One of the most common complaints I’ve heard from students is that the U.S. should have more than two parties. I usually respond with the benefits of the two-party system and why it’s unlikely to change anytime soon. Now, however, my position has changed. The U.S. needs a third party...here’s my case.
#1-Yes, it’s still unlikely to happen. Part of the problem with third parties in the U.S. is that structurally the electoral system is not suited for more than two parties. I’m not talking about campaign finance or the media environment or anything like that. The actual electoral system, only one winner from an electoral district and the winner only needs a plurality (not a majority) to win, leads to effectively two parties. In political science, this is known as Duverger’s Law and is one of the most well-known and studied propositions in the discipline. Countries that have an electoral system like the U.S. have two parties and that’s pretty much that. There are small exceptions though, and the U.S. could be a little more like those exceptions. Most of the exceptions are for regional political parties, such as the Scottish National Party in the UK or the Bloc Quebecois in Canada. However, the UK also has the liberal democrat party, in addition to the traditional center-left Labor party and traditional center-right Conservative party. The liberal democrat party occupies the space in the middle and has played a role in Parliament. As long as the electoral system stays the same there will always be two main parties in the U.S. but there can be a consistent third party that emerges and can play a role in governance.
#2-The Republican party is off the rails. There have always been fringe elements to each party, that is one of the drawbacks of having two broad parties. They are by definition big tents and will always have some fringe elements associated with them. This has become more prominent in the U.S. for a variety of reasons (it is too big of a topic to get into now, but it has to do with the direct primary system and proliferation of information/media that accompanied cable news and the internet). For the Republicans, with the election of Trump, these fringe elements have essentially taken over the party and led to what has become a largely unserious party. The party allowed conspiracy theorists into the White House to advise Trump, recently compared wearing masks to the Holocaust, suggested that if Washington had been wearing a mask the British wouldn’t have surrendered (what?), looked for traces of bamboo in the ballots in Arizona because of a crazy conspiracy about China and on and on. Added to all of this is that the former President is still spreading lies about the 2020 election and Republicans who dare to tell the truth, like Liz Cheney, are voted out of positions of leadership. The Democratic party has not succumbed to their extreme wing yet, evidenced by the choice of Joe Biden, but it is there as well and will be difficult to keep in control once Trump is out of the picture.
#3-Despite the extreme polarization there are some surprising areas of overlap of the current versions of the Democratic and Republican parties. Both sides are seemingly intent on spending a great deal of money and not worrying about deficits. Both sides want to go after big tech. Both sides are anti-China. Both sides are against free trade. Despite all of the talk about “socialism” and tax cuts for the rich, there is a surprising amount of agreement on economics between the two sides. The issues that have become salient in politics have changed. This allows for voters to switch sides, such as the 13-15% of Trump voters in 2016 who also voted for Obama in 2012 and the over 10% of Bernie Sanders supporters in 2016 that voted for Trump for president. You can also see the change in salient issues in the success of the different media outlets that advance small “l” liberal values and look at the divide between Republicans and Democrats based on the old issues. By this I mean conservative groups like The Dispatch, moderate groups like The Bulwark, and liberal groups like Persuasion. While the three groups may have diverse policy views and represent the left-right divide from 12 years ago, they now are connected in their commitment to certain aspects of the process and conduct of politics. The fact that they have broken off somewhat from their traditional sides indicate a willingness and desire for something different.
#4-Even though a third party is unlikely, it could possibly work in Congress. I’m not as convinced about this one myself but here’s how it potentially may work. In multiparty parliamentary systems where no one party has a majority of seats then coalitions of multiple parties must form together to create a majority government. This can go one of two ways. First, a center-left or center-right party can form a coalition with a more extreme party, which will pull the party and government actions more to the extremes. Second, the center-left or center-right party can form a coalition with a center party, which would lead to more moderate policies. I envision this second scenario in the U.S. Because the Republicans, and Democrats, are seemingly becoming more extreme and the apparent desire for a middle road, I would expect a third party to be a centrist party. One that is roughly associated with the type of people interested in the groups like The Dispatch or Persuasion. In this scenario, enough members of this third party would be elected so that neither Republicans nor Democrats would have a majority of seats in Congress. This would lead to interesting situations where different coalitions would form on different issues between the centrist party and the two traditional parties. Arguably this would lead to more moderate policies, or at least policies representative of a broader array of interests.
Based on the evidence it appears that the time may be ripe for a third party to emerge. Indeed, according to polling support for a third party is at its highest ever and more than 150 prominent political figures have called for a new party. I know that this is largely dreaming and the electoral system in the U.S. does not tolerate more than two viable parties for long. But there has to be a first time for everything, right? If nothing else, the desire for a voice that speaks to more traditional liberal values/policies and more traditional conservative values/policies is growing and will manifest itself in the political arena sooner or later.
Campaign Ads
So, this is not really a campaign ad but it is one of my favorite videos. It shows the ideological position of individual members of Congress throughout the history of the United States. What is most interesting is that you can see the periods of party realignment because the ideological dots become all jumbled up. This indicates that the old differences between the two parties are taken over by divisions along new issues. Then, the ideological positions of the individual members fall back into a more familiar pattern where you can obviously distinguish the difference between the left and right but sometimes there is a new party and always the makeup of the parties has changed.