The Incredible Shrinking Political Party

How both major parties have left themselves vulnerable.

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Pete Buttigieg pleaded with last night’s debate audience in Las Vegas—and throughout the country—to see the light. “Let’s put forward somebody who’s actually a Democrat,” the former South Bend mayor said in a not-so-subtle shot at two of the frontrunners for his party’s presidential nomination. “We shouldn’t have to choose between one candidate who wants to burn this party down and another candidate who wants to buy this party out.”

Bernie Sanders told reporters in 2015 he was “the longest-serving independent in the history of the United States Congress,” and—while he has since formally affirmed membership in the party—he continues to exist well outside of its mainstream. According to reporting by Edward-Isaac Dovere in The Atlantic Wednesday, Sanders nearly mounted a primary challenge to President Obama in 2012. (A Sanders spokesman denied these claims.)

Also onstage Wednesday night was Mike Bloomberg, who—once a Democrat—successfully ran for mayor of New York as a Republican in 2001 and became a registered independent in 2007, only rejoining the Democratic party again in 2018.

On the other side of our political divide, today’s leader of the Republican party wasn’t one as recently as 2009. In a 2004 interview with Wolf Blitzer, for example, then-reality-game-show-host Donald Trump said he “probably identif[ies] more as a Democrat. … It just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans.”

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  1. Avatar photo
    Theirn Scott

    Hmm, I wonder if the parties could devolve to the point of having no parties? Mr. Washington would approve.

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    Ray Salemi

    “democracy fundamentalism” is spot on.

    It’s the “if you disagree with me you are not only wrong, but evil” mindset.

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    Pat Riot

    The missing ingredient is *principles*.

    The Democrats have never been a party based on ideology, but then again that made it easy for politicians to join them if they had the practical ingredients (i.e. the ability to get elected). I don't think much has changed about the Democrat in this aspect, however.

    The Republicans, on the hand, used to be a party based on ideology, and as such used to have a lot more strength as a party.

    Starting in the 1990s, the GOP transformed itself into a populist party just like the Democrats, but with a different audience. I attribute that downfall the key Republican economic ideology being based on a false premise which eventually became an inescapable reality: giving tax breaks to rich people does *not* make the working class richer. Out of ideas, and with no Cold War to base a seriously differentiated foreign policy on, the Republicans essentially ran out of ideas. Without ideas, the goal of the party is to win elections and nothing else.

    Now we have two populist parties and zero Conservative parties.

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    Alex

    I don't think this solves anything. What I mean by this is that the deed is done. There is likely no going back to giving the parties more control over their candidates. At least not without a massive restructure or a new party altogether. Either outcome is unlikely. Consider what would happen if the Democratic party actually made a decision for the party. If it were this year then, like you suggested, Buttigieg would be out, and so would Bloomberg and possibly Sanders. The accusations would fly and the seemingly undemocratic process would suddenly become hyper-democratic. The Dems would be painted as that good ol' boy club that wants what's best for them, not the rest of the country--elites making decisions in back rooms (or whatever nefarious substitute).

    I'm all for a more sequestered process. Clearly masses of people can't always be relied upon to pick the best choice (queue debate about the particulars here). But once you let some control like this slip up then you've likely lost it for good because there is no good way to rein this one back in without making it sound as though you're making a democratic process undemocratic.

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    John Q. Public

    “Paradoxically, democracy fundamentalism—the insistence that the remedy for whatever ails democracy must be more democracy—is dangerously undemocratic, as America’s Founders well understood.”

    This is arguably the biggest problem in American politics today. The problem is that there are no incentives for any politician to point it out because voters don't want to hear it. Telling voters that they may not necessarily know what's best for the country is not a very good strategy for getting re-elected.

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    1. The Quiet Elitist

      That line stuck out to me too and it reminded of this article from the Atlantic last December.

      https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/12/too-much-democracy-is-bad-for-democracy/600766/

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        Ray Salemi

        It’s funny that the Atlantic is wondering something that has been known for over 2000 years.

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        1. The Quiet Elitist

          Better late than never, I guess.

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    Jenny

    I have to admit, my Dispatch reading, especially Jonah's pieces, just about have me on board for doing away with the primary system for picking candidates. Smoke filled rooms now seem a little bit more noble by comparison to the mess we have now. So here is a question I'd love to see the Dispatch explore--can we ever go back to the parties picking the candidates and cut the public out?

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    1. Ann G

      I don't think there are enough people of character or insight to fill those rooms and make good choices for the country as a whole. So we will be pulled in all the directions of personal interests until a victor can emerge, either through money, manipulation, or less likely, persuasion. Unfortunately, large segments of voters seem more conducive to being swayed by emotion or repetition than facts, leaving us vulnerable to continuing to elect poor leaders.

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      John Q. Public

      Short answer: almost certainly no. The idea of democracy being a good in and of itself is too deeply ingrained in the American consciousness for the parties to turn around and say, "Actually, you all aren't very good at picking candidates. We'll be going back to the smoke-filled rooms now and you can vote for whoever we decide"

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      Smitty

      There's no putting the genie back in the bottle. Whatever we do will have to involve something new or marketed like new. I don't have any idea what that might look like. But ranked ballots seem like a good place to start.

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        Jenny

        I'm open to the idea of ranked ballots as well. The idea of playing to the base before pivoting to the middle forces candidates to be less than genuine from the start.

        However, while I am not hopeful of going back to the good ole days, it would be an amazing stroke of bipartisanship if both the Republican and Democratic parties came together to say, we're done with this nonsense and taking our power back. Who knows, that might even open up third-party possibilities if the more radical parts left the main parties?

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          Smitty

          I admire your optimism. And I hope you're right. But I'll believe that when I see it.

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            Jenny

            The sun is shinning in Michigan today, so optimism is on tap.

            Probably nothing will change, but it would be nice if something could be learned from the trend towards more extreme politics. I honestly think most people would rather have something closer to the middle, and I wish there was a mechanism to nudge things in this direction.

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    Ryan

    Great piece. What is missing from this emerging narrative of weak parties is discussion around the legal barriers these formerly-strong parties have put in place against the emergence of any real competitors. In other democratic systems, parties this weak would be swept aside by others willing to assert their prerogatives. But ballot access rules, state funding of primaries, and other governmental support for these two hollowed-our husks prevent anything more healthy from taking hold. When you hear that the only way to break through the duopoly is with an independently-wealthy independent, that should tell you something is wrong with the democracy itself.

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      Smitty

      I was taught that two party systems emphasize stability. If they do, fixing the parties would fix the problem without breaking the system. Bottom line is if it ain't broke don't fix it.

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        Ryan

        I suppose, but it depends on what you mean by “fixing” the parties. Originally, the parties were idea organizations intending to promote candidates sharing their views into positions of power. To that end, the parties served the candidates - they got them elected in an efficient manner, and they kept them elected. They’ve always been aimed at serving a customer - the voter - who seeks a particular electoral and policy outcome. Their ability to do so has defined their success. That prime directive has been perverted, however, as the parties have outsourced their values and product to their customer (through primaries, poll fealty, etc). Think what would happen if Apple giving its customers full control over the iPhone. It would make the company irrelevant and incompetent, and the iPhone would be unrecognizable. Just as no company would ever give its product over to its customers, so must a party maintain control over its values and candidate selection. In so doing, though, it has to allow other players to exist and compete for those voters who are not fans of their product. By artificially constraining the parties to two, they put immense pressure on themselves and the system to allow direct public influence, so all voices can be heard. Increase the number of viable parties, reduce that pressure for the two parties to be all-important, and I think you’ll see the system return to a healthier 2-party model where alternative voices can influence the major parties without hijacking them. And if a party decides to go the way of the BlackBerry, there will be an Android waiting to take its place.

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          Smitty

          I think your description of the parties function is spot on. In practical terms we won't go back to the way things were. But it may be possible to restore the function of the parties. At any rate that's what I meant by "fixing."

          But the parties aren't artificially constrained to two. That's done by choice. There were about were about 30 or so political parties that had candidates or write ins that received votes in 2016 for instance. And Libertarians, Green Party, Constitutional Party, and Independents received hundreds of thousands or millions of votes each.

          There is nothing preventing every voter in America from voting for a third party candidate. Most of us simply will not do that. There was a great Simpson's episode about this when Ross Perot ran.

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            Ryan

            I think our only disagreement is around whether the two party system is primarily structural or cultural. I believe that if the structure of our electoral systems weren’t so geared to promote the two parties at the expense of others, our cultural moment would have generated real support behind a third (or fourth) party by now. You seem to say that the two party system is still supported by the culture and if it wasn’t, the system couldn’t stop it from changing. I hope you’re right! I’m afraid that I am.

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    JDW

    I agree! I do think ranked choice voting would go a long way to remedy many of our problems. Trump never wins in that world. It would also allow for more parties because there is no long a flight 96 issue that many succumb to when choosing their candidate. You pick the one you really want first and just make sure your safe choice is above those you don't like.

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      Ray Salemi

      Rank choice voting and winner take all primaries would fix a lot of this.

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