US Politics 102

Another point Den Beste makes is that the two-party system is self-sustaining, although really this is true only as long as the politicians care more about winning than about issues. Compare the relatively stable two-party systems of the Anglosphere with the fractious factionalism found in many European states.

It also depends on the population being essentially homogenous; that there is no large group that truly votes as a bloc. This seems to be becoming more the case rather than less; labour, for example, long the bastion of the left-wing parties, has become rather less of a certainty now that a majority of the public have become shareholders in large corporations.

Marx wanted to resolve the class war by reducing the bourgeoisie to the proletariat. Capitalism has achieved the same end by raising the proletariat to the bourgeoisie. Today, we are all capitalist fat cats, and proud of it. (Except for the self-hating LLLs, who nobody cares about anyway.)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:40 PM

Comments

1 You are wise, Pixy Misa, and I salute you!

Posted by: Susie at October 14, 2003 05:34 PM (0+cMc)

2 Don't worry, I'll get back to my usual nonsense soon!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at October 14, 2003 06:27 PM (LBXBY)

3 Cat-girls in tentacle bondage discussing economics. Can it get any better than that?

Posted by: Ted at October 14, 2003 09:53 PM (bov8n)

4 Er, I have to take issue with the notion that the American two-party system relies on a homogeneity of population. Den Beste himself points out that certain voting blocs tend towards homogeneity in favor of one of the coalition-parties or another: for instance, the black vote, or the segregationist vote. One of the salient characteristics of the midcentury Democratic party was its bizarre straddling of both the black and segregationist voting blocs, the political power that resulted from those two elements, and the collapse of Democratic dominance when the segregationists bailed in the late Sixties.

I would argue, in fact, that there's more evidence that homogeneous populations tend to result in one-party democracies like Japan and the LDP.

Posted by: Mitch H. at October 15, 2003 02:12 AM (tVSJJ)

5 Yes, there is something to that. Um, but it's past my bedtime.

We agree though that these groups tend towards voting as a bloc, at least today; your point on the history of the Democrats is very interesting and not something I was aware of.

Japanese politics are somewhat... odd, and a complex subject in their own right.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at October 15, 2003 02:45 AM (jtW2s)

6 I guess I should elaborate on that black/segregationist thing. To be more accurate, it was the Northeast urban black vote, and the Southern segregationist vote. The actual black vote in the South (such that it was) was heavily Republican up to the early Sixties. Of course, due to various segregationist gerrymanders, poll taxes, etc, the Southern black vote didn't matter in the general course of things. In the Northeast, the black move into the cities produced the usual political-machine ethnic vote. Most (although not all) of the political machines were Democratic, and they absorbed the black migrants like any other immigrant minority - crankily, grudgingly, but effectively.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act overturned the apple cart something fierce. The segregationists flipped out, and the Nixonian-pragmatist-asshole wing of the Republican party rolled out their "southern strategy". Southern blacks joined their Northern counterparts, passing the segregationists in the night, as it were.

The Democrats have only won three of nine presidential elections since then, all of them while fielding populist Southern governors as candidates.

Posted by: Mitch H. at October 15, 2003 04:32 AM (tVSJJ)

7 Thanks, Mitch.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at October 15, 2003 12:20 PM (LBXBY)






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