I had a political discussion with a friend of mine the other day. This is not in the least bit abnormal, except for the fact that it was via a Facebook note. My friend was commenting on presidential candidate Ron Paul, and the fact that you, the reader, are probably thinking to yourself right now, “Who the hell is Ron Paul?”
In case you don’t already know, Ron Paul is a Republican presidential candidate from Texas. He has a cult following, but unlike the Giulianis and McCains of the world, few knew of his existence before his campaign began. He’s a Republican by name, but was the 1988 presidential nominee for the Libertarian Party. He advocates some seemingly radical – though by no means crazy – policy plans, such as withdrawing from the United Nations, completely remodeling the FBI and CIA and abolishing the federal income tax.
Also, he’s not getting anywhere near the White House – unless he joins a tour group.
This is because in the United States, we have a two-party system, where only the Democratic and Republican candidates in a given election, with a few exceptions, really have much of a shot at winning. Here, pretty much the only service provided by so-called “third parties” is to offer up policy ideas to be absorbed into the platforms of the two principal parties.
Since he has some ideas that stray from the norm, Ron Paul (and other longshot candidates) has a snowball’s chance in hell of actually getting either party’s nomination and, therefore, has the same slim chance of actually winning a national election.
It’s not like that everywhere, though. In many other countries, there are strong third parties – so strong, in fact, that the third party becomes the “second party,” gaining enough legislative votes to pass one of the principal parties. Such multi-party systems aren’t necessarily products of radical governments or nations – they can be found in some of our favorite countries, like Canada, Germany, France and to a certain extent Australia.
In such a system, coalitions usually must be formed, which forces more negotiation and more compromise, rather than lining up the Republicans and Democrats and cutting them loose on one another. It’s by no means perfect, but it allows a bit more ease of entry into the political marketplace of ideas.
One of the biggest problems in American politics today is the perceived polarization in Washington. Everyone’s either Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, red or blue. The world of politics is all about conflict – after all, whenever important decisions must be made, there will be disagreement. But it seems that the “us versus them” nature of a two-party system does more harm than good.
Maybe some of the ideas of people like Ron Paul will be heard. But that doesn’t seem good enough. American politics shouldn’t belong only to the big dogs. That’s not what this country is about. It’s about the people.
And don’t even get me started on the Electoral College.
