If Americans Could Vote for Underfunded, Centrist, Anti-Plutocratic Third Party Candidates ─ Would They?

© 2010 Peter Free

 

06 October 2010

 

How are we going to topple plutocratic control of our government institutions?

 

Thoughtful Americans have recognized that money controls American government in a way that works against the interests of the People.

 

The question is how we can break the strangle-hold that rich corporations and ultra-wealthy individuals have on our institutions.

 

Is creating a third political party a way to regain the People’s Democracy?

 

Columnist Thomas Friedman wrote recently that creating a third political party would help us find our way out of this morass.

 

We have to rip open this two-party duopoly and have it challenged by a serious third party that will talk about education reform, without worrying about offending unions; financial reform, without worrying about losing donations from Wall Street; corporate tax reductions to stimulate jobs, without worrying about offending the far left; energy and climate reform, without worrying about offending the far right and coal-state Democrats; and proper health care reform, without worrying about offending insurers and drug companies.

 

© 2010 Thomas L Friedman, Third Party Rising, New York Times (02 October 2010)

 

But a third party runs into the same financial constraints that our existing parties do

 

Mr. Friedman emphasis on tinkering with structure overlooks the structure-defeating power of the connection between money and speech.

 

The Democratic and Republican parties are owned by the financial elite because oligarchy funds campaigns that indulge in (a) voluminous advertising and (b) bribe-giving that overwhelms underfunded contrary voices.

 

If ya ain’t got money ─ ya ain’t gonna get elected.

 

If no one knows who the third party candidate is ─ or if voters can’t penetrate the lies and smears told about him or her ─ then the public will continue to vote for the Democrat and Republican candidates it does know.

 

Toppling plutocracy requires, first, a more knowledgeable, more involved, and less easily manipulated public

 

The only way Mr. Friedman’s third party prescription is going to work is if our public becomes:

 

(i) less thoughtlessly and superficially ideological,

 

(ii) more genuinely knowledgeable about issues,

 

(iii) more willing to sacrifice selfish personal or clan goals in favor of the good of the nation as a whole,

 

and

 

(iv) less easily manipulated into acting on the basis of petty hatreds, suspicions, prejudices, and irrational judgments.

 

The basic problem is us

 

Creating a third party will not return the nation to genuine democracy, until “We the People” take diligent personal responsibility for achieving that goal.

 

If we do, a third party may indeed be the mechanism with which to assert our newly found determination.

 

Is constructive change in our perspectives achievable?

 

My prescription requires that we become better social and community beings.

 

Is that possible?

 

The fate of the People’s Democracy depends on it.