So my last two pieces concerned first, what’s wrong with the Democrats and why they could still lose this election, then, what’s wrong with the Republicans and why they could still lose this election, and this piece is about the unfortunate reality that whether the other side likes it or not, one side IS going to win this election.
Because for all the Democrats who think the Apocalypse will arrive if their team loses, the Republicans seem even more convinced of this. This is of course why they’re so fanatic about forcing through Amy Comey Barrett as Supreme Court Justice even though they had a 5-4 Supreme Court before Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death and currently have a 5-3 majority – because they’re desperately afraid that in a Republican court action to contest ballots against the president, Chief Justice John Roberts might consider the rule of law before the rule of Trump. And of course a lot of these Trumpniks like Lindsay Graham smugly insist to reporters, “I’m sure that if Democrats were in our situation, they’d do the same thing.”
But you know why they can say that?
Cause they’ve seen it happen with their own eyes.
All the people who say I’m being too cynical about politics, I remember telling them, way before “blogging” was a thing, that giving a pass to a sleazy, womanizing real estate cheat and letting him remain president after perjury charges just because he was their guy and he got them Supreme Court appointments was a precedent that was going to end up biting them in the ass. But did they listen to me? No…
No, that doesn’t mean the Democrats are AS bad as the Banana Republicans, which is part of why I became a registered Democrat this election, but if you want to know why I was a Libertarian last election and why I likely will be again when or IF the Trump Organization is finally flushed down the john, it’s because I have no good reason to trust the Democratic Party. And that’s not because they’re a bunch of woke socialists who want to nationalize Starbucks. The woke socialists who DO want to nationalize Starbucks can’t trust the Democrats either, and that’s part of why the party lost so many votes between 2012 and 2016. It should be obvious by now that not being as bad as the other guy is not enough. You need to give people something to vote for.
So of course Republicans don’t trust the Democrats. But the Republican Party, which is now the only reason that Freud is still relevant, is energetically pushing towards the one result they claim to fear the most. Because they hate and fear the Democrats so much, they don’t want anyone else to have power at all, and that has made them so arrogant and power-mad that even some of their own flock are starting to get sick of their shit.
Among other things, a Democrat victory will mean that the Democratic Party will be the only game in town for at least two years, because the Libertarian Party is not ready for prime time and the Republican Party is an active danger to the country. Like I say, the only political debate will be between Political Hack Democrats, (Pelosi, Schumer, Biden) and Social Justice Warrior Democrats (Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, ‘the Squad’). And that’s going to create its own backlash, and that may lead to the Republicans taking back the Senate just two years after losing the White House, as they did with Obama. And then they could take back the White House, no matter how rotten their candidate is. I mean, if Trump’s defense attorneys are any good, it could BE Trump. You would think not, but he shouldn’t have won the last time either, and he “shouldn’t” be polling at least 40 percent with over 206,000 dead from Trump Virus. How popular do you think Republicans will be after two years of Democrats actually being in charge?
The trap that Republicans are in is obvious: trying to create one-party rule created a backlash that may lead to the other party taking over. But if things switch over, Democrats may fall into the same trap. They need to create space for opposition and negotiation even knowing that the Republicans cannot be dealt with and will not negotiate.
The only solution is to break the cycle. And California, believe it or not, shows us one way to do this.
California is the most prominent of three states to use what’s called a “top-two” primary system for state elections, in which all candidates running in the primary round, regardless of party, are voted on by the general population of voters, and the top two finishers move on to a general election. This makes sense in at least two aspects: One, it reflects the reality that the Democratic Party is more of a multi-faction “big tent” than the Republican Party at this point. Secondly, the fact that primaries are not tied to parties undermines one of the major factors in the deterioration of the Republican Party, the fact that in standard closed-primary races, the powers that be have decreed that only the most whackjob ideologues get to the stage, so they get to go to the general election round and in “safe” districts end up winning because if you’re a Republican, you vote Republican, even if they give you a whackjob.
This system has certain drawbacks, or what could be seen as drawbacks. Because there is a lot less variation in the Republican Party, this means that you could have two Republicans with a strong vote base versus three or more Democrats and others splitting the not-Republican vote, so that the general election ends up locking out everybody but the two Republicans. This was a serious fear of Democrats going into the 2018 midterms. And of course, the whole impetus for reform as far as the Democrats are concerned is to minimize any chance of Democrats losing.
So another option that is gaining popularity is the concept of ranked choice voting. This was used in Nevada’s Democratic caucus this year and is now being used as the general election method in Maine (which already apportions its two Electors by Congressional district, not winner-take-all). In this process, the ballot requires each voter to pick not one candidate but to pick all of them in order of preference. Thus, if you really, really wanted Libertarian Jo Jorgensen as President you could pick her but then pick Democrat Joe Biden second (if you’re afraid of ‘spoiling’ the vote the way Libertarians and Greens killed Clinton in the Great Lakes) or you could pick Republican Donald Trump second (if having any qualms at all about the Democrat agenda necessarily means you’re a forced-birth advocating, greedy, racist Trumpnik, which is what all my liberal friends seem to assume). In the extremely likely event Jo Jorgensen isn’t the most popular candidate in your district, your second choice would be counted in with all the votes for that candidate and if for some reason that candidate isn’t in the top two finishers, they take the vote that is. This accomplishes a result similar to the California system without the partisan drawback. According to The Dispatch: “The change hinges on the fact that under ranked choice, candidates have to win a majority of votes, not just a plurality. Simply galvanizing partisan turnout is a less viable path to victory. Instead, advocates say, candidates must ensure that they get enough second-choice votes to push them over the 50 percent line. Ideally, this encourages campaigning that is less partisan and more focused on issues, because polarizing candidates have a harder time amassing second-choice votes.”
So, candidates can’t just pander to the most whackjob mob of goons, or to fears of “the other” or “spoilers” but have to actually be candidates that a majority of voters like and focus on issues that matter to them.
What a concept.
Of course, given the increasing importance of non-negotiable issues like abortion to the Republican Party, even such moderating reforms are not going to stop Republicans from being the Stupid Party. As the number of Q Anon believers run in Republican races increases – and given the number of “safe” seats, some of them will almost certainly get elected to Congress – it’s become clear that while we’re waiting for ranked-choice voting to spread, Republicans are going to drink the Jonestown Kool-Aid and then belly up to the bar for seconds. Indeed, it may be easier for them to maintain their cognitive dissonance as the party out of power, since they’re a reflexively anti-government, anti-intellectual party, and that’s also a huge part of why they want a court system that’s so far to the right of the rest of the country: The courts will kill any Democrat initiatives and spare the Republicans the responsibility of doing anything with government at all. Besides loot it, of course.
Thus, if we assume that Democrats actually sweep the White House and Senate, then they have to do what they did with the Affordable Care Act, and use all the power they have, while they have it, because there’s a good chance that as with the Obama Administration, they’re only going to have that power for two years. And if Republicans are willing to all but declare war on Democrats by turning the judicial branch against them for decades, Democrats need to do the same thing to them. I mean, what they should really be doing is having criminal trials, but first things first.
So that could mean court packing. That would first require getting rid of the filibuster. But what it’s really going to mean is turning every state into California as far as Republicans are concerned. As seen above, Republicans can still win in California, if they’re actually popular with a majority. But they can’t do it by simply relying on party affiliation, and since all most Republicans have these days is party affiliation (or rather, loyalty to the Trump personality cult) elections are getting harder for them.
And yet, I keep seeing all these moderates and liberals in media say (accurately) that this country needs at least two parties and will be unbalanced otherwise. And yet, they aren’t willing to acknowledge the implications of where they are, which is that one of these parties, despite it’s pedigree as a “real” party dating back to Abraham Lincoln, is not only dysfunctional but now an active threat to national security.
The Republican Party cannot be dealt with, because like Leninists in mirror image, they will only deal with the political system to the extent that they can control it. Democrats have to… not kill the Party. That WOULD be un-democratic. Rather, just make it clear that Grandpa needs to move to an assisted living facility where he can spend the rest of his days in his own little world. Preferably without metal utensils.
So if Democrats need a right-wing opposition, and it can’t be the Republicans, then that opposition has to be created. But who could it be?
The Libertarian Party, of course!
However small they are, they’re a lot bigger and more organized than the Greens and they actually have a presence on the ballot in all 50 states, no thanks to you guys.
Plus, having an actual choice spares Democrats the need to be all things to all people, which dilutes your focus as you have to embrace all the socialists, libertarians and would-be conservatives who only agree with you about the need to flush Trump and his Party. Otherwise, again, you’re left with a not loyal opposition that is a threat not only to your survival but the country’s.
I mean, that’s your choice, Democrats. The Republicans have Lindsay Graham and Louie Gohmert. The Libertarians have Starchild and that fat guy who stripped down to a Speedo at the LP National Convention.
I think that’s a step up.
But here’s the rub: That requires a political party to actually exist. And my fellow (L)ibertarians, this is where I have to level with you all.
Remember what I said about how it doesn’t matter that you’re not as bad as the other guys, if you don’t give people something to vote for? Here we are.
I said in the 2016 period that even if you do get rid of the arbitrary barriers that the duopoly imposes, there are real reasons why people don’t vote “third” party: People think that the platform (or candidate) is immoral, that the platform is impractical, or that the party won’t get enough votes. That has to be addressed.
I had also mentioned at the time that I had actually wanted to vote for down-ballot Libertarian candidates in 2016 other than Gary Johnson, but in Nevada, I couldn’t. That’s cause there WEREN’T any.
So before anything else, Libertarians: You need to get people elected, first to state offices and then to Congress and Senate, because your hypothetical President needs a political base to operate with. Not to mention, we need to change the election laws in each state in order to get anything done nationally. That means that instead of putting all your resources into vanity runs for President before the Electoral College system is reformed, you need to put your funds into finding down-ballot candidates and funding them. And don’t tell me, in this age of Kickstarter and GoFundMe, that you can’t do that. If you can sell T-Shirts and bumper stickers on your website, you can sell candidates.
Once you get people elected, you need to understand that your base will still be small compared to the other two parties. The system can only change if it actually changes. We cannot realistically expect to just supplant the Republicans at this stage. We would simply become more like a multi-party or parliamentary system, the way Britain is with the Liberal Democrats. That means playing kingmaker. It means you support the Democrats when they come up with actual civil libertarian initiatives. I would also say that it means supporting Republicans when they make fiscal conservative initiatives, but that assumes Republicans ever cared about fiscal conservatism. You leverage those votes towards the systemic reforms you want.
You have to pull off a trick that Republicans have forgotten and Democrats can barely remember: How to have a coherent political philosophy while still getting enough votes to win elections. It means knowing which parts of that philosophy are non-negotiable and which can be negotiated.
And unlike the Republicans and many of the Democrats, you have to ask the question: If I did have absolute power to create my perfect world, what would I actually do? What is my plan to get from there to here? Because as we saw with both Republican and Democratic periods of total control, they could only push so far before either watering down the initiative (as with the Democrats and the ACA) or not having an initiative at all (the Republicans against the ACA, or almost anything else).
If you do not do these things, you are not a political party. You are a political geek club. We already have a social institution for people who bitch about the American political system but never do anything about it. It’s called Facebook.
If you don’t feel like putting some big boy pants on and being a REAL political party, then you have no right to complain if ten years from now Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the moderate centrist of US politics. Because there used to be an opposition to the Left in this country, and in the last ten years it has become less a political movement and more of an insurgency.
If you believe, as Libertarians pledge, that the initiation of force should not be used as a means of achieving political or social goals… frankly, our time for that is running out.