This year seems to herald the beginning of the end of the two party system. It’s probably actually been happening for awhile and it will probably take a lot longer to complete the transition. However, without some sort of intervention through legislation or the courts, the parties themselves seem anachronistic.
Donald Trump is clearly not a conservative and yet he’s trouncing the standard bearers of the conservative party. Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat and hasn’t been for a very long time but he’s galvanized a large portion of the Democrats’ traditional base. And, before this year, Barack Obama built a parallel organization separate from the Democratic National Committee and even competed with the traditional party for funds.
Back in the early 1990s, some Democrats in North Carolina griped that then-Governor Jim Hunt built a separate organization instead of using the party. Hunt used a system of county keys instead of party officers to raise money and build organization. It was smart politics and he built a machine that enabled him to win elections and build coalitions that extended beyond the party itself. He continued to support the party, though, and backed efforts to elect other Democrats.
Twenty something years later and parties at the state, local, and national level are struggling to find relevance and the money necessary to support them. SuperPACs have stolen the fundraising base of the party and virtually every candidate campaign evolves separate from party organizations. Campaign finance laws designed to reduce money in politics have weakened the party system while creating avenues to financially prop up campaigns outside of the traditional party structure.
Parties were once fairly big tents designed to house coalitions bound by broad principles. Democrats were the party of the average citizens who believe government can offer protection from discrimination, a hand up for the economically disadvantaged, and tools for upward economic mobility. The Republican Party believed in the power of the free market to do far more for people than anything government could to and just wanted government to get out of the way of business and let people pursue their dreams unimpeded by regulations or restrictions.
Today, the coalitions have turned into interest groups who have their own sources of funding and pursue their own agendas. The two political parties struggle to define themselves for a new generation of voters. Bernie Sanders’ supporters have open disdain for the Democratic Party. Trump supporters are bound by anger and resentment, not commitment to common goals. Trump represents a major portion of today’s Republican base. Bernie reflects the views of the rising generation of leaders on the left.
Neither party can survive for long when they are abandoned by substantial portions of the population necessary for their success. The funders have essentially left. This election shows that the base is following suit. Without some mechanism to force money to funnel through parties again, they’ll have a severely diminished place in the American political system in the coming years.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
Actually, it’s the open primaries that are killing the political parties. Open primaries allow voters to register as independents, a rapidly growing class. Independents tend to be voters who hold themselves above the fray, holier than thou toward party registered voters. They dip into a Republican primary one year, a Democrat the next, patting themselves on the back as to how pure a voter they are and how radical the party voters are.
Meanwhile, the registered voters of the parties are left to do the grunt work like raising money, registering voters, getting out the vote, framing the platform, etc. For their reward, they can watch independents skew the primary vote away from those who commit and do the work.
Most independents tend to link to one of the parties or the other. If they committed to that party, they could influence it. If they are centrists, they can bring the party back toward the center. There’s no one to broker the parties away from the radical fringes anymore. The parties themselves used to do it but because of finance laws and open primaries, there is no factor working to keep the parties in the political range of the American public.
If the parties are to survive, and they do frame the issues of the elections, they must bring back closed primaries.
I agree with Thomas’ and Andrew Dedmon’s observations. I live in Burke County, which after Wake and Orange Counties, has had the most State institutions and jobs in the past. Our local party was decimated by Gov. Hunt’s “key person” practices. Prior to that, one had to get the blessings of the Burke County Democratic Party Chair to get a State job. Some of the “key persons” gave to both Democrats and Republicans and had no party loyalty. Average State job-seekers found that they did not have to get the blessings of the county Democratic officers, so party support evaporated.
Mr. Dedmon’s observation is also correct about 100% expectations. I have commented previously about the Reagan-Carter race in which “liberals” stayed home because Teddy Kennedy lost the nomination to Jimmy Carter, and they believed Carter was not purely liberal enough. My fear is that this will happen this year with Uncle Bernie’s supporters who are ruminating over their visceral hatred for Hillary–I guess that 4-8 years or more of fascists running the show will make them happier. To enact any portion of your programs, you must win elections. I’ll vote for either/any of the present Democratic candidates over the crazies on the Republican side.
However, our democracy NEEDS strong, viable parties. Parties have existed to provide a political and financial support base for candidates who are not independently wealthy–or who are ‘bought and paid for’ by rich contributors. Without parties, we will eventually have an oligarchy worse than what we now have.
You are right. Without money or organization, the parties are not able to perform their basic functions: recruit, fund and campaign for their candidates. And what our GOP legislature and governor are doing (for example, by law making everyone a ticket-splitter) is speeding up the process. Sad.
Political parties exist in this country to encourage voter participation and if they do not do so they become not only irrelevant but are actively tearing down the democratic process. Just look at what the PAC’s are doing in the Presidential election. Need more evidence?
I agree with you Thomas .The two parties are now controlled by people who demand 100% adherence to their views. Any deviation and you are not a REAL Democrat or Republican. In my three terms in the NC House I saw these type of people but there were enough reasonable people in both parties to keep them in check. Now especially in the Democratic Party there is only the left and the far left, middle of the road folks like myself need not apply. After the fiasco in Charlotte this week I see not way that the Democratic Party will ever be a governing party in this state. Until there is a place for straight , white , business Democrats there will never be a chance for us to take back government in this state. I hope the Main Street Democrats are able to take a stand and bring back common sense to our party.
Strange that Mr. Dedman especially points the finger at the Democratic Party as the one most absolutist about 100% purity. What a joke! Take a look at the rigid, politburo demands of Republicans as it has moved steadily to the right over the past 36 years, to the point that it is now marching itself steadily over the cliff.
The past four Democratic presidential terms — two each from Clinton and Obama — have been very conservative, Eisenhower-type administrations. Bill Clinton was a founder of the centrist DLC, and Obama is basically a conservative constitutionalist without a radical vision or bone in his body. An incrementalist and possible-ist.
However, there has also traditionally been a very central role that parties played: a party wrote a platform of its beliefs, vision, policies, and goals. To this native-born Tar Heel, the core goals of the Democratic Party have always included free, high-quality public education for all residents; affordable college at the state universities, community colleges, and private colleges; respect for and defense of rights for women and minorities (at least since the 1970s) including the right to a safe and legal abortion as guaranteed by the Constitution; the broadening of the franchise to enable every adult citizen the right to vote; and a pro-business stance that brought us Research Triangle Park and many other innovative, “New South” opportunities. And made North Carolina the envy of the old confederacy.
Sadly, a number of frightened, unprincipled conservadems in the legislature over the past few years have been so intimidated (or attracted by) the crazy right-wing ALEC-inspired and Art Pope-funded policies of the Tea Party Republicans that they voted against some of those fundamental Democratic Party principles, and in doing so lost all right to be considered Democrats. Core principles are not fringe issues, but the very identity of a political party, and if Mr. Dedman or anyone like him prefers those of the Republican Tea Party, let him openly join that party and declare his loyalty.
I have long called on the state party to refuse to fund candidates who do not adhere to its core principles. That’s not a purity test; it’s simply a statement of membership in a group that has stated what those principles are. If you don’t like ’em, don’t join!
Unless the political primary system is fundamentally changed, the Parties will maintain at least one core function – labeling down-ballot candidates so that low-information voters know which Party they are affiliated with. That (D) or (R) is really all of the information most voters ever get about candidates running for things like Commissioner of Labor or Court of Appeals. And let’s face it – that’s all the information they really want.
It’s certainly true that the Donor Class will continue to rely less on the Party apparatus as a way to evade campaign contribution limits, since they now have less transparent, more “reliable” PACs that can be used for that purpose. When a donor wants to make an “investment” in a candidate beyond what is legally allowed, they aren’t going to take any chances that their illegal bribe will be wasted on things like voter registration drives or challenging voter suppression efforts. That money is being given to insure the election gives a “correct result”, and that’s all. So the second remaining core function of the Parties – providing a vehicle for evasion of campaign finance limits – will indeed continue to erode.
I certainly agree that the GOP is in the process of self destruction, but less sure about the Democrats. However, two questions arise out the analysis. One, what remains after this change? Will we see the development of new parties, and end up with several parties, each comprising smaller coalitions of similar interest? Two, can a democracy such as our based on the electoral processes which puts people in office for specific periods of time, survive? Parliamentary democracies can have elections when a party or its leadership no longer has a majority of the votes. We are stuck for four years with the same president, six for a US Senator, four for a House member, and many states have 4 year terms for most of their elected officials.
I don’t think money alone would reinvigorate either party, although cutting off the money from Super Pacs, etc, would obviously force some kind of realignment. But neither party can afford to overlook the anger in this country. Neither, I submit, can the 1%, unless they want to become Russian Oligarchs.