A NEW MIDDLE GROUND

After our most recent election, it may appear that our country is more polarized now than it has been in ages. It seems the gap of ideological differences my never be overcome... But my question remains as to whether or not the differences are mere constructions? Is the gap between left and right really so huge, when either way, under whichever party, we seem to be expanding federal government power, increasing an unsustainable amount of entitlements (aka “government handouts”), and we seem to be looking toward the president to do Congress’ work in representing the “will of the people”.

It seems that no matter what is emphasized by either party, whether it be “fixing” health care for the left or “fixing” taxes for the right. Whether we ever solve for the economy, immigration, or gay rights - we have yet to create and elect an ideology that permanently slows the growth of our government and tackles the bureaucratic beast that was once the federal government.
This is why I didn’t vote, the left seems to me to be unrealistically idealistic in how much the federal government is capable of accomplishing. And the right seems to merely say “no” to all their ideas, or worse, sometimes snag them as their own. This is where the confusing convergence of the parties has impacted the will to vote.

Last week, I referenced one of my favorite authors, Anthony Downs. This classic political scientist also extrapolates on the framework for the conditions necessary for a third and new party to arise and seize power from one of the existing two. One or all of these things might occur:

a. “There is an opportunity for [the new party] to cut off a large part of the support of an older party by sprouting up between it and its former voters”...
Kind of like how old Republicans might have gotten disgruntled about their party taking issues like abortion and anti-gay rights and anti-immigration and global domination to create a “conservative” platform... some might have become “former voters” because they’re idea of conservative -- small government and free markets and constitutional preservation --might no longer be truly represented in any party.

b. “Another situation which may be productive of new parties is a social stalemate... Where voters are massed bimodally at opposite ends of the [ideological] scale... peaceful governance becomes difficult... a faction desirous of compromise may grow up” ...
Is anybody worried about a “stalemated” system for our Congress anytime soon? Would it be disastrous and chaotic? Or would it be an opportunity?

c. “Another situation opportune for new parties is when an entirely new block of voters enters the electorate”....
This is why my hope for the next generation’s ideology for governance lies mostly with the people who are NOT voting right now. There is some ideology that is not factored on our “scale” between left and right which currently stands as being represented by the two parties. These “nonvoters”, if their numbers continue to increase, might soon be a “new block” of future voters.

This is why disgruntled voters that don’t “vibe” entirely with either party right now, may someday have the power soon to create anew. This is why I do not fear a social stalemate, but anticipate it with a hope that the people might be given responsibility again to demand that which they want from our government. This is why I do not vote. Right now it is a waste of my time. Right now, it is more useful for us, the nonvoters, to figure out what the people can agree on someday. A balanced budget? A clear definition of the balance of powers? A few less invasive military presences around the world? A regeneration of that which we find good about our political system... A new middle.

-E.C.Mignanelli

A HOUSE DIVIDED? MAYBE NOT.

Welcome back to our discontented and often cynical reports on the status quo of the American political system. Please forgive me for having taken time off from writing in order to get married (hence the new last name), move living situations again, and begin to pursue my dream of a legal education.

We revisit this blog right now, not in hopes of convincing you, the reader, to share completely in our dissatisfactions and opinions. Rather, we invite you to consider, engage, and debate with our findings, so as we clash and wrestle with the current state of our society, we might work together to agree in how to promote the improvement thereof. JS Mill once said, “If any opinion be compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.”

I write today, because I’ve been disturbed by our last election. We read headlines of a gridlocked and stalemate system. We hear foreign news agencies facilitating debates as to whether or not the American system is now broken. We witnessed a drop in voter turnout by over 20% of the entire population compared to the last election (SOURCE). This is by far the most disturbing aspect for me. For when the people are willingly choosing to abstain from an election, we know that the people’s opinions have been silenced. The danger, then, according to Mill, would be the supposition of the infallibility of those opinions that seem to prevail in our current status quo.

This blog does not believe all to be lost. Rather, perhaps all is merely beginning...
Anthony Downs once summarized, in his most famous work, his economic theory for the interworking of democracies and the interactions between voters and parties (SOURCE). He extrapolates on how the majority of voters, in the standard two-party system, remain mostly in the middle of the two parties when voting. The strategy for both parties, therefore, would likely be the gradual shifting of these parties, closer and closer to the middle point in their ideologies in order to safely win over the voters in the middle, without losing too many of the voters that remain on their respective fringes. The shifting of the two parties, in our case, seems to have resulted in the homogenization of the left and right into one super-political party.

We saw how the floosy rhetoric of abstractly positive concepts such as “hope” and “change” and “cooperation” helped win a landslide victory in our last presidential election. Because it only took these feel-good platforms, and an attractive character to spout them, in order to satisfy voters on both spectrums, it is not surprising to me to have seen a shift in power to the opposition Republicans in the House of Representatives just two short years later. The shift in voter preference does not seem to come entirely from a sense of dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party, but also from a lack of participation due to an inability to be able to differentiate between the goals, beliefs, records, and therefore trustworthiness of the two parties.

I say this because it is clear the people still believe voting to be important. A recent federal government survey found that 93% of infrequent voters agree that voting is an important part of being a citizen. Also, 81% of nonvoters agreed it is an important way to voice their opinions on issues that affect their families and communities (SOURCE). If this is true than people choose not to vote because (a) they believe issues facing the federal government no longer affect their families or communities, (b) they believe neither party to have unique solutions to the issues at hand affecting their families, rendering voting a waste of time, or (c) they believe neither party to have ANY solution, still rendering voting a waste of time.

We will try to prove next week, given any of these three scenarios, why all of this gives way to an opportunity for the emergence of a third and new party to become one of the major two, turning our status quo into our generation’s political revolution...

-E.C.Mignanelli