RICHARD WARREN FIELD'S INTERNET COLUMN

Where will the visionary ideas for the millennium come from? They are not likely to come from the mainstream political parties. The way both parties and the current political processes are structured, we are likely to see the same predictable agendas and short-sighted ideas from Democratic and Republican leaders.

Both parties present idealistic facades: The Republicans supposedly have the party that wants to keep government out of people’s lives, and the party that celebrates free enterprise—the Democrats supposedly have the party that cares about the average American citizen, and the party of compassion. But as a quick examination will show, neither party lives up to its billing.

The reality is that the Republican and Democratic Presidential candidates (who lead their parties) have to appeal to the extremes of their own parties to be nominated, and then reach back to the political center in order to be elected. Republicans have been better at this since 1964. The only two Democrats who successfully negotiated this predicament since 1964 were southern Democrats who presented themselves as other than traditional liberals. But in both cases, these Presidents had trouble with Congress because the establishment of the Democratic Party still expected them to cater to the party’s left wing. Bill Clinton’s administration has vacillated between the “new Democrat” approach and the old Washington liberal approach. We can make the case that he has never resolved this conflict.

How does this reach back to the middle muddle the ideological vision of Democrats and Republicans? Both parties follow similar patterns. Democrats are considered the party of the people. But Democrats are also the party of government programs. If there is one lesson the Democrats should have learned since 1964, it is that the people of the United States do not believe in big government programs as the best method for addressing the country’s problems. They accept, philosophically, that less government is better, and that lower taxes are more desirable than government programs. Bill Clinton demonstrated his lack of understanding of this situation when he took the budget surplus and offered program after program, doling out goodies to selected groups, with special problems, without offering any of the money back in the form of a general tax cut. The American people are more likely to say “Give me my money back! You have a surplus; you took too much; give me my money back! If I need to pay for my aging parent to be in a health care facility, I can take care of it myself. Give me my money back!”

Republicans are considered the party of less government. But they are also the party of big business, and the religious right. So while the Republicans say they want to keep government out of our lives, they only support that idea when it doesn’t offend the agendas held by the extreme wings of the party. Republican platforms have been against choice on abortion. That may be one of the most private decisions an individual and/or couple has to make. But this is a key issue for the religious right, so on this, Republicans are enthusiastically willing to intrude into people’s lives.

Also, the Republicans started the “war on drugs” mentality under Richard Nixon, and escalated it under Ronald Reagan and George Bush. If people choose to become addicted to nicotine or alcohol, they are considered unfortunate victims of their weaknesses, and in the case of nicotine, can even sue for damages! But if they choose to became addicted to cocaine or heroin, they are branded as criminals and can be thrown into prison for absurdly long periods of time. Republicans mandate that the government should decide what drugs a person may be addicted to without suffering criminal sanctions.

The current floundering on two issues—health care and the environment—further demonstrates how the current Democratic and Republican power structures inhibit their abilities to offer visionary ideas.

The 1996 Democratic Platform mentions the desire for “clean, abundant and reliable energy.” The platform then goes on to discuss “new technologies -- natural gas, energy efficiency, renewable energy -- developed in partnership with American industries and scientists...” Partnership? With the government? Democrats seem to be suggesting an alliance between business and government for what should clearly be a private sector activity. The platform points with pride to a similar “partnership” with the “Big Three American automakers to develop technology to produce cars up to three times more fuel efficient than those made today -- cleaner cars for a cleaner environment...” These types of “partnerships” have more in common with the old Soviet Union and their “Five Year Plans,” than with the American free enterprise system! What about the little start-up companies tinkering in someone’s garage with dramatic new technologies? Don’t they deserve some kind of “partnership,” if that’s going to be government’s approach?

The 1996 Republican Platform is similarly enlightening on this issue. The platform states that Republicans favor “achiev[ing] progress, as much as possible, through incentives rather than compulsion,” and also specifically proposes an approach to the environment “based on flexibility and consensus, that builds a better future on free enterprise, local control, sound science and technology development.” But the platform then goes on to express the concerns of its big business patrons: energy projects on public lands, dismantling environmental cleanliness regulations, and most disturbing, the platform embraces the slim minority of renegade scientists, sponsored by multi-national energy companies, which attacks the scientific consensus that global warming is a serious threat to humanity’s future prosperity. The 1996 Republican platform even explicitly expresses support for “the original intent of the Mining Law of 1872: to provide the certainty and land tenure necessary for miners to risk tremendous capital investment on federal lands...” Free enterprise cannot function efficiently when the government offers special breaks to favored industries. For years, we have been told that renewable energy sources cannot compete in the marketplace with more conventional energy sources. This is unfair, when those established energy sources are receiving favored treatment. The Republicans demonstrate more concern for an industry’s return on its investment, than for moving toward a healthier environment using the incentives of the free market.

The continuing problems of the health care system in the United States are the epitome of this situation. The Democrats want to solve the health care problem with some form of directgovernment involvement or control. This contradicts the political and economic culture of the United States. Americans traditionally resist government control, preferring private enterprise whenever possible. So where are the Republicans? The American Medical Association, arguably one of the most successful labor organizations in American history, has been able to control the supply of health care. This aspect of the health care situation is almost completely ignored by the two major political parties. Democrats just don’t think “free market.” And Republicans have to fear losing AMA contributions if they offer proposals to change the AMA’s control over the supply of health care, so fail to propose a possible free market answer.

If these two parties cannot provide the visionary, long-range solutions to our concerns, then where should we look? America’s third political parties. During this century, they have been ahead of the mainstream political parties for a number of influential ideas.

We can start with recent history. The key issue of the Reform Party was balancing the budget. The Reform Party campaign of 1992 made this a primary focus of the election. Though Ross Perot did not take a state, or even a single electoral vote, his rhetoric, and his 19% popular vote showing, had an influence on the focus given to this issue, by the people of the country, the media, and therefore, Congress. We now have budget surpluses. Would these have occurred without the Reform Party effort? I believe it is unlikely.

Even John Anderson’s less successful 1980 campaign had an influence. He offered himself as a fiscal conservative but more liberal on social issues. This mix foreshadowed Bill Clinton’s “new Democrat” approach twelve years later. Anderson’s ability to capture 7% of the vote on a shoestring held lessons for a Democratic Party that by 1992 had lost three elections in a row.

In 1924, Robert LaFollette ran on a populist platform as a Progressive candidate. The coalition he sought, of farmers, labor, and immigrants, foreshadowed the Roosevelt New Deal coalitions of the 1930's.

The 1912 third party campaign of Theodore Roosevelt, the most successful of the century, may not have offered revolutionary ideas. After all, Roosevelt had been President from 1901 to 1909, so his ideas were familiar. But his aggressive campaign for the Republican nomination, against his old friend and ally, William Howard Taft, changed American Presidential politics. 1912 became the first year that candidates publicly campaigned for office. And 1912 also led to the modern primary system. The public asked how a candidate who had lost eleven out of twelve primaries could still get the nomination. And, how a candidate who had won nine of the twelve could fail to get it. (Ironically, 1924 third party candidate Robert LaFollette won two of the twelve primaries, one more than the incumbent President Taft).

But maybe the most fascinating third party candidate to look back at is perennial third party Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs. He ran in 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912, and from a jail cell in 1920 (serving part of a ten year sentence for speaking against United States involvement in World War I). His best result? Six per cent in 1912. What radical platform planks, that the public was not ready to embrace at the beginning of the century, did Debs propose? Laws to curb child labor, graduated income tax, giving women the right to vote, direct election of United StatesSenators (Senators were elected by state legislatures until the 17th Amendment, ratified in 1913), unemployment compensation, employer liability laws, pensions, and a national department of education.

Debs was asked to run again in 1924, but declined. His Socialist Party was withering away, and he was nearly 70 years old. Instead, he supported third party Progressive candidate Robert LaFollette! Given LaFollette’s influence on the New Deal coalition, the pedigree of Roosevelt’s revolution for the United States owes even more to third party precursors.

So, we have learned that when Republicans and Democrats need a new, revolutionary approach to a thorny issue, or even a brewing crisis, they look to third parties for ideas. With that in mind, we should all familiarize ourselves with the platforms of the Libertarians, the Reform Party, the Greens, the Natural Law Party, the Peace and Freedom Party, and others. If we don’t see ideas from them that we can embrace today, we will still not be wasting our time. Because we will probably be looking at the ideas of tomorrow.

Copyright © 1999 by Richard Warren Field

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