Britain has the Conservative and Labour parties. We have the GOP and Dems. France’s two main parties are the Socialist Party and Republican Party, while Germany’s are the Social Democratic and Christian Democratic parties. Western democracies tend to have two major parties, whether their system of government is parliamentary or like ours.  In parliamentary systems, more sharing of power is done, because a multitude of minor parties often guarantees that two or more parties have to join forces to govern—no party has a simple majority. In any case, these are all representative democracies.

Conservative voters should be happy, though. For the most part, representative democracy is more conservative than progressive, because majority opinion often puts brakes on any radical ideas. In this sense, conservative parties are superfluous. It often takes the domination of one party, often despotic, like in Venezuela, or in faux democracies (the German Democratic Republic AKA East Germany was a prime example), for the majority to wake upa an spur on radical, progressive change. For the most part, people just try to get on with their own lives and hope THEIR representatives don’t screw things up too much.

When I first arrived in Colombia, Conservatives and Liberals took turns. That was an agreement reached after toppling the dictator Rojas Pinilla, who had forcibly ended La Violencia, that terrible civil war between—you guessed it—Conservatives and Liberals. For years, government in Colombia was a shadow representative democracy, although elections for lower legislative positions were “representative.” Democracy is messy, so people often turn to strong men (or women) who will clean things up. There are still people in Spain who yearn for Franco, for example. “You could walk safely in the streets of Madrid late at night,” one guest at a dinner party there once told me. Fascism appeals to people who see chaos all around them.

Franco’s appeal is Trump’s appeal in the U.S. now. People want to walk safely in the streets late at night. They don’t want to be terrorized by criminals of any stripe. They want to feel safe, have good jobs, educate their children, and forget about government. Now they feel that the old way of doing things isn’t working. Sanders’s appeal is often said to serve that same purpose. But it was the other pole of the magnet. Yes, people wanted change, but they didn’t want to turn to fascism either. Sanders’s revolution also was attractive to many not satisfied with the old way of doing things, but his supporters looked toward a brighter future, not a return to the dark past of Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, and the Japanese Empire, or the faux democracies Russia has often suffered from and promoted, or Donald Trump.

Sanders’s movement was vanquished by all those people waving the flag of the status quo. Trump’s movement remains. But representative democracy isn’t working in America in any case, and Bernie Sanders was a major casualty of this. In Colombia, we used to make jokes that the only thing different between Liberals and Conservatives was the hour their leaders went to mass. What’s happening in America is similar. Dems paint the GOP as villains, and vice versa, but is there any fundamental difference between these two parties that represent special interests and not the people? They’re champions of the status quo. Aside from the anomaly of a turn to fascism via Trump (always possible), one of the two major parties will always be in power, their candidates determined by a primary process that ensures that representative democracy is impossible.

You don’t believe it? Just consider the number: 14% of eligible voters in the U.S. voted in the primaries! Those candidates were determined by a small minority of political activists who are not representative of the majority. That’s why we are so often forced in the general election to choose between the lesser of two evils. For 2016, those 14% determined two very flawed candidates who fail to represent the majority of Americans. If that’s not an indictment against our current system, I don’t know what is.

You say, “Our system is based on checks and balances. We have protection against bad presidents.” Hmm. I’m looking at our Congress. How’s that protection working out for you? It’s dominated by the same two old parties. All those representatives and senators who are up for reelection in any given electoral cycle are determined by similar primaries—in off-years, the percentages are even lower than 14%. And almost every one of them is beholding to special interests. They are elected and are immediately thinking about funds for their reelection.

What’s the solution? One is clear: the primary system must be reformed, or we will continue to get flawed candidates! All primaries should be open—that means voters can vote for any party and any candidate, delaying their choice right up to primary election day. Everyone should be an independent.  Open should also mean that any minority party getting enough signatures should be able to participate in each state’s primary. We can still let the parties determine their own candidates, but that determination should only be made by popular vote—the whole delegate system and national conventions should go because they’re a waste of money and time, simply a schmooze fest for the party faithful.  And the caucuses should be eliminated (that nightmare of flipping coins—do you really believe Clinton won the coin flip four times in a row in Iowa?—should never be repeated). Super delegates, or whatever you call them, should all be eliminated too.

That’s a bare minimum. The Electoral College should be eliminated too. What about states’ rights? Protection against tyranny of the majority? Along as minority rights are protected, neither is necessary. No minority has the right to dominate a majority in a true representative democracy, but the majority doesn’t have that right either. Nor do two majority parties! With very few tweaks needed, the Bill of Rights is sufficient to protect minorities, given that its provisions are enforced. Hopefully we can evolve toward a truly representative system. I’m pessimistic, though. Trump winning would be a terrible step backward, but maybe we deserve the thousand lashes he represents for painting ourselves into the corner we’re now in.  Hillary, are you listening?

***

On sale: The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan. This sci-fi thriller will be on sale at Smashwords for $0.99, reduced from $2.99 (67% discount) from now until September 1. Use the coupon code FU54W. First question: what will the U.S. in the future do with retirees with Top Secret information? Second question: how do you prevent the assassination of a presidential candidate? Third question: is there room for romance in the life of an old agent? This fast-moving story’s main character is a woman who shows perseverance and strength to survive while unmasking a terrible conspiracy. Don’t miss the thrills!

And so it goes…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 9th, 2016 at 4:00 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.