So now the duopoly convention rounds are over and we have slightly less than a month before the presidential debates start, which is when the Taco Bell party moves from bowel movements to full-blown diarrhea.
And as we move towards the final election period, I think there are three factors that are all in play at the same time, to some degree or other.
First, it ought to be clear that however much the Left and Right act as though this election is the final battle of Good and Evil, it is not going to utterly destroy one side or the other. Even if Trump wins, that very fact is going to enrage and radicalize a huge section of the population, and it’s not like he ever had majority support to begin with. At the same time, there are some on the Right who absolutely will not move on certain issues, specifically abortion, and who are becoming steadily less likely to negotiate with people they see as The Enemy, even if they aren’t actually leftists.
This means that you aren’t going to get anything done in this country unless there is some standard to negotiate on and some ability for everyone to be heard. Republicans are simply not interested in that idea. Democrats are not interested except for the sake of their own self-preservation. This is why “third” parties have usually been shut out. But if Democrats win a commanding majority in the next election, voters are going to have to hold them to serious election reforms – not just standardizing election procedures and making it easier to vote, but instituting ranked choice voting and other measures (such as exist in California) that make party allegiance less of a necessity. That in itself will not make third parties worth voting for, but as the Republican Party becomes a completely invalid choice, that means this “two” party system will be left with the Democratic Party as the only valid option for political discourse, and the public backlash to that is much of the reason that the Trump Republicans won as many elections as they did in 2016, unqualified as they are. “Third” parties are going to have to step up and make themselves competitive, but the existing (Democratic) structure is going to have to remove the artificial barriers to competition, if only for the sake of their own preservation.
And that is because of the second factor: The Republican Party has made itself completely invalid. Nevertheless they are still an active part of the political system. And they have completely rejected social progress and embrace the idea of total control. And in order to maintain total control going into this election, they and their sympathizers in law enforcement seek to scare the on-the-fence population into voting for authoritarianism and a police state (as in, a political philosophy that favors authority over the individual and caters to the priorities of the police). And to do that they either provoke violence with attacks on civilians (George Floyd, Jacob Blake) or stand aside when “volunteers” like Kyle Rittenhouse bear weapons on their own initiative and end up committing violence. Thus the insidious nature of the Trumpnik authoritarian appeal, at least to those who aren’t political junkies and aren’t paying close attention: They appeal to Law & Order against chaos and violence, and hope you won’t notice or care that THEY’RE the ones instigating the chaos and violence.
And that leads to the third, possibly least factor: What the Left does about all this. This is to my mind the least important factor, because however much the Left does to alienate the rest of the country isn’t nearly as destructive as what the Right does while in power. Nevertheless, the “progressive” faction does have the potential to alienate the rest of America, and that will become that much more of a problem for the feasibility of the Democratic Party as events make it the only serious political choice. Because while being sane should be a prerequisite for good government, it isn’t nearly enough.
In the next few posts, I will deal with each of these points.