In June 2022, Gallup asked respondents to a US poll about their party affiliation. “In politics,” the researchers asked, “as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat, or an Independent?”
The largest segment of participants – 43% – said they were independent. Republicans and Democrats accounted for 27% each.
Note the lowercase “i” in independent. That means it’s not a party, like Democrats and Republicans are. Real political parties have policies, they have big bank accounts, they have organizations in every state, and they have a seat at the polls in elections.
But if the leaders of a new centrist political party, whose formation was announced on July 28, 2022, fulfill their objective, the “Party of Forward” will attract many voters who no longer identify as Democrats or Republicans and will become a force of force. moderation – and an institution – in US electoral politics.
“How are we going to solve the big problems facing America?” said the founders at a press conference. “No Left. It’s not right. Advance.”
Here are three stories from The Conversation’s archives that analyze the chances of others succeeding in changing the US political system.
1. Don’t count on it
Political scientist Alexander Cohen of Clarkson University acknowledges that the US two-party system has been “under siege” for a long time. Critics of party politics in general date back to the founding of the country.
“Alexander Hamilton called political parties the ‘most fatal disease,'” writes Cohen. See the article : Amazon expands Prime Videos Watch Party feature to Roku, smart TVs and more. “James Madison renounced ‘factional violence’ and George Washington feared that a very successful party would create ‘frightening despotism’.”
Still, parties have persisted as vehicles of electoral politics in the country, evolving into the current two-party system from a variety of parties that have come and gone over the last 200 years. An upstart third party is unlikely to dislodge the status quo, says Cohen.
“Modern Republicans and Democrats are unlikely to go the way of the Whigs, Federalists and Anti-Federalists, regardless of recent political earthquakes.”
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2. It’s hard to end the party
The two-party system is here to stay To see also : WSU Ph.D. The candidate researches the link between white identity politics and support for voter suppression.
A third, writes Indiana University political scientist Marjorie Hershey, simply has no upper hand in the US political system.
“The US electoral system is the main reason the US is the only major democracy with only two parties consistently able to elect public officials,” writes Hershey. “Votes are counted in most American elections using plurality, or ‘winner takes all’ rules.
But in many other democracies, says Hershey, various political parties can thrive because of a different system of electing representatives. For example, writes Hershey, there are widely used systems that award seats in proportion to the percentage of votes a party wins.
“In the Netherlands, for example,” writes Hershey, “even a small ‘third’ party called the Party for Animals – made up of animal rights advocates, not cats and dogs – won 3.2% of the legislative vote in 2017 and won five seats out of 150 in the national legislature”.
If such a system existed in the US, it would mean that even a small party would be smart to run for Congressional candidates, because even if the party only got 5% of the vote, “they could win 5% of the state seats in the US House.” .
But one caveat: those voters who call themselves “independent,” or say they are disappointed or disillusioned with political parties, are still influenced by vestigial partisan sentiment. Researchers find, writes Hershey, “that most of these ‘independents’ actually lean toward Democrats or Republicans, and their voting choices are almost as intensely partisan as those who claim a party affiliation.”
3. Winning isn’t everything
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Why Trump is More Likely to Win the GOP Than Lead His Followers to a New Third Party To see also : How two Texas mega-donors accelerated the state’s far-right transformation.
Not everyone sees failure at the polls as the final judgment of America’s third parties. Winning elections is not necessarily the goal.
“The most successful third parties in US politics typically do not achieve dominance, but challenge the major parties enough to force them to change course,” writes political scientist Bernard Tamas of Valdosta State University.
Tamas, who has written a book on third parties in the US, says they tend to arise when Democrats and Republicans are politically polarized — something that has happened periodically since the Civil War. This polarization between parties means that “larger groups of voters end up not being represented by any of them, and the intense competition between them also increases political dissatisfaction”.
In the 50 years following the Civil War, the two parties were very polarized. Third parties were “aggressive and strong” during this period, writes Tamas.
But its aim was not to become an institution in a new multi-party democracy – as Front Party leaders now hope.
For example, the Greenback Party in the 1870s and the Populist Party in the 1890s aimed, through electoral victories, to force the major parties to adopt policies in support of “poor farmers and opposing business monopolies”. The Populist Party has been especially successful in pushing Democrats to adopt these positions.
Tamas predicted in 2021 that a new centrist third party would emerge – much like the party that debuted on July 28. He noted that challenging the Trump-influenced Republican Party would be such a party’s primary focus.
“The new party can gain strategic advantages by running candidates in local and state elections in more moderate places, where some Republican candidates, however, have chosen to follow their party to the extreme,” he writes.
But even if the Front Party raises money and puts forward successful candidates, it may not be long on the US political scene.
