Well, Steven den Beste gave in to temptation and posted an article on the mess the Democrats have made of their nomination process. I started this as a letter back to him, but given its length and how it wanders around, I finally decided to just post it here, as an article.
One of the things that has been bothering me lately, is the blatant manipulation of the voting process by the Powers That Be, and the effects of the Law of Unintended Consequences. I’m not talking specifically about the Michigan/Florida delegate dispute, though I include it. (And I’m definitely enjoying the schadenfraude.) I’m looking more at things like holding local bond elections on poorly publicized dates by themselves, so that only the proponents will get out and vote; the way that local governments get around voters’ initiatives by floating their own confusing alternatives, and (my local favorite) holding local elections in off-years to avoid “coattail” effects. For instance, here in Houston, muni elections are every two years on odd-numbered years; county elections are held every four with the nationals. Of course demographics plays a huge part, but the city government is Dem, and the county Republican — and if you look at the map, the two are not that different geographically, especially when you consider that the large swath to the east is low-density (for now).
Nationally, the Democrats are being hoist on their own petard. After the 1968 convention, they revamped their rules to remove power from the party elites and “give it to the people.” Primaries became the norm, not caucuses. Rules for delegate selection became much more arcane and “inclusive” so that “different voices” would be heard and empowered. And they’ve changed rules more and more towards proportional allocation of the delegates as opposed to winner take all. The upshot of this is that the Democrats made it absolutely certain that one of two things would happen: they’d either be radicalized by a minority that got control, or they’d tear themselves apart the first time two charismatic or powerful leaders arose at the same time. Through the 70’s and 80’s, neither happened. The Democrats fielded a series of weak presidential candidates, who were nonetheless able to unify their party against the Forces of True Evil, a.k.a. the Republicans. But only once, thanks to the post-Nixon hangover, were they able to break through and win the White House.
Then came the new generation, albeit one that was raised under the old party environment. The Clinton Machine dominated the Democrats in the 90’s, by captivating everyone with a charismatic candidate until it was able to steamroll all internal opposition. Eventually, the Machine wore out its welcome on the national stage, and we got Bush ’43. So what happened next? The Machine faltered, partly because Hillary just isn’t as charismatic as Bill (not by a long shot). And at the same time, the radicals, empowered by the internet (and funded by George Soros), started gaining power. With the new rules, the party elites and brokers couldn’t control wayward factions in some states, and so now we’re having a not-so-perfect storm come together with race, sex, money, politics, and everything else leading us up to what I believe is going to be the most entertaining convention in a while.
I do not, however, believe in the predictions of a meltdown, with everyone settling on Al Gore or any other hack as the compromise candidate. The irony of Al Gore as the “selected, not elected” candidate would be delicious, but not even the Dems are that stupid. Their own greed will save them from such idiocy. There’s going to be some face-saving compromise, and eventually we’ll see Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama, and their friends at the New York times will run a blockbuster expose on the time that John McCain used crayons (not even the non-toxic kind!) to color outside the lines during kindergarten activities. Such a heinous revelation will obviously make him unfit to be commander in chief.
The odd thing is what I’m seeing happen on the right. There are a lot of people who are deeply, deeply unhappy with the Republican party right now, and I’m not just talking about the whole “does the right trust John McCain” that we keep hearing in the press. (For the record, “no.” It’s hard to trust someone that abrogates the First Amendment. A moderate, we can handle. Not someone who sells out the Bill of Rights.) There has always been grumbling about RINO’s and such, but the immigration and pork issues are driving the national furor, and local issues are likewise reaching the boiling point. The last few years have seen the formation of several activist groups, and now an American Conservative Party is trying to get its act together, either as a non-party advocacy organization, or maybe as a third party. Hell, even the fruit loops in the Libertarian Party have picked up voters over the last couple of cycles. Locally, I’m talking with voters who believe that the Republican Party of Harris County has become just another machine that’s content with holding (looting?) the few offices it controls, rather than challenging the Democratic corruption on the municipal level. In short, the little guys are feeling disenfranchised, and want to do something about it.
Nationally, the “small-l libertarians” are sick of being played off against the religious wing of the party by cynical leaders, and they’re on the verge of bolting. They are doing so as small, disorganized groups at this point, but that has its own problems. Each group has its own agenda and egos. Can they work together? Will someone come along that can get them all pulling together? Will a viable third party form from these efforts? I can see how this can happen (and I have some ideas of what it would take to make it work), but I don’t know if it will happen. Not in 2008 for sure. Nor do I know whether the result will be another “Perot-thrown election,” come 2012 — but if this election is interesting, I think that one’s going to be fascinating.
If current trends continue, I don’t think the time is far off where we are going to see a re-alignment of parties. These have only happened when societal stresses reach breaking points, and the last time we got close was the Granger movement around the turn of the 20th century. Not even the Great Depression was enough; while it was a financial and political stress, there was nothing fundamental about it; not on the level of the industrialism/urbanism vs. agrarianism/ruralism transformation that underlay the Granger movement, nor the slavery issue that destroyed the Whig party and gave rise to the Republican.
This time, I think the fundamental transformation is that of the information society. From instant election results on TV, to electronic voting, to the internet’s ability to enhance the information flow (and political organization), we are seeing a similar shift from industrialism to “informationalism” in the core of our society. Add the environmental and cost factors to transportation, and our energy vulnerability. We’re beginning to see alterations all across our society. Don’t get me wrong: society is always altering, change is constant. I’m not under any impression otherwise. But these changes are converging in key ways to fuel others, and the current mess in the Democratic party, as well as the increasing signs of unhappiness within the Republican party are part of the process as well as the result.
I have been predicting a break point is about 10 years away since 2004. (Six years now, and counting down). At that point, the “baby boom” retirement is going to be well underway, stressing Social Security, and pressure to amnesty the illegals in order to tap them as a taxable revenue source will be strong (assuming it hasn’t already happened and not that anyone will admit it’s the reason anyway). Foreign markets are already voting with their wallets re: how they think the government will handle this crisis.
Foreign governments are an even bigger question. Russia is getting antsy again, and election of a Democrat in ’08 will embolden China to settle the Taiwan issue as soon as they feel confident in their growing navy and air force. Especially if it’s Clinton, given some of the odd security failures and cozy relationships Bill had with them. The biggest variable is the sequence of events. If a national political movement begins to coalesce before any external threats appear, it may be able to ride the storm and profit from it. If it hasn’t, then most voters will “run home to mommy” (the parties they know) and realignment will die, stillborn.
What can I say? Heinlien was right. We live in the Crazy Years.
Update: Steven remarks:
UPDATE: Myself, I happen to think that “winner take all” is a good thing, because it represents a high noise-rejection threshold. That means the system can tolerate a great deal of noise without breaking down.
I explained it in greater depth, via round-about means, in this post five years ago. The bottom line: winner-take-all systems can tolerate a much broader range of political speech. Proportional representation systems tend to be much more nervous and tend to implement content-based restrictions on political speech.
Um, like McCain Feingold? “Or hate speech?” Sorry Steven, gotta disagree with you on this one. While it should work that way, it isn’t. Somehow, the lunatics have gotten the keys to the asylum, and the “noise rejection” in this case is the feeling of anger and disposession of the taxpayer towards their government.
“A government big enough to give you everything you want is powerful enough to take away everything you have.”
I was going to say “unless you want me to believe that the people who understand and apply the above to their political theories are a radical fringe, in which case, our society is in the middle of executing a suicide pact with its government, which I can’t believe that our society is that stupid.”
Yes, I was going to say that… until I realized that the righteous citizens of the Roman Republic probably believed the same thing, right up until Ceasar lay on the bloody floor, and the armies lined up to fight over the empire.