Challengers to Duopoly: Why Third Parties Matter in American Two-Party Politics

14: Looking Back, Looking Ahead: The Third-Party Legacy and the Future

14 Looking Back, Looking Ahead The Third-Party Legacy and the Future As they say in electoral politics, two’s company, three’s a problem that must be undermined through legislative obstacles. . . . Jon Stewart, America (the Book) America’s seemingly perfect two-party duopoly has produced a politics of near-total paralysis. Micah Sifry It’s not easy bein’ [G]reen. Kermit the Frog It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future. attributed to Yogi Berra Minor parties they are, minor parties they have been, but their collective footprint in American history has been far from minor. Individual third parties have broken down the barriers of gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation in nomination for high office. Victories of Latinos in elections for state governor date from 1917, of women from 1925, and of African Americans from 1990. All of these earliest gubernatorial trailblazers ran on major-party lines. But insofar as third parties themselves were not shut out from the mainstream, their experience helped illuminate the victory path. President Obama too may owe a debt to the groundbreaking of third parties; likewise Hillary Clinton, Geraldine Ferraro, and Sarah Palin. Insofar as freedom exists in the American marketplace of ideas, many third parties also have made valuable, even vital contributions in the evolution of the political community and the development of policy. The Tea Party Movement: A New Wild Card A new specter arose in 2009. In its reach and potential, it has come to haunt both major parties. It is the national Tea Party movement. Public outrage over the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) bailouts of financial institutions and over the stimulus program fostered it. The Tea Party movement picked up strength following the news of extravagant bonuses paid to executives at AIG and other corporations. 224 Challengers to Duopoly Third Parties and the Marketplace of Ideas In the public discourse about direction, policy, and process in the United States, third parties have long contributed ideas. They continue to offer them today. Not all of these ideas originated with minor parties, but minor parties characteristically adopted and pushed them before either major party arrived on the scene. Many of the ideas they offered proved to be useful, important, even necessary; many, but not all: some were ill considered and unworkable, dangerous or mean spirited. Some of their ideas have been reformist, progressive, or radical. Others were presented by conservatives in reaction to changes already made or proposed. Many have been passed as policy. Many have not. Some are pending today. Pressure groups sometimes have stood as the crucial agents pushing ideas that are also important to minor parties. The relationship between third-party sponsorship and policy enactment is seldom linear or fully transparent. Hamstrung by their relative powerlessness , third parties usually are not able to provide the policy makers with authority to take ideas and pass them. Actions that decision makers take do sometimes manifestly follow or succeed from the incorporation of popular third-party ideas into major-party platforms or campaigns. These are among the values and goals that American third parties have embraced and have worked to insert into the nation’s public agenda: • transparency in public life, • national party conventions, • party program presented as a written platform, • international free trade, • nullification of federal enactments, • nativism and restrictive immigration policies, • opposition to the territorial expansion of slavery, • abolition of slavery, emancipation of slaves, • defense of slavery, • preservation of the Union, • federal merit-based civil service, • women’s suffrage, • single tax plan, • farmer-worker coalitions, • racial equality as public policy, • currency expansion, • free coinage of silver, • progressive/graduated income tax, • wages and hours legislation, • election of U.S. senators, • prohibition (beverage alcohol), • public land trusts, Looking Back, Looking Ahead 225 • equal pay for equal work, • initiative and referendum, • recall elections, • nationalization of railroads, • universal health care, • antitrust legislation, • Equal Rights Amendment, • legislation forbidding child labor, • collective bargaining as a protected right, • pacifism, antiwar, antidraft, • government ownership of power plants, • public works programs for jobs and infrastructure development, • Social Security, • government ownership of banks, controlling access to investment capital, • ending the Cold War, its unsustainable costs, and its frightful dangers, • racial or ethnic autonomy/self-determination, • defense of “the southern way of life,” • southern strategy, • “law and order”/toughness on crime, • abortion choice, • pro-life policy, • legalization of marijuana, • abolition of capital punishment, • marriage as a private contract, • green economy and sustainability...