Thomas Friedman has his doubts and is calling for a strong third party movement in 2012. He begins by reminding us -- as the founders would -- of the factors which led to the demise of the Roman Republic:
A friend in the U.S. military sent me an e-mail last week with a quote from the historian Lewis Mumford’s book, “The Condition of Man,” about the development of civilization. Mumford was describing Rome’s decline: “Everyone aimed at security: no one accepted responsibility. What was plainly lacking, long before the barbarian invasions had done their work, long before economic dislocations became serious, was an inner go. Rome’s life was now an imitation of life: a mere holding on. Security was the watchword — as if life knew any other stability than through constant change, or any form of security except through a constant willingness to take risks.”
He argues that our two major parties are concerned with their own security (not the nation.s) and refusing to accept responsibility for their failures (since to do so might jeopardize their electoral competitiveness).
We have to rip open this two-party duopoly and have it challenged by a serious third party that will talk about education reform, without worrying about offending unions; financial reform, without worrying about losing donations from Wall Street; corporate tax reductions to stimulate jobs, without worrying about offending the far left; energy and climate reform, without worrying about offending the far right and coal-state Democrats; and proper health care reform, without worrying about offending insurers and drug companies.
...
We need a third party on the stage of the next presidential debate to look Americans in the eye and say: “These two parties are lying to you. They can’t tell you the truth because they are each trapped in decades of special interests. I am not going to tell you what you want to hear. I am going to tell you what you need to hear if we want to be the world’s leaders, not the new Romans.”
His chief complaint echoes some of the warnings Washington made regarding the development of parties in the early years of the republic: It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.
My 2301s will wrestle with this soon enough, but let's keep in mind that when it comes to arguments about government and politics, there is little new under the sun. Washington would understand and sympathize with Friedman's complaint. The problem, as we will discover, is that electoral rules favor the development and continuation of a two party system, so this might be an unrealistic goal.
