Alternatively, we can start with the evidence that our political-government-economic system is broken. A key symptom is an epidemic of existential emptiness. There is little holding America and Americans together other than materialistic consumption.
Root problems have cascading impacts throughout society. A majority of Americans believe our national system has been seriously degraded over time and is stuck on the wrong track. Besides consistent results from polls and surveys, there is the unsettling fact that, even in this year of heightened political events and talk, 60 percent of eligible voters chose not to vote. This negative reality defines a remarkable opportunity to build widespread public agreement about solutions to core problems - to create an incentive to vote by giving people more political choice. We need a political party to help Americans fill our empty national center with meaning.
For convenience, let's call real, trustworthy centrism "populist centrism." It is defined by what is central to and in the center of public consciousness – our broken system. It offers a true, sorely needed paradigm change. Consider that when asked whether life for the next generation would be better, worse or about the same as life today, 40 percent of Americans said "worse," while just 30 percent answered "better." The fraction of Americans that believe the country is heading in the wrong direction is a disturbing 60 percent! A nation that has lost its center creates widespread despair, pessimism and ennui that even compulsive consumption cannot remedy, though it certainly distracts from distasteful realities. And that's what plutocrats prefer – a voracious consumer economy, people hooked on borrowing and spending rather than being politically engaged.
Authentic, populist centrism has the capacity to unite Americans, despite differences on issues, in a battle to make politics, government and the economy serve working- and middle-class people. All but the upper class can see the prime root problem: Politics, government and the economy now primarily serve the greed, demands, and selfishness of a class of rich and powerful elites, often acting through corporate powers, PACs and sanctimonious think tanks. Elitist interests have turned American democracy into a plutocracy. Private and corporate wealth has been turned into political power, government control and economic inequality. We have an aristocratic ruling class.
Ordinary people retain many personal freedoms, but our representative government no longer represents them. The minority that own most of America control it, while the majority drive the economy through their spending. Millions of wealthy Americans vote. But much less than a majority of working- and middle-class people take placebo voting seriously. The USA has become a non-populist democracy.
The Political Solution
How do we politicize the public's negative feelings? How do we get more Americans engaged politically, enough to take voting for third parties seriously and reject lesser-evil voting for major party candidates – to take back the sovereign power that is theirs?
To fix our nation we must remove control of OUR political system by the two major parties. Many rightfully see the Republican and Democratic parties as just two sides of the same coin or two heads of the same beast. Howard Dean was correct when he wrote in 2004: "After nearly a decade of widening income inequalities, campaign-finance scandals, noxious inside-the-Beltway compromises, and political catfights ... the American people felt equally disenfranchised by Democrats and Republicans." A 2006 national poll found that 53 percent of Americans supported a third major party. A remarkable 73 percent agree that "it would be a good idea for this country to have more choices in the 2008 election than just Republican and Democratic candidates."
A majority of people want more political competition. Yet history's lesson is that third parties have done very poorly in challenging the two-party duopoly. That is not their fault. The two-party mafia has rigged the political system to bury opposition. Despite historic levels of public dissatisfaction with both major parties, in the 2006 midterm elections there was no mass embrace of third party candidates, which largely remained unknown to the public. Considering the staying power of the two-party duopoly, would deceptive-partisan or honest-populist centrism best challenge it?
Clearly, populist centrism is a truer, bolder alternative. It can bring us back to a populist democracy. Fixing the republic is a nobler, more necessary and better unifying goal than reaching compromises on a host of issues framed by the major parties. With populist centrism, the public can rally behind a patriotic movement to fix our democracy, political system and economy. Just as individuals think in terms of centering themselves to become healthier psychologically, with honest centrism so too can our country center itself, connect to its roots, unite itself, and harness people power to repair and renovate itself. United, Americans can challenge the power of political, economic and corporate elites.
With honesty we can reach consensus on how to fix the broken system, return power to the people, make representative democracy work, and remove the corrupting influence of big money on the whole political-government-economic system. The goal is systemic change and national renewal through revolutionary reform that includes overturning the two-party status quo.
The two major parties cannot admit that the whole political-government-economic system is seriously broken. Why? Over decades they each contributed to breaking the system. In their own ways, each major party has been permanently corrupted by big money from corporate and other special interests. Each has contributed to a culture of corruption and dishonesty. They enable each other. The only competition they want is from each other. They have sold out Americans.
After the 2004 election Sirota warned about "bankrolled politicians who have hijacked 'centrism' to sell out America's middle class." Caution is needed about this year's big Democratic win. As to Democratic candidates, pragmatism ruled the day; they said whatever was necessary to win. As to voters, hatred of President Bush, his policies and the Iraq war prevailed. The Democrats won a majority of just 40 percent of the voting electorate, perhaps 25 percent of the total. That is not much of a public mandate.
A third political party can emerge to steer public debate on the exact reforms and solutions needed to fix our broken country. It can define itself in a principled way to attract the majority of Americans – not stuck on extreme positions – that want profound national improvement. It can set out a strategy to get the nation on a new track to a better future, using a new dimension, not the tired and corrupt left and right parallel tracks of Democrats and Republicans. It can make centrism a trusted political philosophy as well as the defining character of a competitive political party.
With honesty, a third party can overcome the damage done to worthy concepts of centrism, progressivism, and populism by many groups and people practicing semantic chicanery. We desperately need candidates that are not shills for elites, but who will unflinchingly serve the interests of working- and middle-class Americans. We must imagine success: A third party that leads a rebooting of American democracy. Strong public thirst for historic change is real. A majority of Americans agree that our system is broken. They await a competitive third party with a fix-our-democracy message. Democrats and Republicans should NOT be allowed to keep their stranglehold on OUR political system when they no longer have the consent of most of the governed.
The majority of Americans have decided. A democracy with too little political competition provides too little incentive to vote. It is a delusional, centerless, non-populist democracy. Let's fix it by joining together at the center.
Joel S. Hirschhorn is the author of Delusional Democracy - Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government (www.delusionaldemocracy.com). His current political writings have been greatly influenced by working as a senior staffer for the U.S. Congress and for the National Governors Association. He advocates a Second American Revolution, beginning with an Article V Convention to propose constitutional amendments. He is Chair of the Independent Party of Maryland.
This Populist Centrist all the People for the people party already exists, but has not been named until now. By me. The Apathy party. Fact is most people don't care about politics, don't like taxes at all, look at goverment fixes and projects and despair. For example, The Interstate system, obselete practically before it was built. Space Shuttle, be honest, would you fly on that thing? Here's one topical, The Levee system in New Orleans(no comment needed), Fact is the road to hell is filled with good intentions applies expecially to government initiatives. Where's the competence? Our best and brightest do not serve in government. Do not want to serve in government. How do you fix that?
Besides that, how on earth will you ever get a populist party by the Main Stream ELITIST CONTROLLED media. When you type MSM for media you need to change that to MSECM. Truth. Look what the MSECM did to Howard Dean with that scream. Why I ask You? Go back and read Dean's early campaing rhetoric and see all the taboos he broke. Plus he tried to do an end run on the MSECM with the Internet(grass roots?) (Populist?). But you can't run for office totally on the Internet and when he surfaced on TV well, we all saw, but how many realized what was really going on.
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"Hoss" David P. (51 articles, 5 quicklinks, 14 diaries, 338 comments)
on Monday, December 4, 2006 at 2:51:03 PM
With no politician uttering a statement, even about the weather, without checking the poll numbers one would expect our political systems to seemingly see all playing towards the middle. In reality the behind the scenes machinations make the voter almost an irrelevent pawn in a game he is not invited into.
Look, in 1968 the highest paid CEO in the land made roughly 239 times that of a minimum wage worker. In 2005 that CEO made over 20,000 times the minimum wage, one CEO in the health care industry actually reaped, in salary, stock options and bonus over one billion dollars...yup no misprint that.
The game is played with money, and as the gulf between the worker and CEO widens to astronomical proportion, as the middle class shrinks to miniscule proportion, the politico can make those meaningless middle of the road platitudes that really deliniate no position because he or she is really playing to the boardroom and not the electorate. With enough cash to pay for unending commercial time on the
media a candidate can simply brainwash a voter into selecting that all too familiar name.
The middle signifies a point half way between the opinions of everyone, noone really lives there, and it is as much a copout as a lie. People who claim the mantle of centrism really claim not very much in the way of a real position, in my opinion, and contribute the same nothing to any political dialogue. It seems more a lack of character than a real political stance.
Today , Thom Hartman spoke to this on his radio show. He noted that what really deliniates a progressive is not his support for a laundry list of changes, but a real world view and an understanding that everything on this planet is interconnected and interdependent. Not exactly a position found in the center, now is it?
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments)
on Monday, December 4, 2006 at 6:58:29 PM
Until we get campaign finance reform. How are you going to ever compete with the Republicans or Democrats when they are sucking up all the Corporate and special interest money? It's an old saying, follow the money. Get the playing field leveled and maybe a third party would have a chance. Still as you said, a center of what? Right now we have an empty headed population that act like lemmings walking toward the cliffs of disaster. I tried to start a third party. I've been all through this and it always came back to the money. Control the money or just bar it from entering into play by taking the rights of corporations to be considered "a person" under the law, and we can start from there. The hard part is getting Americans to care about where our political direction is headed.
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Timothy V. Gatto (348 articles, 177 quicklinks, 38 diaries, 574 comments)
on Tuesday, December 5, 2006 at 5:19:00 AM
I appreciate the thoughtful comments given. One reason I wrote the article was the bad image centrism has received. That is the result of how the two major parties and their politicians have abused the notion of centrism. Centrism must have some singular and important meaning. Perhaps my science metaphor of centrifugal politics that has spun our country apart did not work. I see honest centrism having the potential to bring the nation back together, especially if it is populist. I see virtually no hope for the nation as long as the two-party mafia maintains its stranglehold over OUR political system. Apathy is justified with this condition. Making third parties competitive requires the campaign finance issue to be addressed; I think the solution is the Clean Money/Clean Elections approach where candidates voluntarily agree to take only government financing that puts them on an equal footing with the major party candidates. Of course, the odds are against third parties under present conditions; but as the data I gave in the article show, the vast majority of Americans are smart enough to know that we need more political competition. The centrist and populist concepts have merit. I think progressives have been harmed by so many Democrats calling themselves progressives. The same arguments against a meaningless centrism can also be made against progressivism. In my mind, real progressives are not enthusiastic supporters of Democrats; they should be fighting for third party competition and removing the barriers to them set up by the two major parties.
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Joel S. Hirschhorn (131 articles, 33 quicklinks, 60 diaries, 526 comments)
on Tuesday, December 5, 2006 at 9:07:10 AM
Mr Joel:
It will be counter productive in the long run to try and exclude Corporate influence from the Political Process. After all in our capitalist society(love it or hate it) it is the Corporations that Make the cars, supply the fuel, build the houses etc. While this mass consumerism can seem out of control to the detriment of some people's financial lives, most of us I hope are simply grateful to be able to get what we need and sometimes what we want to be able to enjoy a modern life. The problem in Corporate culture is this Profits over People Agenda. How to get back to the simple respect of community and inclusive Corporate policy and yet remain competitive is the Answer. How to get back to a Profits with People Agenda would I think be worth discussing. I will start with Unions. While at the beginning they addressed obvious wrongs and they did improve lives without impacting Industry. But in the end Unions became an undesirable dead weight not only on Corporations but American competiveness in general. With Job guarantees and Low Quotas we created an entitlement program out of our workplace. I think we are seeing a reaction to the over reaching social engineering program that our Unions morphed into. There just has to be a middle ground in all this. Fair Profits for business who create the jobs with fair wages and benefits for workers who show pride and facility in their work. There are other areas beside Unions of course but I think my Idea of working together has been stated somewhat. At least enough for a comment.
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"Hoss" David P. (51 articles, 5 quicklinks, 14 diaries, 338 comments)
on Tuesday, December 5, 2006 at 1:14:26 PM
You actually believe that corporations have given so much to this nation that they shouldn't be excluded from the political process? where is your justification for that? They make things to make a profit, not to "help" people. They aren't even "American" corporations, they are Transnational. The people who want corporate money out of our campaign funding are not anti-corporatists or communists, we just don't want them buying thev government. Who do you work for?
by
Timothy V. Gatto (348 articles, 177 quicklinks, 38 diaries, 574 comments)
on Wednesday, December 6, 2006 at 8:28:57 AM
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