Starting the Party (System) [Part 1]

The popular thing to say when it comes to American political parties is that none other than our esteemed first President, George Washington, was against them. In light of the mounting tensions between the parties, I thought this would be a great time to introduce our political party system on this blog.

Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of American politics knows that they come down to two main parties: Democrats and Republics. The existence of such groups was one of the most confusing aspects of my introduction to politics. I had come into politics on the principle of issues only to learn that political parties divided the people in two. Entire families restrict themselves to a single party! Presidents run on party platforms! People check Democratic or Republican candidates all down the ballot without even researching them! It's hard to not wonder how a two-party system, or a party system at all, is an adequate way of representing the multitude of perspectives held by the American people. George Washington said it well in his farewell address:

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations... are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction... to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.

Political parties distract us from individual issues and the diverse opinions of the people by packaging the interests of powerful minorities and forcing the people between them, otherwise known as party platforms. This attitude, the simple game of win or lose between the two parties or the "projects of faction," is what makes everyday citizens despise politics. It's what makes politics not about the people.

Think for a moment how many general issues are involved in the running of a country. Power of federal versus state government, taxes, education, social justice and equality, environmental sustainability, foreign policy, to name a few. And just in one of those issues are a multitude of sub-issues. Take education for example. How much should government, especially local government, have a say in how schools teach their students? What kind of programs (after-school, art, physical education, etc.) should or should not be funded? What about foreign languages in schools? How can postsecondary education be made more affordable? Bring in all the countless other issues in politics. There is simply no feasible Venn diagram in which half the country can have the exact same stance on all of these issues.

But parties did not start with the extensive platforms of today; that is what parties have become, and it's an effect we feed into in every election. Political parties, which had their birth in this country during our very first election in 1796, to the disappointment of Washington I'm sure, were very different from the parties we know today. They did not have the range of controversial topics we have now such as abortion and other healthcare matters, LGBT rights, police brutality. The Federalists were staunch supporters of the Constitution, a strong federal government, and pro-business and pro-banking, and the Democratic-Republicans were more diverse in ethnicity and background and against these grand commercial ideas. But when it came down to it, who really defined these interest groups? Alexander Hamilton, whose economic policies defined the Federalists, and Thomas Jefferson, who rejected these policies. It really was a smaller set of interests for smaller groups of people. [For a more detailed timeline of our party system, see here]

The approach to party politics was also much more delicate then because the country had just come out of a war. It only makes sense that something as divisive as political parties would not be recommended, but as Jefferson astutely noted,

Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers form them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves.

There is definitely some bias written into point 2, but the message is clear. Essentially, the question comes down to how powerful we want our government to be. There is a key lens to this problem that is missing here. It isn't just a matter of where to place the power but how to protect the power. In democratic societies, we want to protect everyone's rights, ensuring our life, liberty, and property/pursuit of happiness. Everyone gets freedom of speech. Everyone can own private property. Everyone can vote. But at the same time, someone needs to be able to enforce these rights, to come in and say, "Hey, you've infringed on this other person's rights, so back up." That necessitates government oversight.

So if we acknowledge that this pro or against strong government idea will always be a part of our political discourse, and we somehow get our parties to not define themselves by that, is there a way we can have a diverse party system based on just where voters stand on individual issues?

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Political scientists put this situation under Duverger's law, which says "the simple-majority single-ballot system favors the two-party system." He follows this by saying "the simple-majority system with second ballot and proportional representation favors multi-partyism." As this paper in The American Political Science Review suggests, in single-winner plurality countries, the end game is simply getting a majority of the votes. The most efficient way to do this is to align with one of two main parties at the cost of more complex platforms.

Think of it this way. In a perfect world in which everyone votes, the majority would be 50+% of the people. If voters feel constrained to only two parties, then it is easier to achieve this majority. 100%/2 = 50%, so you are starting closer to the goal. The more equally strong parties there are, the harder it is for any of them to a) overtake competing parties and b) hold a simple majority at all. 100/3 = ~33%, 100/4 = 25%, and so on. Here's some data that supports this idea:

Solutions to this problem of a two-party lock have of course been offered: runoff voting, proportional voting, range voting. The questions that necessarily follow are: is it worth it in America, and is it feasible? I hope to discuss this further in a future post.