# Let's debate the role/value of political parties and ideologies **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 11, 2005, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-debate-the-role-value-of-political-parties-and-ideologies/321046 "2005-09-11T01:06:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-debate-the-role-value-of-political-parties-and-ideologies/321046/1 "2005-09-11T01:06:43Z")
Inspired by this thread: “Proportional Representation in the U.S.” – [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=332307](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=332307) Any proposed reform (proportional representation, instant-runoff voting, ballot fusion) intended to open our political system to more political parties is based on the assumption that political parties have a legitimate role in politics. That is the prevailing view, generally, but there has always been an undercurrent of thought in the U.S. that a political party, **any** political party, is nothing but a racket devised by and for the benefit of politicians. The U.S. Constitution makes no mention of, or particular provisions for, political parties. _The Federalist_ (written by three of the founders of the Federalist Party) nowhere mentions parties or “factions” except as a threat to be avoided, or at least neutralized. “If I could not go to Heaven but with a political party, I would not go there at all,” said Thomas Jefferson (founder of the Democratic-Republican Party). But, as Edmund Burke put it, “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” Do we need political parties in a republic? Would it be possible or advisable for all elections to be “nonpartisan,” like some municipal elections in the U.S.? (BTW, I’ve never encountered a scrap of evidence – maybe some of you can provide some – that nonpartisan elections produce any better or worse municipal government than partisan elections.) I think parties, even ideological parties, are a Good Thing. They have the ability to think out and propose clear policy alternatives. And party labels have a practical value to the individual voter. True, they are not as useful as they might be under our present system, where each party is perforce a “big tent” and the Democrat in a given race might be more conservative on most issues than the Republican. But they are still very useful in allowing voters to have at least a fingernail grip on what their choices are, without researching the personal history of each individual candidate. In any case, it is definitively impossible for a civic-minded citizen to practice politics without “ideology.” **Any** approach to public policy is based on some kind of ideology, i.e., a certain world-view and an assumed set of value judgments, even if that ideology is not clearly or consciously articulated. Consider the early-20th-Century Progressive movement. The first Progressive Party ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United\_States\_Progressive\_Party#The\_first\_Progressive\_Party](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Progressive_Party#The_first_Progressive_Party)) was a mainly middle-class and upper-class political movement, devoted to honest, transparent, vigorous and effective government, but also to fiscal responsibility with no deficit spending. The Progressives had a technocratic, professional vision of government that purported to transcend ideology, class interests and partisanship – an old Progressive slogan was, “There is no Democratic or Republican way to pave a street.” But that way of thinking was fundamentally mistaken. How to pave a street might be a purely technical problem; but deciding which neighborhoods get paved, what property should be condemned to make way, and who should pay how much for it are all political questions, in which different social classes, ethnic groups, etc., might have different and conflicting interests, and in which differing ideological notions of justice and fairness would inevitably, and **properly,** come into play. Certainly it is better to have as many public decisions as possible made by professionals and experts than to have them made by party hacks, in the tradition of Jeffersonian-Jacksonian populism and urban machine politics. But the idea that Progressivism itself is not an “ideology” is pure illusion. The Progressives, no less than any Marxist, believed they had an inside track on what amounts to a purportedly scientifically proveable vision of the “truth” and the “good,” and what could be more ideological than that? The Progressives had a Puritan revulsion for the “logjams” and “logrolling” of the conventional legislative process – if you **know** what’s best for society, why compromise? The Progressive movement is what got us nonpartisan municipal elections, as well as a lot of “direct democracy” reforms designed to enable to people to do an end-run around the politicians – ballot initiatives and referenda, recall elections, etc. (Also women’s suffrage, and Prohibition.) But for all of that, the Progressives were anti-democratic in a lot of ways. They were essentially elitists, in the mold of Alexander Hamilton. They supported voting qualifications that would discourage the poor and immigrants from voting at all; they opposed the urban political machines that, for all their faults, were at the time the principal means for such people to relate to and participate in government. The Progressive tradition is still alive in American politics. Its most recent manifestation was in the Reform Party – which ultimately broke up because, among other things, it was always an ideologically incoherent alliance of Progressives and Populists. See this article by Michael Lind from 1999: [http://www.slate.com/id/36428/](http://www.slate.com/id/36428/) > [@](#): > > John Anderson’s progressive Republicanism belonged to the distinctive political tradition of Greater New England–a territory that arcs from Maine to the Pacific Northwest and was settled by 19th-century Yankee Protestant settlers. The Yankee’s secularized Puritanism combines an enthusiasm for social reform–such as abolitionism, Prohibition, women’s suffrage, civil rights, eugenics, and the anti-smoking crusade–with an often-priggish moralism and an apocalyptic horror of “corruption.” Most third-party movements have originated in Greater New England. The name of one movement launched during World War I tells the whole story: The Nonpartisan League. > > The Germans and Scandinavians who settled in western Greater New England reinforced the secular puritan ethos, although they were more likely to be socialists than the Yankees, whose fear of corruption has often made them enemies of big government. And Prohibition divided liquor-hating Northern Protestants from beer-loving Germans. Even so, the Protestant pietism of many Germanic Americans meshed neatly with the Puritan religious culture of New Englanders and their western cousins, while socialist enthusiasms were easily merged with Social Gospel Protestantism in the northern-tier states. It is no coincidence that Anderson, the standard-bearer for the Yankee-Germanic tradition in 1980, is of Swedish descent–nor is it a coincidence that in 1984, Anderson, formerly a Republican, voted for Walter Mondale, a fellow Swedish-American. > > Southern populism, which earlier had produced Huey P. Long, Georgia’s Tom Watson, and the Southern supporters of William Jennings Bryan, spawned George Wallace. Populism has more often found a home in the Highland South than in the coastal “black belt,” which has been dominated since colonial times by the elitist conservatism of ruling-class Bourbon families and their allies. Drawing on the traditions of the Scots-Irish settlers of Appalachia and the Ozarks, Highland Southern populism encourages a tribal approach to politics and rewards leaders who are flamboyant and bellicose. Andrew Jackson was an early example of this type; Patrick J. Buchanan is its latest incarnation. > > Perot united Anderson progressives and Wallace populists, but in an unstable pairing. Wallace’s supporters were social conservatives who favored activist government, as long as it benefited them and their families, while Anderson’s voters were social liberals more concerned with good government than with expensive government. The Wallace voters tended to be white working-class Democrats on their way into the Republican Party; the Anderson voters by contrast were often former liberal Republicans in transit to a new home in the Democratic Party. Since the Reform Party broke up, some Progressives have found a home in John Anderson’s Independence Party – [http://www.mnip.org/](http://www.mnip.org/) – which has had little political success outside Minnesota. Buchanan’s Populist-paleoconservative wing went on to form the America First Party – [http://americafirstparty.org/index2.shtml](http://americafirstparty.org/index2.shtml). Now, another successful Progressive reform was the 17th Amendment to the Constitution (1913), which provided for direct popular election of United States senators. That serves to illustrate the fundamental differences between the Progressive and Populist world-views. I have spoken to America Firsters who want to repeal the 17th Amendment\* and go back to letting the state legislatures choose U.S. senators. From a Progressive point of view, the 17th Amendment was about empowering the voters to do an end-run around those corrupt careerists in the state capitols; from a Populist POV, repealing the 17th Amendment is about restoring states’ rights and giving the state legislatures, as such, a voice to resist the incessant encroachments of the power-mad federal biggummint. They’re clashing over the same issue for completely unrelated reasons. And they **both** have some good, arguable points! In my view, that illustrates a core reason why we **need** a multi-party system. In politics as in any other highly complicated and mysterious field of human endeavor, the process of seeking the “truth” is a lot like the six blind men trying to determine the true shape of the elephant. If they could only quit squabbling and sit down and compare notes, they might come up with a consensus picture that is something close to the whole picture. Our present system, OTOH, produces a political arena where the “an elephant is like a fan” school is locked in a constant death-struggle with the “an elephant is like a snake” school, and the “sword,” “wall,” “rope,” and “tree” viewpoints can never get a word in edgewise. But what if, instead of six blind men, we had 300 million? What consensus image of truth could emerge from debate among a mass of individual citizens organized into no parties at all? That might work well enough at a New England town meeting where everybody can discuss things face-to-face – but how could it work at the state or national level? We need parties just to impose some kind of coherence on the whole process. \*An idea which has been debated in this forum before – [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=178451](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=178451). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-debate-the-role-value-of-political-parties-and-ideologies/321046/2 "2005-09-12T02:05:13Z")
Nobody has an opinion? Where’s **Vooodooochile?** He/she expressed strongly anti-partisan opinions (the basis of which is still not entirely clear to me) in the thread linked in the OP – and in this thread on gerrymandering: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=314742](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=314742) ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-debate-the-role-value-of-political-parties-and-ideologies/321046/3 "2005-09-12T07:18:50Z")
George Washington warned against the formation of political parties; we should have heeded his advice. As it is now, the best we can expect with the current dichotomy in the US is a _yin-yang_ situation, where both sides are kept in balance and prevent each other from running amok. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-debate-the-role-value-of-political-parties-and-ideologies/321046/4 "2005-09-12T07:24:37Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > George Washington warned against the formation of political parties; we should have heeded his advice. Please expand on that. Why was it sound advice? Washington governed as a Federalist, by the way. Not officially, perhaps – no such thing then – but he was very definitely attached to the Federalist faction and opposed to the Democratic-Republican faction. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-debate-the-role-value-of-political-parties-and-ideologies/321046/5 "2005-09-12T19:20:19Z")
(Arrg, lost my earlier reply) > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Please expand on that. Why was it sound advice? Dunno what Mr. Washington was thinking, but IMO a government official’s loyalty should be first and foremost to his country and his constitutents. Political parties make it easy for that priority to be usurped by loyalty to the party, usually in exchange for the networks/powers/influence it brings. And when loyalty to a party trumps loyalty to a nation and its people, then democracy is little more than monarchy with a pretty gloss of paint. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-debate-the-role-value-of-political-parties-and-ideologies/321046/6 "2005-09-12T20:01:03Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > Dunno what Mr. Washington was thinking, but IMO a government official’s loyalty should be first and foremost to his country and his constitutents. Political parties make it easy for that priority to be usurped by loyalty to the party, usually in exchange for the networks/powers/influence it brings. But if you’re a loyal partisan, you probably believe your party and its policies **are** the best thing for your country. Where’s the “usurpation”? ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-debate-the-role-value-of-political-parties-and-ideologies/321046/7 "2005-09-12T20:12:24Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But if you’re a loyal partisan, you probably believe your party and its policies **are** the best thing for your country. Believing in something doesn’t make it so. And I am not convinced that all partisans truly and sincerely believe their party is the best for the country; I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if some of them were hardened cynics who are out to play the system. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-debate-the-role-value-of-political-parties-and-ideologies/321046/8 "2005-09-12T20:15:30Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > Believing in something doesn’t make it so. But it is all you’ve got to go on when making a decision. > [@rjung](#): > > And I am not convinced that all partisans truly and sincerely believe their party is the best for the country; I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if some of them were hardened cynics who are out to play the system. Why would any of that be any less true in a nonpartisan system? ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-debate-the-role-value-of-political-parties-and-ideologies/321046/9 "2005-09-12T21:12:36Z")
Political parties are like free speech: “everyone” wants it for themselves but not others. And similar to distasteful free speech, the solution to disliked political parties is more parties. Restricting parties, like censoring speech, goes the wrong way. Our democracy would be much stronger if new political parties could become viable much more easily. We need to remove of the “qualifications” third parties must jump through. We should replace first-past-the-post voting systems wherever possible. Gerrymandering must go. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-debate-the-role-value-of-political-parties-and-ideologies/321046/10 "2005-09-12T23:29:51Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > Gerrymandering must go. See the thread linked in post #2. Of course, gerrymandering is not, strictly speaking, a partisan-vs.-nonpartisan, or even a bipartisan-vs.-multipartisan, issue – a lot of other factors come into play – but it is relevant. Even without other reforms, third parties should have a slightly easier time of it in contesting elections in districts that were not drawn up for partisan advantage by whichever party had a majority in the state legislature following the most recent census. (Or more often than that, if you live in Texas. :mad: ) ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-debate-the-role-value-of-political-parties-and-ideologies/321046/11 "2005-09-12T23:35:14Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Why would any of that be any less true in a nonpartisan system? It wouldn,t but without the networking effects of political parties, individual politicians would need to negotiate and compromise with more competitors to get their plans through. As it is now, it’s usually sufficient to just make sure enough of “our guys” get elected to do the job, instead of having to bother with building alliances on two dozen fronts. And I agree with what **Pleonast** said, too. ---
**Author:** ![hildea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ebca7d/32.png) [@hildea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hildea)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2005, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-debate-the-role-value-of-political-parties-and-ideologies/321046/12 "2005-09-13T08:23:07Z")
**rjung** , if you have a political system which allows for several parties you’ll get room for negotiation and compromise. We had an election here yesterday, and are waving goodbye to one three-party-coalition (Christian Democrats/Conservatives/Left (Libertarian)), and looking with interest at the negotiations between the new three-party-coalition (Labour/Socialist Left/Center (Agrarian)) which will take over the helm. Admittedly, three fronts are fewer than two dozen fronts, but I suspect the negotiations will be more than difficult enough as it is. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > And party labels have a practical value to the individual voter. True, they are not as useful as they might be under our present system, where each party is perforce a “big tent” and the Democrat in a given race might be more conservative on most issues than the Republican. But they are still very useful in allowing voters to have at least a fingernail grip on what their choices are, without researching the personal history of each individual candidate. This is what I see as the main advantage of parties. And also in this case, having several parties is a huge advantage over just two, as it allows for more and clearer differences between the parties. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2005, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-debate-the-role-value-of-political-parties-and-ideologies/321046/13 "2005-09-13T17:07:30Z")
> [@hildea](#): > > **rjung** , if you have a political system which allows for several parties you’ll get room for negotiation and compromise. I agree completely – the more the merrier. And without political parties, each official becomes a party unto himself, which pushes negotiation and compromise to the max. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2005, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-debate-the-role-value-of-political-parties-and-ideologies/321046/14 "2005-09-13T17:54:49Z")
I support political parties, though without wanting to limit the role of independents. The main reeason why I support them is that, objectively, in democratic countries, most voters vote according to the party of a candidate rather than for any other reason. So those voters find some use for parties and party labels, and that’s probably because they find ideology the most important thing in choosing how to vote. However, PR does not require the existence of parties, and does not require that voters just vote for party lists. The forms of PR used in Ireland and in Australia just require voters to list candidates in order of preference. Candidates can be grouped in party lists, and can publish a recommended voting order to their supporters, but voters can choose to ignore the party lists, and vote for candidates in any order they choose. One more thing: the Westminster system, where the Prime Minister is the leader of the party with a majority in the lower house, strengthens political parties as compared with the congressional system used in the US. Because the lower house of Parliament in in effect an electoral college, in order to vote for your choice of Prime Minister, you have to vote for the candidate of his/her party. In the US, you can effectively split your vote, and vote for the presidential candidate from one party, and the congressional candidate from another – the equivalent is impossible in the UK, Canada and Australia, ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2005, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-debate-the-role-value-of-political-parties-and-ideologies/321046/15 "2005-09-13T18:42:33Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > One more thing: the Westminster system, where the Prime Minister is the leader of the party with a majority in the lower house, strengthens political parties as compared with the congressional system used in the US. Because the lower house of Parliament in in effect an electoral college, in order to vote for your choice of Prime Minister, you have to vote for the candidate of his/her party. In the US, you can effectively split your vote, and vote for the presidential candidate from one party, and the congressional candidate from another – the equivalent is impossible in the UK, Canada and Australia, So, is that good or bad, IYO? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2005, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-debate-the-role-value-of-political-parties-and-ideologies/321046/16 "2005-09-13T18:49:27Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > It wouldn,t but without the networking effects of political parties, individual politicians would need to negotiate and compromise with more competitors to get their plans through. As it is now, it’s usually sufficient to just make sure enough of “our guys” get elected to do the job, instead of having to bother with building alliances on two dozen fronts. Well, we don’t have to guess about that – in the U.S. (and thanks to the Progressives – see OP), we have real-world examples of nonpartisan elections for many mayorships, city councils, school boards, etc. But, as I said in the OP, I know nothing about whether adopting nonpartisan elections has had the effects the Progressives hoped it would. Does anybody know? Does anybody have any hard data, or even anecdotal personal knowledge, about the track record of nonpartisan. vs. partisan municipal governments?