Common Conviction

America needs new political parties, it needs them as fast as possible, and it needs at least two and a half new ones – the half is likely the Libertarian Party.  More on that later.

America’s biggest problem is our current political polarization.  As pointed out in The Politics Industry by Michael Porter and Katherine Gehl, this duopoly paralyzes any problem solving we will may try to undertake. Even as one side may gain some leeway to act, it will inevitably draw the equal and opposite reaction, as defined by our bipolar politics.  

The problem is not fully a matter of the two actual “mainstream” political parties: the generic images of left vs. right are superimposed on any issue: woke” vs. “MAGA,” labor/socialist vs. free market economics, pro- vs. anti-gun rights, Christian vs. secularist, etc. etc.  No question avoids co-optation by one of the two sides, and the electorate gets no choices that aren’t politically bespoke.  The parties actively draw on their polarized images to lock discourse into this intransigent division.  They reduce our national creed, the truths we hold of equally endowed and unalienable right and of government that exists to secure them, to lip service.  The founding tenets become a throwaway line to back their respective bottom lines.  They contest those in trench war style. You are with one or the other, or in no man’s land.  As Porter and cogently lay out, both parties work to keep it that way.  

So, if you want to “oppose Donald Trump,” you only have any hope of a allies or audience as a Democrat.  If you are concerned about constitutional issues such as separation of powers, due process, and rule of law, they will automatically tie your concern to politicized claims over disenfranchisement of minorities, defunding of gender affirmation efforts, and other partisan policies.  Your concern may be over constitutional issues, but it becomes auxiliary to the political positions of the left.  Conversely, if you oppose the “radical woke left,” with their classification of people by race, active undermining of police and other agents of order, and anti-American rhetoric, your objections are tied to Donald Trump and whatever he feels like doing today.  

We need to imagine ways to diffuse and dilute this bipolarity.  The more ideas the better – Porter and Gehl call for ranked choice voting; this blog has mooted at large, party-based election of Senators.  One knee jerk thought is “third party.”  But that needs more thought. 

New political poles, perforce embodied as parties, that have real visions they value in themselves and not just to oppose the “other side,” could help.  But if we have only one new party, it will get split down a left/right axis; likewise if we get just two, one will become diluted junior party to Brand X and the other to Brand Y.  X and Y will undermine them.  Advocates of the “No Labels” idea saw the reaction when they threatened to dilute one party’s base.  The duopoly will keep bringing us back to them, locked in their “base” doctrines, contesting the last 0.1 – to -4 percent of voters in blitzes of expensive and vacuous ad campaigns.

Speculating on ideas that might generate more than two new parties, each with some substantive policy purpose, and perhaps even a founder or two out in non-bespoke America:

The Libertarians – already exist but need to take themselves seriously as potential governing party.  They need to transcend their critiques of “big government,” with program ideas that carry their ethos but allow real approaches to the nitty gritty.  For instance, how much public assistance should government provide to the needy and on what conceptual basis?  Can they get past clever triangulation of left and right, in thoughtful conceptual criteria that could guide real programs?  Or – when is a law necessary, when is it superfluous violation of rights, and when and how might communities exercise moral sway?  Such groundings will lose them some emotional appeal: “I just wish all the pols would back off,” but could gain real political power.

“New Whigs” – a speculative synthesis here – to keep our institutions abreast of developments of tech, society, and foreign adversaries.  Is morality and justice becoming too complex, between AI, wider interracial issues, undetected industrial risks, new “gender identities”, new ideologies and the like?  Can we re-organize our institutional systems to ensure both prosperity and fairness?  Could, for instance, computing power help us keep track of our sentiments and principles, to best address the concerns behind all these?  Are we worried about anti-democrats developing hacking techniques on the one hand and smart weapons on the other?  Can we devise our own development strategies and measure to outcompete theirs  Can we fix our finances and economic systems, in a way that serves us but also ensures institutional soundness and economic strength? 

“Religious Comity” party – rights are endowed by the Creator, and we need a renewed piety rather than our habit of demanding and contesting rights and labels in political contest, treating moral concerns as stakes of vested interest.  Humans’ endowment with rights and/or dignity does fit almost any observance, in consonance with our creed.  Can we cite “the Creator” as a civic label denoting “deity” under any religion, to anchor a consensus moral piety for political discourse?  Could this piety orient us to ensure essential human needs, for instance, in actually effective education, ethical business practice, in frank policy discourse?  Could it spur a political discourse that guides factions by common purpose?  

Possibilities could be endless, but any would need true believers to initiate and organize the efforts.  Above all, for any real parties that real people come up with, all need to keep faith with our core, abstract founding creed.  The creed espouses both rights and government, which means all Americans, and America as a whole will always have to wrestle between free pursuits and “my” rights on the one hand, and social contract and respect for others’ rights on the other.  We need voices that can articulate not why “their” interests are right, but what problems will arise from their policy orientations, and how they can execute their visions in good faith to America’s common founding.  

As it happens, if one new party can gain influence in this spirit of comity, it may push any and all other parties, old or new, to follow suit.  With several real contestants, and no overriding “need” to avoid the “evil” other side, comity becomes a much more crucial virtue.    

Maybe.  Maybe not.  But we need answers to entrenched, sclerotic, political polarization.