Past Pluto's Post (II of III)

Past Pluto’s Post

The Plea for Political Plurality

By: Al Spaulding

Part II of III

"Among the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice.”

- James Madison

Factional Faults   

     We feel like we have poor choices for political candidates.  This is advantageous to a two party system.  It is advantageous to make elections simple for you.   

     Why would a two party system, a “duopoloy,” want to restrict your political options? 

     The candidates more loyal to their party than their constituency are the most viable choices for the party.  The duopoly guarantees this loyalty for itself from candidates, and power over citizens, with First Past the Post (FPTP or FPP) voting systems.  FPTP means voters give a single vote for each political position and whoever receives the most wins the election.  However, during the presidential campaign the United States does not use a system where each vote goes directly towards electing a candidate.  During the presidential primaries and caucuses (when we are trying to decide which individual will represent the entire party) the votes are routed through delegates, party members who can decide whether or not to listen to the voting body.  In addition to that, the final presidential election is routed through the Electoral College; again, other people who are intermediaries between your vote and the outcome of the election.  

     I did not know this until recently, but there is more than one type of voting system.  FPTP is not the only way to hold government elections. What if you could rank your top three choices, instead of just your number one?  This kind of alternative voting system greatly changes political outcomes.  

     There must be some reason the United States uses FPTP, right?  

     Allow me to present Wikipedia’s section on the benefits of FPTP:  

     “The benefits of FPTP are that its concept is very easy to understand, and ballots can be easily counted and processed. Alternative systems such as rank-based voting require far more work or processing power to tabulate results than a single choice.”   

     That’s it.  It is easy.  Easy to understand and easy to count votes.  

     (The ACE Network gives a more comprehensive assessment of FPTP.)

     But is it really that simple when party delegates and the Electoral College enter the equation?  

     Furthermore, electoral fraud is occurring at every level of the FPTP voting system.  From the voters, to the voting machines, to the human vote counters, even this supposed benefit isn’t working in our favor as well as we’d like.   

     To be fair, electoral fraud is a potential issue in any democratic election, not only FPTP.  What isn’t an issue in every kind of voting system is 'tactical voting.'  You can probably figure out what this means from the name alone.  Tactical voting is when you pick a candidate not because you consider them the best candidate, but because they are the lesser of two evils and you think they have a significant probability of winning.  Tactical voting is partly why presidential elections are displayed in the news for well over a year, with state primaries occurring for months.  Even the order in which states hold their primaries is controversial.  

    Can you imagine?  Other countries that have moved beyond FPTP don’t have to spend so much effort wondering who is voting for who.  They vote for the candidates they think will best represent them.

     Another self-propagation technique the duopoly system employs to ensure its continued existence is 'gerrymandering.'  Gerrymandering is when incumbent politicians arrange voting districts so their party’s voters make up the majority of the district’s voting bloc, while simultaneously diving up the competition’s into minorities.  It is terribly difficult for opposition party candidates (and almost impossible for third party or independent candidates) to gain a foothold in a gerrymandered system.   

     Once more, this may seem like an inevitable shortcoming of politics, but in reality is ameliorable.  

     There is a video series on YouTube that vividly depicts the issues with FPTP, tactical voting, and gerrymandering.  The creator, CGP Grey, gives lucid insight into the shortcomings of these practices and the benefits of their alternatives.  He makes a compelling argument and I highly recommend you watch the five video series, which can be viewed in half an hour.

     CGP Grey: Politics in the Animal Kingdom

     To fully appreciate my argument of political division and diversity in the context of political institutions, I would designate this video series as mandatory viewing.  CGP Grey deftly explains FPTP, tactical voting, alternative voting systems, gerrymandering, and political representation in general.   

     Both CGP Grey and Wikipedia make it clear that alternative voting systems compared to FPTP can count a longer list of benefits: less/no tactical voting, less/no gerrymandering, fewer/no 'wasted votes', less/no manipulation, less/no bullying of minority parties.  

     I believe the FPTP voting system undermines representation, and thus, the true democratic foundation of our country.  There is no “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” unless we people can freely express our voting rights.  

     The electoral process is inextricably tied to honest representation.  The Founding Fathers knew it, which is why they got so worked up about “taxation without representation.”  The just and virtuous government can only be validated through legitimate representation.   

     The fair representation foundational to an honest democratic process extends beyond the voting public: the diversity of candidates must be represented, as well.  In other words, the information presented to the citizens should not be arbitrarily limited.  American politics has not yet caught up with the internet, the greatest bastion of knowledge ever created.  The vestigial influence of passively consumed media (newspapers, radio, television) still controls how the majority of Americans get their news.  Despite having access to more information than ever, the majority of voters are still being told their options in a traditionally restricted manner.  Conventional news sources inadequately and inaccurately display political options.  Perhaps media have always been susceptible to fad-like behavior, but no conventional news source is fair or accurate in how they discuss politics.  From limited word space to limited airtime, the news has been forced to condense the information it broadcasts.  All news sources are competing for the same thing: your attention.  They have to be as sensationalist as they can get away with (appeal to pathos) while under the guise of a balanced presentation (appeal to ethos).  It may seem anchorwo/men are giving it to you straight, with their expressionless faces and affected speech, but what information and how they choose to exhibit it is a sleight of hand difficult to spot.  News should be an objective representation of reality - it has developed into impassioned entertainment.    

     Ask yourself: why do celebrities hold such prominence in the news?  

     Do news sources report specific political candidates more than others because they hold greater support among viewers?  Do we support certain candidates more because they hold greater support among news sources?  

     Is it true there is no such thing as bad publicity?  

     Which is most likely to attract attention when ‘news’ is framed as entertainment, rational discourse or emotional declarations and outlandishness?   

     Why do political candidates hold debates in arenas?  The kind of arenas usually utilized for music or sport?  How is a screaming fanbase conducive to calm, objective discussion?  

     It is evident that exposure is vital to have a chance in an election.  The cause and effect relationship of media exposure (similar to the cause and effect of how parties choose positions on issues) is probably a two-way street.  It is the limitation of news sources we should be wary towards.  We may feel cosmopolitan in the digital age, but keep in mind there are only six companies responsible for 90% of the media consumed by Americans.  

     Information, wealth, power, ownership.  These things are closely related.  Honesty is among the supreme virtues because it relinquishes power and ownership in favor of truth.  We expect our education institutions to forsake entertainment in pursuit of truth.  It doesn’t seem we have the same expectation of information medium services.  

     Who we vote for and what issues are relevant require significant amounts of information.  We can’t afford to make democratic decisions lightly, especially when there is such a dearth of values.  We need and deserve accurate information to make informed decisions.

Dim Planet

     The two-party system is an inaccurate representation of the political spectrum.  Because here’s the thing: politics is not a spectrum.  Politics is not a gradation along a single axis.  If you believe all political ethics fall somewhere on a line, you have been ill-informed.  

     Let’s look at political stances and relationships through a geometry analogy.   

     A single entity in geometry is a point.  It is one thing in isolation.  Let’s take the Republican Party as our point.  As we have discussed, the Republican Party does not exist alone.  If a separate point, the Democratic Party, is established we then have two points.  The relationship between two points is a line, a one dimensional spectrum: right, left, and a bunch of points in between; shades of red or blue.  Now, let’s throw in a third perspective, a third point, the Libertarian party.  Libertarians aren’t quite Republicans, but they aren’t Democrats, either.  They must be some kind of purple, correct?  If that were the case, then the Libertarians would be the party of the moderates… but they’re not.  They are, let’s assume, equidistant from the Democrats and the Republicans (sharing values with either party), but they are not ‘in line’ with them (having independent values).  They are not between the left or the right.  In geometry this third point creates a plane – you might easily think of this three-way relationship as a triangle.  Red, blue, and yellow.  Instead of speaking in regards to a political spectrum, we should now reference a political landscape, a political palette.   

     Imagine if we had a fourth separate political party, the imaginary Grey Party.  The Grey Party is as far removed from all three previous parties as is the Libertarian Party from the Republicans and Democrats.  These four incongruous points will then form 3-D space, a political sphere if you will, an increasingly accurate depiction of our reality.   

     A demonstration… If there are three issues and you can be ‘for’ or ‘against’ each, then there are eight possible combinations of values.  Two political parties simply don’t cover this variety of beliefs.  

     There's a whole world of possibilities.  For the sake of our collective well-being, we should not limit our conception of representation.  

     “It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able to adapt to and to adjust best to the changing environment in which it finds itself” is a common summary of Darwin’s evolution.  Through his naturalist perspective, success is measured by longevity.  An individual or species can only exist if they can survive despite struggle.  The ability of resiliency determines success in the test of time.  This is a fundamental axiom in biology and ecology.  Resiliency in the face of adversity is what determines success in an individual or ecosystem.  There is a highly predictive determinant of resiliency in a living system: biodiversity.  Biodiversity is the variation within individuals and populations, and between species in an ecosystem.  In terms of resiliency, the more biodiversity the better.  An ecosystem is like a temple and the biodiversities are the pillars with which it is constructed; when time or catastrophe weigh in, having more pillars helps keep the temple standing.  

     While we should be careful when applying scientific principles to familiar circumstances (see: social Darwinism), it is worthwhile to look at the political ‘ecosystem’ in terms of diversity.  Diversity, political plurality, is not only more representative of the eclectic nature of our country, it also fortifies us against the consolidation of power among the few.  

     This is not mere philosophical musing.

     My previous post introduced the advantage of the German political system.  Germany's voting arrangement, Mixed-Member Proportional Representation (MMP), has not been fundamentally altered since it was enacted after World War II.  Such resilience has proven attractive.  In 1996, New Zealand implemented a similar MMP system in their Parliament, the branch of government equivalent to the legislative branches in Germany and the USA, largely because "the MMP system has not shown any great drawbacks in Germany."  Before electoral reform, New Zealand's voting system was almost identical to the USA's: two established parties continuously vying for dominance.  The 1996 reform altered this incumbency.  MMP ousted FPTP, and with it the two-party system.

     That doesn't mean there haven't been growing pains.  Over the past two decades, there has been turmoil as the status quo shifted.  MMP did not provide the kind of political consensus that was expected.  A multi-party system did not disperse factional competition.

     Does New Zealand's increase in the number of parties in Parliament demonstrate any benefit?  Twenty years may be too short a time to provide a holistic assessment of the reform's ramifications.  Still, there stands one result unambiguous: "Parliament has certainly become more diverse and representative of modern New Zealand society."  The rotation of party influence is no longer limited to a duopoly.

     Wikipedia confirms this conclusion. "Prior to the switch to MMP, New Zealand largely had a two party system...  After the 1996 election, there were six political parties...  The transition to MMP has caused disproportionality to fall."  Despite the tumult caused by political reformation, New Zealanders are satisfied with the change.  In 2011, voters strongly affirmed their support for the new system.

     What about the progenitor?  The longevity of Germany's MMP has allowed fuller evaluation.  Again, Wikipedia: "Time has proven that this voting system mainly allows for a proportional distribution of seats, stable governments, change of governments, the possibility of new parties joining the parliament", along with a comparatively capable legislature.  In other words, Germany has uprooted the 'winner takes all' concept.  Unlike the USA, in Germany's MMP it has never occurred that "one party wins an absolute majority of the parliamentary seats on a minority of the popular votes" (again, ACE Network).  Opposition stances are righteously voiced, not suppressed.

     No more need Germans fear a single party taking too much control, doing too much damage.

     Reduced is the threat of overwhelming government.

     Can we boast the same confidence?

     The bipolar nature of American politics is replete with paranoia.  We vote based on the notion of the 'lesser of two evils.'

     Is the 'evilness' of government a function of its lack of government, the number of parties it houses?  If a one-party dictatorship is the most abhorrent form of public control, is a two-party system then half as evil?

     Could a dispersement of parties curtail corruption?

     The reality is much more complex than my one-legged rhetoric indicates.  Yet, that's the point.  We want to simplify the situation to understand it, to address it, but in doing so eliminate salient variables.  Yes, our civic duty requires that we take action against injustice; we must choose between thinking and doing.  Faced with necessity, we can't be hobbled by extraneous inspection.  Nevertheless, narrow perspective is a heedless, rocky approach.  We must balance our charged motivation with due recognition.  Allowing for a variety of considerations encourages an informed choice.

     So we are willing to defend our life and liberty, so we must be willing to pursue the happy intricacies.

     We must respect the perspectives and values of others while still having the courage to voice our own.

“I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.”

- Thomas Jefferson