Like John, I’ve always thought that third parties were like the XFL. In fact, if it were up to me, all third-party candidates would have to wear a He Hate Me starter jersey on the campaign trail.
Not surprisingly, chunky David Brooks feels differently:
Imagine if Bloomberg, instead of using New York’s Republican Party as a flag of convenience, had spent his mayoralty building up a permanent third force in city politics — a good-government party, modeled after the 19th-century Mugwumps, that could provide a civic-minded counterweight to the Democratic machine.
Or imagine if California’s famously polarized legislature included several smaller parties — Libertarians, Socialists, Social Conservatives — capable of forming coalitions with either the left or the right, so that every budgetary debate didn’t pit a bloated Democratic majority against an intransigent Republican rump.
I’m going to forgive the gratuitous “I’ve heard of a political party you’ve never heard of” reference, because I understand the iatropoic excitement that comes from talking about obscure historical events.
But Libertarians, Socialists, Social Conservatives solving California’s perennial budget crisis? Is he not aware that the problem is the 2/3 vote required on budget votes? How on earth would more political parties help with that?
SFAW
Iatropic? What, is that the word of the week?
Just because Ambinder doesn’t know what it means, you don’t need to be a pedant as well. Well, it is Bobo, so I can sorta understand it, but still.
dmsilev
And he’s not even using the term correctly. They weren’t a third party, they were switchers from one party to another.
Wikipedia:
-dms
donovong
Yes! And the Bull Moose party was such a great success for Teddy Roosevelt! Right?
stinkwrinkle
He’s falling into the common trap of wishing parliamentary style politics into the American system. Interesting idea, and it never happens.
The Grand Panjandrum
He probably got the inspiration for this column while chowing down at the Applebee’s salad bar.
SiubhanDuinne
I remember reading about the Mugwumps in a children’s book I had as a little girl (not a kiddie history text but an actual story). They were, at least in the book, portrayed as being beneath contempt — turncoats.
I didn’t know until I looked them up in Wiki just now that their name means “sanctimonious” or “holier-than-thou,” LOL. (ETA, dmsilev got there first.)
Jeanne
Please, make “iatropic” a word used here EVERY week.
SiubhanDuinne
@SFAW
@The Grand Panjandrum
It’s not Bobo writing this, it’s Douchehat (aka Chunky David Brooks).
Demo Woman
Doug,
Obviously, not. Bobo still thinks that Applebee’s has a salad bar.
kid bitzer
not everyone seems to understand that “chunky david brooks” not-equal david brooks.
(maybe if they looked up “chunky reese witherspoon” in a convenient lexicon?)
yeah, douthat really is an ignoramus who is clueless about the actual mechanisms of governance. this is particularly impressive since in one para, he manages to demonstrate cluelessness at the federal, state, and city level.
MikeJ
I’m looking forward to Bobo doing his article on the NY-23 race. I’ve already dug up his greatest hits from Lieberman/Lamont.
Funkhauser
Good lord, he got a degree in whatever social science at Harvard, and he never heard of Duverger’s Law?
There’s a reason we only have two parties. But, please, the right wing can feel free to leave the GOP. Fine by me.
SiubhanDuinne
@kid bitzer 8:17 am
Wasn’t there somebody just recently suggesting that Doubt That actually needs MORE ink/pixels than he has now, and that the NYT should give him a blog?
The Bearded Blogger
1) David Brooks is an indiot who can’t tell his ass from a hole in the ground, and who pompously lectures those who can
2) Having said that, it would be really good for democracy if reform were to make third and fourth parties available. People’s views are only inadequately represented by the two available parties, and polarization leads to behaviour that is harmful for the greater good (duh). A more adequate mapping of political views in the US would be a four party system: 1) a party representing the left and center of the current dem party 2) a socially conservative but fiscally liberal, genuinely compassionate party (anti-abortion but also pro-social security, healthcare, etc), 3) a libertarian/plutocratic/rockefeller republican type party, 4) one or two religious right parties, depending on whether mormons and protestants can get along.
3) Of course, it’s not gonna happen in the near future, so it’s a bit of wankery (or five-against-onery) to pontificate on that, Brooks style.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Bloomberg is going to smack him in the face fuzz for comparing him in anyway to the teabaggers.
Shorter Douchetwat: THE DEMOCRATS ARE WORSE!
Slightly longer shorter Douchetwat: Anything that irritates the DFHHs is automatically a good thing. The fact that the people of NY-23 don’t like it is central to my point.
Do it Ross, do it!
PeakVT
Imagine if Bloomberg … had spent his mayoralty building up a permanent third force in city politics
This is like saying: imagine if everyone got a pony for X-mas. If Douchehat wants more substance in politics, he and his fellow conservatives should stop being oblivious to facts.
Keith
So Brooks wants us to run our government like some race of flying gnomes from the Harry Potter books?
dr. bloor
Duh. The Magical Sparkle Pony party would serve tea and cakes soooo delicious that everyone would be delighted to make reasonable compromises and govern rationally.
Honestly, Doug, sometimes I don’t think you’re sharp enough to be doing this blogging thing.
Prospero
OT, but: A biopic about Mickey Kaus, finally!
The Bearded Blogger
@dr. bloor: The 2/3rds rule in California is shite. However, speaking in general terms, when there are significant third parties in a political system, said system becomes less polarized, more compromises can be made, and there is, taking all parties into account, more room for overlap and constructive policy. In Europe, greens have made headway by making deals with the left and with the right, smoothing parliamentary process and gaining in green legislation in the process.
kay
This reminds me of when direct democracy was going to save our broken system.
Remember that? Government by ballot issue! Go right to the people!
I’m voting this morning against two state ballot issues, one of which is a constitutional amendment, both drafted and promoted by out of state business interests, and both will pass.
This direct democracy thing is working out great for me, I’ll tell you.
I blame California.
Demo Woman
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s early.. Now I know who chunky Bobo is. He probably thinks that Applebee’s has salad bars too.
The Bearded Blogger
@Funkhauser: An insurgent third party (or third parties coalition) in the US would have to push for reform, first and foremost, in areas such as proportional represenation vs plurality rule.
Fulcanelli
A “good government party”. Hmmm you know, that might catch on. Someplace where citizens smarten the fuck up and ban political campaign contributions from Corporations and PAC’s.
Divide and conquer? Chaos theory? Let’s ask Ralph Nader and Ross Perot, that’s the ticket!
I vote we put “iatropic” in the BJ Lexicon. Nao!
Jay in Oregon
New monitor and keyboard required after reading that..
MattF
Just to note: Douthat’s “rich people should get together and do the right thing” is deeply undemocratic– Politics is generally messy and self-interested because people are generally messy and self-interested. If you don’t like it, go back to Russia.
SiubhanDuinne
@Demo Woman
Chunky Bobo spends much of his time at Applebee’s salad bars. (How do you think he got so chunky in the first place? Creamy blue cheese dressing. I’m just sayin’)
WereBear
Parliamentary systems can be a good thing, but that’s not what we have.
So all third party talk has to be either deliberate or unknowing cluelessness. We only really get a third party when one of the main two breaks down.
Why couldn’t Brooks talk about that? (Silly question, I know.)
El Cid
Well, Douchebat certainly has the “holier than thou” part of that cross-party identification down.
MikeJ
Before they were the Mamas and the Papas they were the Mugwumps.
Ash Can
OK, just looking at the two paragraphs cited here, Douthat displays stunning ignorance of American political history in the first, and of contemporary American politics in the second.
And this guy has a degree from Harvard? What did he study there? Botany? Phys ed? Cafeteria cuisine?
El Cid
There was also that time period in which we saw the “fusion” crossovers either directly outlawed or made practically impossible because there were too many successful Black Republicans and white Populists joining forces.
It’s also why most city leadership is either / both (a) formed around a ‘town manager’ model; (b) non-partisan — there were too many successful Socia_list candidates in the early 20th century.
El Cid
Advanced sneering, senior level resentment of the lower classes, and a special effort in whining culture warrioring.
Napoleon
This is one of these subjects that just want to make me scream and makes it clear that the person raising it is a clueless Villager.
For all kinds of structual reasons the very way things are set up in this country at the Federal level all but completely assures that this country will always have not one, not 3 or more, but precisely 2 political parties. Even the Republican’s once they won the White House with Lincoln were at that point in effect the second party with the Whigs being demoted to third party status. Someone who does what Brooks does should realize this. I am more likely to be sleeping with Halle Berry tonight then a true third party arising in this country.
geg6
@Funkhauser:
Seriously. First year undergrad poli sci survey course. Or perhaps even a soc course. The stupid, it hurts!
geg6
@SiubhanDuinne:
I believe that was Andrew and a bunch of his
buddieszombies.Napoleon
@Funkhauser:
This is what I should have said. Everyone should read the link and never again raise a 3 party or more or one party system as being possible in this country.
Michael D.
The reason politics in the US is so shitty is because people keep saying: “third party candidates are like the XFL” etc.
You know what sucks? Two-party systems that are designed to keep people out of the system so that the aforementioned two-parties can continue to milk the system while people like you say “third-parties are like the XFL.”
Canada and most of Europe are doing just fine, thankyouverymuch. And they seem to be able to get those 2/3 votes when necessary.
Keith G
Doug, shouldn’t ‘chunky’ be typed ‘Chunky’?
SiubhanDuinne
@geg6
Sully, of course! Thanks!
SFAW
Yeah, but it works better my way. (Which is my way of trying to cover up that I didn’t go to the link.) But thanks for helping me overcome my iggerance.
I had forgotten about that Douchehat gem. But that raises an interesting point: can I convince Mrs. SFAW that I’m a chunky, shorter, uglier Mel Gibson (without the insanity, of course)?
I think Mickey does more than stare at them, if ya know whut I mean.
With a minor in trying to impress the not-necessarily-chunky rocket scientists at Pine
MattressManorEl Cid
Chunky Ross Doucherspoon?
asiangrrlMN
Sorry, DougJ. After reading this:
my mind went numb, and I can’t think of a damn thing to say because all I can picture is a row of bloated, fat, Republican asses (literally, as in the asses of Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh, O’Reilly, etc.), and I have the sudden urge to poke my brains out with a rusty pitchfork.
kid bitzer
chunky ross, of the withered spoon.
(seriously, that was his complaint–she made his spoon wither. the guy is just saturated in loser.)
NS
The Mugwumps have the added allure of being the same liberal Republicans who were instrumental in helping to turn their party’s back on blacks in the South by bringing about the end of Reconstruction. So, yay for them.
Cerberus
I’m actually a fan of a PR-style parliament and think that America will at some point in its future need to adopt such a system to avoid the every 100 years total corruption by corporations house of lords, house of commons system we have now. The founders wrote quite a bit worrying about the problems of party system and some of the insanity of the right can be directly tied to the two-party system privileging tribal identity and winning over any actual ideologies or desires of good governance.
That said, somehow I suspect that isn’t what Douche-hat wants from a parliamentary system, seeing as his main hope is that new parties will be able to be all republicany without being tainted by the colossal malfeasance of their actions and ideology, to which I say, good luck with that.
Also, yeah, not really the problem in California, though it could help in that the districts are carefully gerrymandered to prevent the dems from having a 2/3 majority. But as many have said, it’s the 2/3 majority to pass tax reforms, normal majority to pass spending, all subject to insane ballot measures funded by out-of-state business interests that can amend the constitution with a simple majority that led to libertarian hell in california.
Well that and the fact that we’re half France/half Oklahoma/half bitter retired conservatives from blue states who wanted their private paradise before they die. And the 3/2 is why we’re crazy.
ericblair
@kay: This reminds me of when direct democracy was going to save our broken system.
Remember that? Government by ballot issue! Go right to the people!
I sort of understand the origins of this system, since it was hard to make Cali government worse and less representative at that time. However, any system that attempts to reduce the power of legislators instead of fixing the underlying conflicts of interests is gonna fail.
Look at ballot initiatives: you don’t have to worry too much about the answers if you get to ask the questions. Similarly, term limits just mean that the unelected advisors and lobbyists are the only ones who understand the system since the politicians get rotated out just after they learn the ropes. Happens in the military too, with similar effects.
Booger
Bobo been reading too much Harry Potter. Just because someone ain’t got magic powers don’t mean they need their own political party.
Buffalopundit
We have third parties galore in New York State. The thing about them is that, with electoral fusion, 99% of the time they just endorse major party candidates, and the vote totals are aggregated.
The Conservative, Independence, and Working Families Parties very, very seldom run their own candidates – more often than not, in the rare times that they do, it’s to be spoilers.
The benefits are that, for instance, if a Republican voter absolutely refuses ever to fill in the box next to a Democratic candidate, the IP, CP, or WFP lines theoretically give that voter an out.
Hoffman is one of that 1% anomalies, and really reflects a very small subset of the Republican voting population in New York. I’d wager that voters in the North country are more conservative than those in areas that have, well just about any significant urban areas (Watertown has 27,000 residents and Plattsburgh has 18,000). This explains to a certain degree why Hoffman can pull this off.
It’s a shame that our election law in NY is so byzantine and pro-political-machine that the IP couldn’t just quickly switch its endorsement from Scozzafava to Owens right now, but such is life. We had a case here in WNY where a county executive manipulated a county legislative race to hire a sitting legislator as a department head in the summertime, after petitioning had been completed. The incumbent who was appointed to replace the legislator literally just officially got on the Dem ballot on Friday, thanks to the 4th Appellate Division of the Supreme Court.
There’s so much more going on here than the uninformed “teabagger vs. ACORN” narrative that all the cool kids wearing Banana Republic who parachuted in to help Hoffman are pushing on Twitter.
Xenos
I like the classic description of a mugwump: an ugly, noisome and obnoxious bird, that always sits on the fence, with its mug on one side and its wump on the other.
Describes Joe Lieberman pretty well, now that I think of it.
Bret
Because he is an idiot, Doug.
QED.
Citizen_X
I’m all in favor of this. Let annoyed right-wingers be endlessly forced to explain Duverger’s Law*, again and again, to their clueless compatriots. I’m tired of doing it on this side of the aisle. Hell, I notice a couple of people still don’t get it here.
*Facts are complementary to theory, of course, so the other course is to point out American history and ask them to find a single time when there were more than two viable parties in this country.
SFAW
Yeah, that’ll work, since they’re already so good at coming up with rational arguments regarding health care reform, Obama’s birth, the stimulus, Social Security, usw.
Marc
Please, please put “Chunky David Brooks” in the lexicon.
Partially for clarity, mostly because the lexicon can never have enough entries mocking this sanctimonious wingut-welfare twit.
Marc
Can never have enough sanctimonious misspelled comments either, I guess.
Jackmormon
Has Douthat considered that, perhaps, had Bloomberg spent his time in office building up a pointless third party, he would have been spending less time doing all that good-governmenty stuff? Even when Douthat is trying to make a post-partisan point, it ends up being partisan.
Graeme
That’s exactly it, DougJ!
While I would be happy to see stacks of parties vying at the national level, it would be impossible in California right now. With two parties the current system is impossible.
I am hopeful we’ll get a constitutional convention (that doesn’t mention mugwumps). At this point, we’re screwed.
Jay C
@Ash Can:
Of course! How do you think he got his gig as “renowned” rightie blogger, anyway? It’s practically a requirement….
@The Bearded Blogger:
Sorry, man: I’m going to have to plump for the maintenance of the two-party system here – at least until the US undergoes some sort of fundamental sea change in its political attitudes. Having a smörgåsbord of ideologically
“purer” parties to choose from to advance one’s particular political agenda may sound like a good idea: but in practice it’s hard to see just what “improvements” – especially for those leaning to the Left – would be produced.
My guess as to how a multi-party America would shape up isn’t a particularly pretty picture. The furthest-Right would probably coalesce (on the framework of former Republican organizations) into a fanatic Wingnut Party dedicated to doing its darndest to transform those States and localities where it would assume power (i.e. Reddest America) into neofascistic theocracies – more than they already are – and would have the “advantage” that their crank ideology would already be the prevailing one in their areas.
As for the portside: a true “left-wing” party – say the American equivalent of Euro-style Social Democrats – would probably be lucky to elect maybe a handful of state legislators or town councilmen in the Northeast, but on a national level would serve mainly to insure that liberal/”progressive” ideas and policies remain even more marginalized and irrelevant than they are today. Probably permanently.
The Two-Party System
may havehas its flaws, but it provides a remarkable level of political stability (it’s been the standard here for 150 years) – and for all its problems, it is still makes it easier for those on the ideological margins – it’s better to be able to exert pressure on a coalition from the inside than to have to operate in isolation.kommrade reproductive vigor
@Michael D.: I sort of agree with Michael D. Comparing the atheletes in the XFL is to non-Democratic or Republican parties in the U.S. is a serious insult to highly trained atheletes.
It would be better and far more accurate to compare the average 3rd party pol to a guy who plays a little flag football on the weekends and decides he wants to go pro. Then he calls the NFL a bunch of corporate pigs when he can’t get his name on the draft roster.
Violet
Yes to iatropic in the lexicon! It’s too much fun not to include.
Just to be different, chunky Reese Witherspoon will probably start talking about the Wendy’s salad bars that all the average Americans visit.
Corner Stone
@Buffalopundit: Thank you for posting here. I read through some of your site at your link and found some interesting info that answered a few things I was curious about re: NY-23.
Appreciate the info.
Robert Waldmann
I also consider the idea of “Socialists … capable of forming coalitions … the right” a tad eccentric in the US context.
Do you think that Mr Douthat’s brain was engaged when he typed the sentence I partially quoted ?
terry chay
@The Bearded Blogger: You’re confusing cause and effect. A viable 3rd party isn’t the cause, it’s the effect of a parliamentary system.
OriGuy
In the future, Applebee’s will put in salad bars and David Brooks will see himself as a prophet (if he doesn’t already.)
Jon
The best part about He Hate Me was that by week 4, one team had two linebackers called “I Hate He” and “I Hate He Too.”
Rod Smart sure lives up to his name – he’s the only thing anyone remembers about that league.
bjacques
It helps to imagine David Fucking Brooks being buggered by a Karo-sipping Mugwump in Tangiers.
Up yours with Interzone KY, Bobo!
ed
Personally, I liked Linda Cohn’s XFL eulogy: “He Hate Me, we hardly knew he.”
Oh, and David Brooks is (still) an elitist fuckhead.
Anne Laurie
@Ash Can:
Courtiership. It’s not much discussed in the catalog, but it has always been one of Harvard’s most popular courses of study. Credentialism and toadying, with a minor in nepotism, are the ruling-class substitute for actual scholastic effort.
Of Bugs and Books
@SFAW:
@Jeanne:
Hi SFAW and Jeanne, i don’t know if you saw DougJ’s post The Blue and the
RedGray (more ‘iatropia’), but I’m repeating myself here. And SGEW had two ideas about Ambinder in the Pretty Words post.@DougJ:
if ever there was a word with a unique BJ flavor, it should be iatropic. After reading the Pretty Words post and Ambinder and his commenters, I still don’t know what was intended.
May I return the favor ?
Iatropic – 1. catachrestic folly in attempting to squeeze out more meaning or humor than is present in teabagger paranoid excitement.
2. polite form of ‘clinically batshit crazy’. (DougJ’s definition?)
(Greek, from http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/10/dede_drops_out.php)
/thanks marc, and SGEW, https://balloon-juice.com/?p=29133#comment-1424138
Anne Laurie
@Xenos:
I’m imagining a Thomas Nast cartoon of the Lieberman Mugwump hunched on a razor-wire-decorated chainlink fence, with Chunky DBrooks posed to announce “Behold the rare and charming specimen of intellectually rigorous bipartanship!”… just as it shits on his head.
chrome agnomen
pardon me if this has been covered all ready, but sanctimonious republicans fleeing the party temporarily because of an especially corrupt republican politician??? say it ain’t so!!!
good news for mccain.
Wile E. Quixote
@Funkhauser
Yeah, and it’s because there are a whole bunch of laws designed to make sure that the Democrats are never challenged from the left or the Republicans from the right. The idea that we only have two parties because of a “law” that was formulated by a sociologist 50 years ago. Duverger’s “law” is about as much of a “law” as most of the theories of the Chicago school of economics.
Dream On
I LOVE the Mugwumps! Didn’t they help Luke Skywalker defeat the evil Empire in “Return of the Jedi?”
SFAW
No, that was the Morlocks.