Wake Up, America!
The two parties are telling us they will not give us what we want or need
It’s as if we’ve been hypnotized. Although 69 percent of voters think “it really matters who wins” the presidential election, half of them aren’t happy with either of the major party candidates. That’s no wonder, because both campaigns’ primary argument is how awful the other guy is. There is hardly any mention of policy differences; indeed, both sides claim the other candidate is a threat to democracy.
I don’t think either man is a threat, because they do not act alone. More worrisome is the thinking and actions of the party machines behind them.
What’s happened to the Republican Party should disturb everyone. The soul of the party departed many years ago, along with its commitment to fiscal responsibility, but the rise and domination of Donald Trump has taken them into the Twilight Zone. Many of their best and brightest members gave up trying to talk sense into the extremists and left Congress in despair. Speaker Johnson has managed to pass a budget bill with bipartisan support, but he still seems more of a hostage than a leader. And most of their members are still convinced that Biden stole the 2020 election. Time will tell whether the populist strategy outlasts Trump. In any event, it’s not a good look for the party or for the US.
The Democratic Party strategy for this race is more difficult to understand because Biden lacks the cult following of his opponent. In fact, Democrats may have chosen another candidate, had they been given the chance. Biden got the job done in 2020 but should have stepped aside six months ago to let his party develop a vision for the future that would unify their diverse membership and attract more Independents. Unfortunately, they find themselves desperately encouraging defensive votes.
We can and must do better than this.
Partisanship is the Problem
I’ve been an Independent voter and activist for over three decades, so clearly, I reject the two party paradigm. But public opinion is turning in my direction. As the damage and disappointment of party leadership mounts, more and more voters are declaring their independence. Gallup’s monthly poll finds that about 40 percent of Americans now identify as Independents, vs. about 30 percent each Republican and Democrat.
It doesn’t bother either major party that Independents are forced to choose between them in most elections, but partisanship has done more than limit our choices. It has turned plurality elections and majority rules legislation into dysfunction and even tyranny of the majority (or in this Congress, tyranny of the minority of the majority).
Partisans and many political experts may claim they are giving the people what we want — that we are angry and want them to fight for us. They can produce evidence of funds raised and tempers flared. But is this cause or effect? I’m going with the latter. In other words, we are angry because those seeking to gain or remain in office want us to be angry.
We now have decades of evidence this strategy is not working for anyone but the ruling class. Discontent is rising (increase in Independents noted above, as well as continued trend in distrust of government), but real solutions are not going to come from those in power.
This is nothing new. It’s not an invention of social media and it’s not limited to America. Politicians discovered thousands of years ago that if they spread lies they know we want to believe, we go along, even if we know better. When things go wrong, we blame others. It helps to create tribal enemies if they do not already exist. It’s a vicious cycle.
History and Theory
Why are we so susceptible to such divisive maneuvers? I recently read The Open Society and Its Enemies, by Karl Popper. Published in 1945, the book calls upon citizens of democracies to resist the inevitable assaults on freedom by those who seek to enslave us. Popper was famous for his argument that a theory is only scientific if it can be falsified by evidence. He applied that logic to the well known works of Plato, Hegel, and Marx, all of which embraced historicism — a belief that destiny, not self-determination — controls our fate.
As I summarized in a recent post, Popper critiques the irrationality of historicism; its methods seek discovery of a secret human destiny which is perceptible only by a gifted few. This focuses attention on who is delivering the message instead of its merit, values emotion instead of reason, and invites scorn and violence. Its result is evident in our tradition of romanticizing the history of political power, which is all about domination or submission and fraught with brutal wars.
Rationalism, on the other hand, considers critical arguments of cause and effect, learns from experience, encourages freedom of thought, and recognizes that we make choices and are responsible for their consequences. Popper warns that democratic institutions must be defended and strengthened to protect freedom and sustain progress.
Shortly after reading Popper, I reread The New Science of Politics by Eric Voegelin, which was published in 1952. This book also begins with notes about methods and covers a vast history. Voegelin was more interested in religious sources and implications but arrives at the same conclusion: Prophets cannot be trusted; we must take fate into our own hands.
Voegelin took issue with positivist political theories that focus on methods at the expense of relevance, for example in treatment of historical facts as equally meaningful. He cited Max Weber’s rational, objective sociology as a victory over August Comte’s positivism, which (like historicism) was fundamentally subjective. Therefore, although Voegelin uses different terminology, his argument is quite similar to Popper’s.[1] They shared concerns about uncritical interpretations of history that lead to invalid predictions.
Voegelin zeroes in on the distinction between understanding the present and speculations about the future. Societies have a soul of sorts and seek representation in the form of leaders (e.g., kings and popes). Theorists offer transcendent interpretations of meaning that challenge existing orders. Needless to say, this creates passionate debate, because there are very real consequences.
Christianity turned the world upside down by replacing many gods with one and by placing that god above worldly representatives. That development led to further challenges by gnostics — theorists who believe in an ultimate destination of history. Such theories invariably have an ulterior motive of encouraging real political change in accordance with the (supposedly inevitable) objective (immanentizing the eschaton).
The bottom line is that these two eminent thinkers recommended, based on their vast knowledge and understanding of history, that We the People avoid following anyone who promises utopia, because it cannot be the truth. We are responsible for our choices and will reap what we sow.
Taking Action
The general takeaway, or relevance to current events, should be obvious. Reject most of what we are told by major political parties, because they are not seeking the truth. They can only be trusted to continue promising things they cannot deliver or opposing alternatives to protect or gain their own power. Think independently, but with humility. Recognize what is real and imagined, and know that none of us has all the answers.
In addition, there is a more specific connection. Historicism and Gnosticism permeate all public policy; both major parties have mortgaged our future to a fantasy that we can continue current levels of consumption and grow our way out of debt with technology. Despite the fact that growth of our economy has come at workers’ expense, we continue to measure national welfare by GDP and increasingly rely on liberal monetary policies to sustain it.
We should support painful but necessary legislation that balances the budget. The long game, however, is to seize control of our own destiny through significant election reforms that give voice to all the people and thereby restore self-government, such as nonpartisan primaries, Ranked Choice Voting, multimember districts, and Initiative & Referenda.
Momentum for this movement is building. My US Representative, Don Beyer (D-VA), recently reintroduced the Fair Representation Act,[2] a bill “To establish the use of ranked choice voting in elections for Senators and Representatives in Congress, to require each State with more than one Representative to establish multi-member congressional districts, to require States to conduct congressional redistricting according to nonpartisan criteria, and for other purposes.” Please consider encouraging your representative to support it.
Established national organizations that support state level reform efforts include the Forward Party, Open Primaries, FairVote, Unite America, and many more. Check them out!
[1] Voegelin did not think much of Popper, but in my view their differences are minor in comparison to their common ground with regard to implications for democratic institutions.
[2] Cosponsors are Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Ro Khanna (D-CA), Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Scott Peters (D-CA), Summer Lee (D-CA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), and Jim McGovern (D-MA).
