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According to Gallup, a full 34 percent of country would not be satisfied if their choice for president was just Democrat Barack Obama or Republican Mitt Romney. Gallup:
That one in three Americans is unsatisfied with their likely choices for president should indicate a huge failure in our political system.
Instead of politics, imagine we were talking about cars. Let’s say America only had two car companies and a full 34 percent of the country was unsatisfied with the cars made by both companies. That is a huge share of the market left out. That would obviously be seen as a huge market failure. You would expect one or two new car companies to emerge to fill this void and challenge the top legacy companies that have left so many unsatisfied.
In most markets, normally the only reason you won’t see new rival options emerge, despite this incredibly high level of dissatisfaction with the current choices, would be if the two dominant companies had worked together to completely rig the system to make it all but impossible for a new company to enter the market.
This is precisely what has happened in our political system. It is why Americans are dissatisfied with our political choices, yet also have so few of them.
In numerous ways including our ballot access laws, ballot line rules and our use of the absurd first-past-the-post election system, the Democrats and Republicans have gotten together for decades to make it extremely difficult to create new parties and for new parties to gain market share.
Of course the system doesn’t need to be so rigged. We can use different, more open election systems. If we used proportional representation and/or run-off election systems it would be easy for more parties to be viable, thereby giving Americans more choices. It is because their political systems aren’t totally rigged for the benefit of just two parties that we see multiple parties competing for the presidency in countries like Ireland and France.
40 Comments
The American justice system and political system have become the domain of mealy mouthed individuals whose only concern is their personal gain. This is not just an American problem but a world problem. Wealth is not an indication of one’s ability to lead, however we as a people want to believe this. Societies based on greed cannot survive.
It is disgusting that 81% of Democrats polled are satisfied with their choices (in other words, with Obama)!
Look to the Justice Party, the Green Party, and the Socialist Party. Probably there are other leftist parties that I haven’t even heard of yet. Things are about to change, and very rapidly.
The sense that I get is that people are dissatisfied with a 2 party system because not enough of their personal preferences are enacted into law. Most here are true progressives and would like to have seen more progressive legislation. They would seem to prefer a party limited to more progressive members that could enact the policies they prefer. In fact many complain that some of the democrats are not progressive enough.
What I do not understand is how creating a party with a more narrow focus will in any way increase the progressive part of the legislature or the change the nature of legislation enacted by the congress. In fact we already have a progressive caucus which acts as a surrogate for the “progressive” party in the US and they do not seem to be able to influence legislation much at all.
I see it as a pipe Dream to create a “purer” party and expect that group to have an effect.
What makes more sense to me is to work within the Democratic party running more progressive candidates. The other side has a maxim that says they want the most conservative candidate that can be elected. We need to work for the most progressive candidate that can be elected., If that means Ben Nelson, so be it. That is a better answer than a wingnut.
I’m not sure about rapidly but I do think that things will be very different by the 2016 election. There will be so much anger that it may get completely out of control.
I’m a little surprised by that too. Within my circle of progressive/liberal friends here in Houston, a good 50% are disenfranchised by Obama’s failure to keep his promises, stand up for the middle class, and his constant capitulation to the republicans. Will t hey vote for Romney? will they n ot vote for POTUS at all? Only time and the “exit polls” will tell.
There are people’s who’s beliefs do not fall with in the orthodoxy of the two parties.
A proper survey would have read…If you had a choice b/t O or R or going to the dentist for a root canal?
“What makes more sense to me is to work within the Democratic party running more progressive candidates.”
———
Well put. That is what I am doing. I’m not gonna sit back and take it. I am getting INVOLVED.
Agreed, a skewed result because if you are willing to identify yourself as a Democrat right now you are probably an Obot or leaning that way. If so only 80% of Obots are satisfied?
Indeed. Pure, unadulterated tribalism in support of amorality.
But those independent numbers are bit eye popping.
Let’s say America only had two car companies and a full 34 percent of the country was unsatisfied with the cars made by both companies.
Change “two car companies” to “three car companies” and that’s exactly what happened in this country in the 1970s. (There’s a reason why state lawmakers were so quick to pass lemon laws.) Unfortunately, there’s no political equivalent of Japanese automakers to provide an alternative to the crummy choices we have.
A lot of the so-called “progressive” issues – green and renewable energy, a living wage, consumer protections, a commitment to good affordable education, universal healthcare – would and do have widespread support but suffer by being constrained by the labeling of issues by two parties to their mutual advantage. Tell me how this changes within this existing political paradigm? We need a new system.
The problem is that the “Big Tent” only seems to expand ever rightward, and going along with that entails countenancing some pretty horrific things.
Some of us simply can’t be accomplices to that.
The CA Democratic Party’s decertifying of it’s Progressive Caucus over a primary challenge to Obama makes the usefulness of Progressive Caucuses, and the Democratic Party, pretty obvious.
In the words of Sam Goldwyn, “include me out.” The Democratic Party can’t be cleaned up from within. Ask Bill Halter, who lost to Blanche Lincoln in the 2010 Senate primary. The White House poured millions of dollars into Arkansas to win the nomination for Lincoln, who didn’t have a prayer of winning the general election. That election was intended to send a message to progressives: we can raise cash by the trainload if that’s what it takes to shut you up.
I agree with you. We can work for Progressives, and we should, but at the same time, unfortunately, we must face the fact that we are going to need to work AGAINST the entrenched Dems. Until we get rid of them, we’re not gaining any ground.
Exactly. Now, if the Democratic Party wanted to come back to the young people (who are way left of those of us who read this blog, BTW) that might be negotiable. But I doubt that’s going to happen. It’s possible, maybe, but it would require so much change….
“‘What makes more sense to me is to work within the Democratic party running more progressive candidates.’
———
Well put. That is what I am doing. I’m not gonna sit back and take it. I am getting INVOLVED.”
So said Howard Dean. Boy, he sure changed things didn’t he? (NOT)
BOTH PARTIES HAVE BEEN CO-OPTED. It is systemic. You are accepting the flawed status quo. If you keep doing what you have been doing you will keep getting what you have been getting.
This country has junked parties in the past. We can do it again. Change from within is like escaping from a submerged ocean liner. That takes help from the outside, which is where we must find it; phoney hyped movie scenarios notwithstanding.
If Howard Dean couldn’t do it; nobody can. He was our Rambo.
I would be satisfied if I knew both candidates drove Hondas, but I still wouldn’t vote.
If Eugene McCarthy couldn’t do it; nobody can. He was our Rimbaud.
I no longer self-identify as a Democrat though I up until recently only voted D. I couldn’t find how many Democrats were sampled. Am I blind?
I am in your camp if you mean to say you would vote for a D if he/she seems like a genuine progressive in the primary. We could have D progressives easier than third party candidates. Were I in MA I might be tempted to vote for Warren as a fer instance.
I think there is room for both angles. There is nothing wrong with creating a voting block/party outside of the Democratic party to try and force the party leftward and give people who feel the party has compromised too much an option beside more compromise. Ben Nelson should not HAVE TO BE an acceptable choice for everyone. Equally, there is no problem with those that want to work within the parameter of the already created system to get “better” representation. I do think they (those insisting we need to work within the system) need to realize though that it has been almost a decade and they haven’t exactly been able to move the ball far down the court. The progressive caucus main claim to fame has been to be a bunch of scolds that ultimately fold faster than a lawn chair.
So the majority would be satisfied with the choice between MR and BO?
A nation of idiots.
Looks like a lot of people are not only happy getting totally fu*ked, but roll over like dogs and beg for more.
You don’t know how obnoxious I can be when I don’t get my way.
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Ask my wife. :-)
Mainly I intend to wake people up and be a general pain in the ass.
See #25
I don’t think people should be so surprised. There has been evidence that about 25 percent of each ideology treat elections like football season. Then there is a decent portion of the population just attempting to survive. They don’t really have the time between their jobs and raising a family to invest much time into changing things so they just pick between the choices given and hope for the best. Then there is the rest of us. We have the time and inclination to follow DC and it’s activities.
As a staunch Democrat, I am not an Obot. However, I am a Chicano and a military vet, and therefore, understanding the demographics trend, “racial and ethnics” will become the “majority” in an approximate 40 years. Thus, “racial and ethnics” will own, control and manage both the Democratic and Republican Parties. And more likely, the Republican Party will no longer exist in its present form. So, if there is to be a “viable” Third Party, obviously, the “Old and Tired White Dudes” Party will become known as the “Conservative Abraham Lincoln” Party due to their ‘victimization’ and their strong dislike for Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War.
Need more be said?
Jaango
As interesting as the above is, even more interesting figures are that 82% of the people feel congress is doing a lousy job and 76% of those polled think their own representstive does not deserve re-election.
Frankly, IMO, Obama’a 47% approval rating is an anomoly.
Enjoy your multiple concussions. It’s way too late to salvage the platform of the New Republican Party (once known as Democrats). If 81% of that party is satisfied with the Patriot Act replacing the Bill of Rights, the legalization of indefinite detention, undeclared war and regime change masquerading as “kinetic military action” for “humanitarian reasons”, sanctioned murder of American citizens, non-regulation of the banksters, conspiring with the health insurance industry, prosecution of whistle blowers,etc., your efforts are futile. It’s not redeemable, it’s a tear down.
It appears that they’re so inured to the anal rape that they no longer require lubricant.
You may be a Democrat, but the party you belong to moved to your right awhile ago. Clinton was the one responsible for the transformation with his fealty to Wall Street and the G.H.W.Bush agenda.
What you are saying does not make sense. Democrats repeatedly say they are acting in a certain way to appeal to swing voters. When they know they’ve got your vote sown up, there’s no reason to listen to you because you’ve surrendered your power away.
If people were smart they would always vote and never vote for a Democrat or a Republican. But they are stupid, just the way the Oligarchy wants them.
Half-assed “solutions” like insta-runoff come from the same zeitgeist that we have lived under for so long; Reaction vs. Phoney Change.
We need to go beyond the false choice and the dangerous trajectory of Reaction vs. Phoney Change.
We need a bottom-up National Convention that represents We The People and we need proportional representation to be agenda item #1 so that we can go about our petty bickering without elite domination.
holeybuybull@32
You are correct that the Democratic Party moved to my Right. And that’s often the case since the elite among the Democrats have been determined to “co-opt” the ideas of the Conservative Right. And it’s this outcome for Neo-liberalism that distinguishes America’s politics. Thusly, my advocacy for Patience and Self-Restraint is prevalent since the largest majority of any political segmentation, are Progressives. As such, Time is part and parcel to our overall alliance.
Jaango
The only solution to American politics is violent revolution and the imprisonment of the entire political/banker/industrialist class. So, basically, there is no hope of improvement, ever.
Have a nice day. :)
If you believe the majority of the country is “progressive”, then what good will “patience” do? If we can’t get a government even vaguely resembling the one we want now, despite the majority you allege, why should there be hope for the future? What magical “change” do you “hope” for?
I understand you think that there will be fewer of us Evil White Oppressors around in the future. I will you well being governed by the Enlightened Multicultural People, such as Barack Obama, Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal…etc.
(Racism is merely a tool used by capitalists. Greed knows no skin color.)
This comment is based on my current understanding of our U.S. political system.
The problem with working inside the Democratic party that must be seriously considered – is the party funding structure of the National Committees. How does a progressive caucus remain free from the funding control of the incumbent committee head.
Would you suggest an absolute prohibition on Hill Committee funding? If not what? Modern U.S. parties are not organized by a member based organization, but they are organized by Hill Committee funding. I do not mind the money flowing hand to hand, as much as I mind the invisible strings attached to that money.
Could we require public disclosure of these transactions?
reference: Hill Committees
Our Glorious National Committees: Ever wonder what they do?
http://i-voter.tripod.com/NationalCommittees.html
Your solution is part and parcel of why and how we’ve arrived at our present mess that Professor Wolin accurately calls “Inverted Fascism”: instead of changing, instead of doing things a different way, and instead of standing up for our Progressive values and principals, you dare suggest we continue to hock and pawn those values and principals in favor of more fence straddling centrist-extremist failsauce in holding more snotlockers, and casting more and more fucking retarded votes — even it means we get stuck with DLC/Third Way house wiggers like Ben Nelson, Rham Emmanuel, and President Aceveda?!?
*blinks*
Problem: Terri Schaivo had no brain stem — what’s our excuse?!? Exactly what line of smoke blowing BS are we gonna use for the next 40+ years to explain the previous 40+ years of our persistently vegetative state (and with the stagnant wages to show for it)?!? Because to be honest, Democrats today are exactly like Woody Harrelson’s character in the movie “White Man Can’t Jump”: stupid, distracted, dumbed-down voter-drone marks for getting hustled (because their dope – their addiction – is this virulent strain of malignant optimism that deludes them into believing THIS time will be different and they will con the con-men) and of course once it backfires, they expect to keep their wifey molified with just enough Stan Laurel/Glen Beck victim/martyr smoke and mirrors (sans chalk boards and vapor rub)_ only to be told very curtly through clenched teeth and a curled lip, “YOU HAPPENED AGAIN, DIDYA?!?”
And that is also why we’ve got a Occupy shitstorm right now that could easily turn into our own American Spring in short order. Those people got sick of tired of happening again a long, long, long time ago. But it never inspired them to take it to the streets in droves until they finally got sick and tired … of being sick and tired. And it’s got the rich bipartisan elites running scared for they know how close the Occupy movement was close (and still is) to flipping a military base before the crack down — no Iraqi or Afghanistan war veteran wants to come home to joblessness, foreclosure, and privatized debtor’s prisons only to get pepper sprayed and their skulls fractured for protesting it. Yet they have no choice — that’s exactly the America they are coming home to.
And it’s exactly the same America that Daniel Shays came home to …
The Shay’s Rebellion showed the errors and the unworkability of the Confederacy, blowing it up faster than a format on a Clear Channel owned station. The Occupy movement is showing a lot good it did, and a new Constitution and format is in order. The present system is not worth preserving. An angry black man once said “preservation of the current system is to enable, reward, consent, and acquiesce to that system”. Too bad he got assassinated for it …