There has been a lot of talk about a Third Party lately. By which the Dog means the last twenty years (that he’s aware of). Lot’s of the Dog’s friends are true-dyed-in-the-wool Lefties. Which is great thing to be, but it tends to lead to a lot of wishful thinking when they are invariably disappointed that a nation in which the large majority of the citizens are to their political right doesn’t support their candidates.
Over and over and over again you hear it; “The lesser of two evils is still evil! We need a Third Party to make real change!” It’s an attractive notion. Add a new actor to the mix and then anything is possible. Thing is, it can’t work.
Yeah, the Dog said can’t, not won’t.
Part of the problem is that far too many people and would-be Major Third Parties are focused on the presidency. There is this belief that if they can elect their party’s candidate to the highest office in the land, then everything will be easy. This has a bit of the problem a dog faces when he catches a car (something your diarist knows more than a little about!).
Let’s take the Greens for example. Say they manage to elect Jill Stein as President, then what? In no scenario does that kick out all the Republicans in Congress. It doesn’t even guarantee that she’ll have a majority of Greens in Congress, mostly because the Greens aren’t running a candidate in every Congressional district.
So, President Stein now has to figure out how to govern as she’s promised to. She can’t do it all on her own, that’s not how the presidency works. She’ll need allies in Congress and the Republicans are not an option. She could be for returning to the Gold Standard, over-turning Roe v. Wade and having suspected terrorists tortured on live TV and the Republicans would still never work with her.
That leaves the Democrats, and they will know that she needs them. In fact she’ll need them more than they will need her. She will want to achieve some of her agenda, so she will have to compromise with Democrats on it. This is exactly how our system is supposed to work.
One of two things will happen then. Either Stein will compromise and achieve some things or she will hold fast to her promises and see every initiative shot down. Either way it’s probably a one term presidency.
If she compromises, she betrays the folks who wanted someone to take a hard-line Progressive stand and they won’t turn out for her in four years. If she holds fast, nothing happens and the both the Democrats and the Republicans run against a president too extreme to compromise (the level of irony on the Right would be epic, but they would still do it).
Now the Dog can hear a few of you out there say; “Fine! Whatever, then we’ll go and elect a Green Congress first!” That is a much better idea, but it still won’t work.
Let’s assume the Greens win a huge number of seats, 60 or even 80. Now they are in Congress and ready to make change happen! Thing is they need another 137-157 more votes to pass anything. Where are they going to find allies for that? The Democrats, of course.
As they work with the only allies they have available (who are not happy about being called the lesser of two evils, but are interested in making progress for their constituents) they begin to understand where they have common ground and are quickly forced to realize that they can only achieve their goals by increments and by compromise. Over time they become what the Democrats are, a fractious bunch that generally want progressive change, but are not monolithic about how at all.
What’s that? They would be a big enough block to prevent legislation? Sure, there is no argument from the Dog on that. But as powerful as that is, it is not enough to make positive change happen, which we can all agree the dedicated Greens do want. Without lots of progress to point to, the freshmen Greens would have a hard time justifying their districts send them back. But just like with the presidency if they compromise, their most fervent supporters will label them as sell-outs and they don’t get reelected.
The real problem with all the third party’s is that they aim too high, too fast. Forget the Congress, forget the Presidency, to have a third party that can do something it has to start at the State and local level.
They need to have mayors and council members, State Rep’s, Senators and Governors. And they need to do it in all fifty states. This is a hell of a task, but not one the Dog thinks is impossible. Unfortunately it requires a couple of generations of work to happen, and to date the Dog has yet to hear anyone espousing a third party acknowledge this. Not really a surprise, that, since it’s hard to sell angry people on a generational project. But there is no way to become a national party without thousands of people putting in that work for decades.
For now, the idea of a third party president is basically a con. The Greens, the Libertarians, the Constitutional Party folks all are saying they can jump to the moon. They tell their supporters that if enough people wake up, then anything is possible. All their appeals are based on discontent with the way our politics are unfolding, but none of them is telling the truth. Namely that real change takes decades and electing a president means nothing without enough power in Congress to pass her agenda.
When the Dog was a pup, a friend of the family told him that tending the garden of democracy was the work of a lifetime. It sunk in because it is the flat truth. There are no quick fixes, there are no magic candidates, and there is no revolution that does not lead to pain and fear and death, even if it achieves its goals eventually.
Political change on a national scale takes long, hard, heart-breaking work. Anyone who tells you different is trying to sell you a bridge.
The floor is yours.