(Edit: Oops! Originally posted with the wrong title, drawn from the next article in this series.)

I have, since reading Meade’s magazine article distilling Divine Providence, in which he discusses the Jacksonian tradition, wanted a political party based on the principles espoused by that tradition, and none other. Up until a month ago, I settled for backing the Republican party as the closest alternative. I was hardly alone in that: Meade points out that the Jacksonian principles make up a major portion of the Republican Party:

Solidly Democratic through the Truman administration . . . Jacksonian America shifted toward the Republican Party under Richard Nixon–the most important political change in American life since the Second World War.

It is my contention that the alligence of this Jacksonian block has been lost by the actions of the Republican party in supporting pork, failing to prosecute the war’s home front seriously, and failing to oppose illegal immigration, despite the clear and strong message sent by the voters. For many years, the term applied to such “strays from the fold” has been RINO. It has also been applied by the religious wing of the party to those insufficiently responsive to their beliefs, but this usage is not as common; nothing gets a politician tagged RINO quicker than supporting big spending and big government. But RINO is a deceptive term: these people are part and parcel of what the Republican Party is today. We somehow remain blind to that fact, even as we acknowledge (and lament) that their presence prevents the Party from being what we want. Therefore, a more accurate depiction would have been “NJR” or Non-Jacksonian Republican.

This is a crucial distinction, and one the mainstream media has not seen, or perhaps it refuses to. In the view of our oh-so-centerist media (just ask them, they’ll tell you!), “conservatives” mean Jesus freaks and NASCAR rednecks. The followers of the Jacksonian tradition have ground their teeth and tolerated the slurs, having no clearly defined identity, no tag, no label to describe itself. Arguably, the Jacksonians weren’t even aware of themselves as a group until after Meade’s groundbreaking article was published. But now they are beginning to be–and a critical mass may be reached soon, for Meade firmly predicts that the fate of the Republican party will rest with the decisions made by Jacksonian believers:

The future of Jacksonian political allegiance will be one of the keys to the politics of the twenty-first century.

It is my belief that the discontented “conservative” voters in the U.S. today are primarily Jacksonian in their outlook, and they are ready to lay down their allegience to the Republican Party. The “silent majority” has been disenfranchised by the persistant lean (if not outright run) away from its principals by both parties, and the Jacksonians badly want a party reflective of their belief structure. Peggy Noonan says in today’s Opinion Journal:

The problem is not that the two parties are polarized. In many ways they’re closer than ever. The problem is that the parties in Washington, and the people on the ground in America, are polarized. There is an increasing and profound distance between the rulers of both parties and the people–between the elites and the grunts, between those in power and those who put them there.

But how? The dominant political parties have “rigged the game” to make it extremely hard for others to enter it. In doing so, they have undone the work of Andrew Jackson:

-Andrew Jackson laid the foundation of American politics for most of the nineteenth century, and his influence is still felt today. With the ever ready help of the brilliant Martin Van Buren, he took American politics from the era of silk stockings into the smoke-filled room. Every political party since his presidency has drawn on the symbolism, the institutions and the instruments of power that Jackson pioneered.

More than that, he brought the American people into the political arena. Restricted state franchises with high property qualifications meant that in 1820 many American states had higher property qualifications for voters than did boroughs for the British House of Commons. With Jackson’s presidency, universal male suffrage became the basis of American politics and political values.

And from there, we went on to universal citizen suffrage, which is where we should be. But how important is that vote, when someone else controls who you can vote for? Oh, there has to be a selection process, to screen out the whackos and field strong candidates– but with only two choices, group-think has set in with a vengence. County-wide, less than 100 people make the real decision on what choices we have on primary day. That’s out of a population of what, four million? At the state level, it’s even worse, proportionally speaking.

Addendum: From The Twilight of the Two Party System, a position paper of The Jacksonian Party:

The work of the Two Party System since the 1930’s has been that to divide the commonality of We the People and repudiate the Constitution in that doing. And the fruit of those long decades of giving unto the Federal Government more and more responsibilities and allowing the Legislative and Executive branches to codify their parties into perpetual power and their persons in High Office in Congress as Royalty that may not hindered by the mere Law that applies to We the People is a bitter one. We the People now stand as a People divided by ethnicity, national origin, skin color, living circumstance, sexual outlook, religious viewpoint, and fiscal wealth. Each party has pushed hard for these divisions so as to ensure that We the People will view each other with suspicion and not be able to come together to form ‘a more perfect Union’ and ensure ‘Justice’ that can be applied equally to All of the People.

Continuing:

Just look at all the footwork being done by Strayhorn and Friedman to run for governor of Texas as independants. The very fact that they are in the race is indicative of people’s alienation from the major parties: Strayhorn actually has a shot, a long one, but a shot at winning nonetheless. Beyond even that, however, is the fact that both she and author Kinky Friedman may outpoll Chris Bell, the Democratic Party candidate. He isn’t a particularly strong offering to start with, but to be relegated to fourth place is an embarassment for any so called major party, and a measure of how angry the electorate is. If enough of that anger turns against Perry’s “tax solution,” then Strayhorn’s chances will improve remarkably, and we may be treated to the spectacle of an independant governor in a state, indeed a region, with no tradition of independant politics.

It is Ms. Noonan’s contention, and that of the Texas Rainmaker (who also quotes the above) that not only has the come for a third party to form; it will form, and this time it’s got leverage that even Perot’s money couldn’t buy fourteen years ago: The internet.

Perot showed that even with a dissatisfied electorate and a lot of money, one cannot build a political party on the leadership of a single person (especially if he’s a flake.). A broad-based coalition of angry voters must emerge around local leaders to create a new national party. The only way to build it is from the ground up. And the only way to do that is to reach enough people who are willing to set aside their apathy and feelings of helplessness in the face of the two-party system, and pitch in to build that party. The internet is the method to make that possible. Again, quoting Rainmaker:

…with the grassroots effort of the Internet, I think the tide could be changing. Now anyone with a computer and Internet access can reach millions of potential voters and get something close to “equal timeâ€?… especially as citizens continue to shun the traditional media outlets.

The question is not if… but when?

Obviously, it is impossible to make a showing in the 2006 elections now — and our masters in Washington know that, even as they continue to “pork it up” and allow illegals to flood across our border. They pay us lip service even as they continue business as usual. But Houston has a unique opportunity to make a statement on national issues within the local scope in 2007. Yesterday, two issues about which the electorate has been increasingly polarized, were passed by the City Council at Mayor White’s request. The lesser of the two would be the red light camera system. The idea itself, the questionable value, and equally questionable bid procedure was enough to make it a contentious issue, but one that probably would be “forgotten” in the same way that the Kingwood annexation and (Un-)Safe Tow have been forgotten: the anger is still there, but it’s muted and part of the background mutter now.

Not so with the day labor center. It is too wrapped up in the issue of immigration, which will keep it fresh in everyone’s minds; further, since the funding has to be voted on yearly, it will come up again next year during the campaign.

Add all this to the latent unhappiness over expensive arenas, unsafe rail, Metro’s arrogance, and Mayor White’s use of quasi-governmental authorities to “lock in” his agenda for the future … and the opportunity exists for a group to coelesce in opposition to all this. One that can draw on a wide base of anger to bypass the traditional party apparatchiks that control who we get to vote for, and thereby what kind of government we get.

Will Houston become the base from which a new political party springs? A Jacksonian party, built around the principals of that oh-so-overlooked president?

One can could only hope. Now, perhaps, one can do something….