

It is not the electoral college that (0.00 / 0)

dictates 2 parties.  It is winner take all.  Without irv or proportional representation,  I am looking for the progressives to replace one of the parties, in all regions aside from the south.  

The electoral college needs to be done away with to do away with the 2000 election problem of having a winner that loses the popular vote.

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by: Dameocrat @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 18:15:34 PM CDT