Copyright Arkansas Online
Last week's column argued that effective resistance to Donald Trump's authoritarianism requires effective reform on the part of the Democratic Party; that if Democrats are truly serious about stopping Trump and "saving our democracy," they will take steps to make their own brand less toxic. This will mean, among other things, moving from roughly the 10-yard line on the left side of the ideological playing field somewhere close to the 50, around which most of the voters are usually grouped. Easier said than done, of course, especially when considering the degree of tribalistic conformity afflicting both left (woke) and right (MAGA), and the manner in which each defines itself in opposition to the other. The battle between electoral pragmatism and ideological purity has been around for as long as political parties, but it is only in the past couple of decades that the latter seems to be consistently prevailing over the former, to the detriment of parties and nation. Up into the present century, the formula for winning presidential elections in our two-party system was fairly simple--occupy the center-left or center-right and let the other side get stuck further right or left. Either party moving too far from center presented an opportunity for the other to paint it as outside the mainstream. Winning elections mattered more than adherence to rigid ideological precepts. As our elections became more about turning out each side's respective bases (rather than appealing to independents/moderates with little attachment to either), those bases (MAGA and woke) have become dominant in each, creating the rigid political paralysis we are witnessing, in which neither side dares give an inch for fear of losing a mile. The advent and entrenchment of our party primary systems have contributed to this deadlock, as contenders for each side's nominations have to tack left (Democrats) and right (Republicans) to prove their bona fides to the kinds of more-ideological voters that participate in such contests. Most Democrats might not be woke and it's possible even now that most Republicans might not be MAGA, but primary voters are much more likely to be one or the other. Apart from dismantling the primary systems and returning to the smoke-filled rooms at the conventions, which is unlikely to happen in our distressingly uber-democratic age, this leaves us with only three ways out of the morass: the emergence of a competitive third party, a repudiation of woke and MAGA by those currently filling those ranks on each side, or the repudiation of woke by non-woke Democrats and of MAGA by non-MAGA Republicans. The first option--rise of a viable third party that occupies turf around the center and could put pressure on Democrats and Republicans to moderate in turn--continues to be elusive for all the usual reasons, including our single-member plurality (SMP) "winner-take-all" electoral system. Given the nature of the Electoral College, there are no rewards for finishing second, let alone third (in contrast to proportional representation systems, which allocate political power in accord with percentage of vote received). Wherever one finds SMP around the world, one tends, as in America, to find entrenched two-party competition. The second--that the MAGA and woke will have a change of heart and renounce their ideological convictions (or, in MAGA's case, their complete loyalty to an ideologically bereft Trump), thus becoming something other than MAGA and woke--seems even less likely. As crusaders on behalf of all that is good and moral, MAGA and woke have become powerful forms of personal identity for their adherents. Charles C.W. Cooke nicely captures this degree of psychological investment, and the extent to which it all revolves around Trump, when he notes that: "For every person who has adjusted his political outlook to match his disdain for Trump, there is an equivalent who has adjusted his political outlook to match his ardor. ... Why? A desire to belong. A desire to be relevant. A desire to avoid being shouted at by one's allies. The adrenaline rush that comes with being a part of the in-group. The belief--sadly omnipresent in contemporary politics--that one's opponents represent an existential threat to the nation and thus that any dissent from one's own side is the equivalent of giving aid and succor to the enemy." That leaves us with option No. 3, wherein more moderate Republicans muster the courage to buck MAGA and Trump, and more moderate Democrats muster the courage to buck the woke, in effect taking back their parties from those who have dragged them to the fringes. Alas, there is always a "who dares go first" challenge at work in such adversarial circumstances, not just in terms of which party moderates first, but who within each is willing to speak out against Trump or woke, at risk of their political careers. Politicians who care more about their country than getting re-elected might fall well short of a critical mass. Still, there is an enticing electoral opportunity here that is going to become more difficult to ignore over time, since the political future will belong to whichever party is the first to somehow cleave off their extremist wing and walk through the door marked "normal." Freelance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.
