Not "Too Legit to Quit"

 

In 1991, MC Hammer released his fourth studio album called Too Legit to Quit. This blog article has absolutely nothing to do with that record. But I liked the title.

Recently, I heard a gentleman named Mark Charles claim that the United States is too immature for a two party political system. In other words, we are not too legit to quit. Of course, this got me thinking.

America does have more than a two parties; however, with the spectacle of primaries and caucuses, it's clear that only two dominate: the Republicans and the Democrats. It is therefore said that a vote for a third party is a throw away and may actually take votes away from candidates in one of the big two. I have used that reasoning before, and when it came to pivotal elections like 2020's Presidential election, I was forced to vote in a way that wasn't truly preferred. I voted in one of the big two camps because I felt that it was vital that one of the candidates be challenged. Strategically, a third party would not carry the day.

I wish this wasn't so. 

In Federalist Paper # 10, which was before political parties, James Madison laid out the idea of American politics. Madison did not anticipate parties, because parties were majoritarian and could become tyrannical and stymie true representation. Nonetheless, parties developed early in our nation and Madison did align with a party.

What Madison envisioned though was a multiplicity of voices that he called "factions." In his view, the more factions the better. This sounds counter-intuitive doesn't it? Today, we see factionalism as disunity. But in the founding era, tyrannies most often accompanied majorities. The more factions that exist, the more defused the body politic and the less likely there'd be any centralized steering of any agenda that could jeopardize the liberty of those outside of the domineering voices. At the same time such diffusion secured the voice of the little guy, people would still tend to align their factions into coalitions on some matters (preventing tyrannies of the minority), but the multiplicity of voices would check runaway agendas.

With a multiplicity of voices in representative government, legislative discussions and debates would be lengthier and would delay law making to a degree. From a modern point of view, this seems like too many voices causing progress to stymie. But to Madison this was a good thing, because it meant that rash and emotionally driven decisions would be slowed, allowing for more thoughtfulness, more careful consideration of the fine details, and emotions and rhetoric to calm down. What we would end up with is a more considerate and thoroughly rationalized set of laws and not knee-jerk reactionism or agenda platforms.  

 

 

Our two big political parties used to refer to themselves as "big tent," which projects that despite having some strong positions on a few matters, they were actually coalitions of multiple factions. This was sort of true up until the last few decades. Prior to the mid-90s, there were larger camps of conservatives in the Democratic party and larger swaths of liberals in the Republican party. Nowadays, if you don't concur with the controlling members of a party, you are either drummed out or labeled pejoratively, such as being called a RINO (Republican In Name Only) in the Republican party. A multiplicity of factions has given over to a duality, which squelches the potential of third parties. 

What has happened is that people have lost the ability or will to truly think for themselves on most issues. They have instead let the party dictate their personal polity. And party members have begun to gravitate around their presidential head, rather than rely on individual members of their party's leadership to work in cooperation. Congressional votes tend to reflect the agenda of whoever is in the White House, rather than the President exercising his position as the executor of the legal estate Congress gives him. Factions would temper autocracy and congressional kowtowing.  

Because of this, I think Mark Charles is completely correct. We are a nation too immature for two party system, because we don't allow for factions within it and instead buy into centrifugal forces within each party, adopting agendas over our own careful considerations. I know that I have been labelled a liberal by conservative friends and a right-winger by my liberal friends because I don't blend well or completely with either camp. In reality, I am exercising my reasoned factionalism. If people would simply do their homework, think for themselves, and get out of the two party rhetorical loop, they might create -- even within their respective parties -- a factional diffusion of control. This might also allow for third party interjections that would actually better represent society in all its complexities. 

Just my 2 cents of course.