“Both parties suck. Both parties lie, cheat, steal, and just exploit the system. Democrats and Republicans are equally bad and too absorbed in their political careers to do a damn thing for the people of America. I'm neither. I've had enough. To hell with the Republi-Cons and the Demo-Craps. I'm an independent.”
Heard this before? I hear it, or something like it, usually from 20 somethings or more increasingly from folks my own age. I can almost taste the coming diatribe provoked when someone slips on that unspoken faux pas concerning political discussions in mixed company and laments or celebrates a new law or policy or the shifting status of a current politician. If they're present, the 'independent' rushes to the forefront to explain the horrid state of our political system.
Normally I just roll my eyes and get back to my beer. Sometimes I pick the fight. Sometimes I turn to them and say “Hey, really, that's interesting, what would you do differently?” or “So what are you doing to make it better?”
“I'm principled! I'm independent! I'm voting for a third party candidate!”
Really? That's odd, looks to me like you're effectively voting for the person furthest from your ideals.
Folks, we're in a two party system, like it or not. The representative democracy of the United States uses a winner-takes-all system to handle elections, and an electoral college to determine who wins presidential elections. This means losing parties get ZERO representation. If you don't win, then the other side represents you for a period of time. Unlike a parliamentary system which places a number of people into government based on how many votes each side gets, in the US, if 48% of the people vote one way and 52% vote another, the first 48 gets nothing.
What this means is that a third party candidate draws votes mostly from the party closest to that candidate's ideals. In addition, political issues in the US are defined by the media and the dominant parties as binary: There are two positions to hold on anything. Anyone, therefore, who wants to find a niche in which to stand, must peel off a portion of the argument for one side and will be drawing from that side's voters. This, in effect, makes the other side victorious. Remember, winner-takes-all: If one side is split down the middle, the larger side wins and BOTH smaller groups lose everything.
Voters are often confused by the fact that candidates not affiliated with the Democrats or Republicans are categorized as 'independent'. Probably a better word would be 'generic'. There is nothing particularly independent about misunderstanding US politics so badly that you sabotage the people closest to your own goals and effectively vote for your enemy.
Neither is there anything very principled about voting for a platform that can not actually be implemented. Politics are the practical application of theories of governance. It is taking the ideas and putting them into actual practice. If you can't transcend practice because the system won't allow you to win, and by voting you sabotaging the practical politics closest to your ideals, then you are not principled when you vote for a third party candidate, you are merely stupid. Principled men and women have known throughout history that the translation of good ideas to governance requires practical, concrete, and reachable steps that may not entirely mirror the original dream. Sticking to idealistic principle at all costs when the engine of practical politics is started is naivete and advances nothing but the individual thinker's selfish pride.
The Rising Curse of Bilateralism
Bilateralism is my own term for a new form of political hubris. It is the idea that you can discuss politics without that nasty consequence of picking a side by making sure that you hammer both major political parties in equal measure on any issue. Any comment or critique made about one side immediately is followed by a comment about the other. The goal is to avoid one side's natural tendency to circle the wagons and rise up in defense of their party when criticized. This is passive aggression at it's worst. So called 'independent' voters slam the Bush tax cuts, then quickly go on and on about Democratic tax and spend policies and how awful they are. They kick the tires on excessive abortion bills in Republican state legislatures, then immediately bring up 'Obamacare' often just saying the word and hoping the fact that they used it will keep the slumbering red personalities nearby from raising their heads and swinging their disapproving gaze around to the wayward speaker.
Bilateralism is political cowardice. Plain and simple. It is refusing to take responsibility for your political concerns and feelings about governance by hiding at the fulcrum point between the two idologies and tossing out weights to either side in order to keep the ground from shifting much at all. It sounds like you're being politically engaged and involved, but you're not. You're posturing for effect. You're putting on a show that doesn’t' stand for a damn thing when it's over.
So what is political independence?
A real independent voter is one that understands the difference between the ideological platform of a political party and the individual doing a specific job in each individual political post. They also understand that being independent means they have to do work - a lot of it - because they're not letting a political party do it for them. And independent says, for instance, Scott Walker was a Republican when he ran for office in Wisconsin. He is now 'Scott Walker' to me. His job is to represent Wisconsin. I judge him not on his party, but on his decisions, his communications, his agenda, and his methods. I am smart enough to distinguish between the man holding the office and the party holding the man. Once the election is over, the question is not do I approve of Republicans, the question is do I approve of Scott and what he's doing now that he's in.
This same individualized examination is used during elections. Who is the PERSON I'm electing. I certainly weigh that person's party and that party's agenda, but what of the man or the woman themselves. How do they put their party's ideas into practice? Obama and Clinton were both Democrats. But these two men were extremely different and their methods of practicing politics cannot simply end with the independent as 'Democrat' and be done with it.
So what is political independence? It's hard! It's not letting a political party do your thinking for you. It's not voting for an independent candidate or blaming both major parties in equal measure to avoid confrontation, it's the ugly dirty process of digging into each individual who asks for your vote and determining if that individuals unique, specific means of governing is in line with your interests.
So to the third party posers and bilateral fake independents out there, I offer this: If you don't like the party closest to your ideals, get involved and change that party from within. There is no super hero candidate that will transcend US politics to rise above your personal discomfort with picking a side to make it easy for you.
If you don't like conflict when talking politics, then shut the hell up. But don't pretend to be political by handing out equal measure of disapproval with an upturned nose at both parties in order to avoid possibly making someone angry. Independence isn't being equal to both sides, it is evaluating either side on the specifics of what they actually do. Treating both sides equally bad to avoid a confrontation regardless of the issues at hand is simply cowardice. And finally if you say you're independent, then be independent and know exactly what about the candidates out there you do and don't like so you can vote based on the person and not the political party.
The next person I meet who proudly proclaims political independence and can't articulate the basic differences between the candidates or political officials we're talking about is going to get walked away from mid diatribe, and if I'm feeling particularly mean, stuck with my bar tab.
Heard this before? I hear it, or something like it, usually from 20 somethings or more increasingly from folks my own age. I can almost taste the coming diatribe provoked when someone slips on that unspoken faux pas concerning political discussions in mixed company and laments or celebrates a new law or policy or the shifting status of a current politician. If they're present, the 'independent' rushes to the forefront to explain the horrid state of our political system.
Normally I just roll my eyes and get back to my beer. Sometimes I pick the fight. Sometimes I turn to them and say “Hey, really, that's interesting, what would you do differently?” or “So what are you doing to make it better?”
“I'm principled! I'm independent! I'm voting for a third party candidate!”
Really? That's odd, looks to me like you're effectively voting for the person furthest from your ideals.
Folks, we're in a two party system, like it or not. The representative democracy of the United States uses a winner-takes-all system to handle elections, and an electoral college to determine who wins presidential elections. This means losing parties get ZERO representation. If you don't win, then the other side represents you for a period of time. Unlike a parliamentary system which places a number of people into government based on how many votes each side gets, in the US, if 48% of the people vote one way and 52% vote another, the first 48 gets nothing.
What this means is that a third party candidate draws votes mostly from the party closest to that candidate's ideals. In addition, political issues in the US are defined by the media and the dominant parties as binary: There are two positions to hold on anything. Anyone, therefore, who wants to find a niche in which to stand, must peel off a portion of the argument for one side and will be drawing from that side's voters. This, in effect, makes the other side victorious. Remember, winner-takes-all: If one side is split down the middle, the larger side wins and BOTH smaller groups lose everything.
Voters are often confused by the fact that candidates not affiliated with the Democrats or Republicans are categorized as 'independent'. Probably a better word would be 'generic'. There is nothing particularly independent about misunderstanding US politics so badly that you sabotage the people closest to your own goals and effectively vote for your enemy.
Neither is there anything very principled about voting for a platform that can not actually be implemented. Politics are the practical application of theories of governance. It is taking the ideas and putting them into actual practice. If you can't transcend practice because the system won't allow you to win, and by voting you sabotaging the practical politics closest to your ideals, then you are not principled when you vote for a third party candidate, you are merely stupid. Principled men and women have known throughout history that the translation of good ideas to governance requires practical, concrete, and reachable steps that may not entirely mirror the original dream. Sticking to idealistic principle at all costs when the engine of practical politics is started is naivete and advances nothing but the individual thinker's selfish pride.
The Rising Curse of Bilateralism
Bilateralism is my own term for a new form of political hubris. It is the idea that you can discuss politics without that nasty consequence of picking a side by making sure that you hammer both major political parties in equal measure on any issue. Any comment or critique made about one side immediately is followed by a comment about the other. The goal is to avoid one side's natural tendency to circle the wagons and rise up in defense of their party when criticized. This is passive aggression at it's worst. So called 'independent' voters slam the Bush tax cuts, then quickly go on and on about Democratic tax and spend policies and how awful they are. They kick the tires on excessive abortion bills in Republican state legislatures, then immediately bring up 'Obamacare' often just saying the word and hoping the fact that they used it will keep the slumbering red personalities nearby from raising their heads and swinging their disapproving gaze around to the wayward speaker.
Bilateralism is political cowardice. Plain and simple. It is refusing to take responsibility for your political concerns and feelings about governance by hiding at the fulcrum point between the two idologies and tossing out weights to either side in order to keep the ground from shifting much at all. It sounds like you're being politically engaged and involved, but you're not. You're posturing for effect. You're putting on a show that doesn’t' stand for a damn thing when it's over.
So what is political independence?
A real independent voter is one that understands the difference between the ideological platform of a political party and the individual doing a specific job in each individual political post. They also understand that being independent means they have to do work - a lot of it - because they're not letting a political party do it for them. And independent says, for instance, Scott Walker was a Republican when he ran for office in Wisconsin. He is now 'Scott Walker' to me. His job is to represent Wisconsin. I judge him not on his party, but on his decisions, his communications, his agenda, and his methods. I am smart enough to distinguish between the man holding the office and the party holding the man. Once the election is over, the question is not do I approve of Republicans, the question is do I approve of Scott and what he's doing now that he's in.
This same individualized examination is used during elections. Who is the PERSON I'm electing. I certainly weigh that person's party and that party's agenda, but what of the man or the woman themselves. How do they put their party's ideas into practice? Obama and Clinton were both Democrats. But these two men were extremely different and their methods of practicing politics cannot simply end with the independent as 'Democrat' and be done with it.
So what is political independence? It's hard! It's not letting a political party do your thinking for you. It's not voting for an independent candidate or blaming both major parties in equal measure to avoid confrontation, it's the ugly dirty process of digging into each individual who asks for your vote and determining if that individuals unique, specific means of governing is in line with your interests.
So to the third party posers and bilateral fake independents out there, I offer this: If you don't like the party closest to your ideals, get involved and change that party from within. There is no super hero candidate that will transcend US politics to rise above your personal discomfort with picking a side to make it easy for you.
If you don't like conflict when talking politics, then shut the hell up. But don't pretend to be political by handing out equal measure of disapproval with an upturned nose at both parties in order to avoid possibly making someone angry. Independence isn't being equal to both sides, it is evaluating either side on the specifics of what they actually do. Treating both sides equally bad to avoid a confrontation regardless of the issues at hand is simply cowardice. And finally if you say you're independent, then be independent and know exactly what about the candidates out there you do and don't like so you can vote based on the person and not the political party.
The next person I meet who proudly proclaims political independence and can't articulate the basic differences between the candidates or political officials we're talking about is going to get walked away from mid diatribe, and if I'm feeling particularly mean, stuck with my bar tab.
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