[insert your own Monty Python’s Life of Brian joke here]
It is a fact of political life that extreme or out-of-mainstream political movements, left, right and other, tend to splinter. Look at this list of third parties just in the United States, and note how many different strains of socialist and communist parties there are. One might expect them to join forces and merge to bolster their meager power. Instead they divide and subdivide over differences of doctrine, strategy and, sometimes, probably, simple personality conflicts. Often it seems political radicals hate the heretics more than they hate the infidels: Malcolm X was assassinate by Black Muslims, and George Lincoln Rockwell by fellow Nazis.
The usual explanation is that persons so obsessed with political doctrine tend to be more than usually obsessed with the “purity” of it, so that in their minds differences of opinion equate to betrayal of the movement. But I have another theory: Because such movements are out of the mainstream, and have no realistic prospect of winning power in elections, they splinter just because they have no compelling strategic reason not to splinter. If conditions changed and they had a shot, all the strains in a given segment of the political spectrum/map would join forces. That is what the American conservative movement did from the 1964 Goldwater campaign onward: It saw an opening and put together groups that previously had little tolerance for each other – business conservatives, populist paleoconservatives, Randians and libertarians – in a winning coalition. Conversely, if any political grouping currently in the mainstream were marginalized, we would witness a whole lotta splitting on the way down.
Because our position(s) are EXACTLY X, and we don’t tolerate differing views on how to crack an egg or which way to hang the toilet paper. We’re just that Extreme, baby!
I don’t know if you were being ironic, but honestly it’s that simple a lot of the time.
Socialist parties especially, would rather get into deep ideological debates over one specific issue, rather than try to see that they agree on 99% of their programs and join forces.
Those advocating temperance, and, later, prohibition during the 19th century were often unable to join forces for long periods of times. While alcohol was certainly a big issue for them all there were other things that caused problems. Suffrage, abolition, and even prohibition were issues that split these groups up. Just because a bunch of people agree on one general principal doesn’t mean they’re going to agree on them all.
also, keeping things well organized requires people who either by experience or by intuition / natural talent know how to do that. And this sort of folks can usually and in a normal modern society get better employment, either in mainstream parties or in business, so they are not very keen on revolution. Of course, when you start having lots of leadership material people shut out of leadership-type jobs for whatever reason, then it’s a whole different ballgame.
This, I think. I also think that’s why the Bible Belt has a higher divorce rate; a marriage with two people who refuse to tolerate even tiny disagreements isn’t likely to be very stable.
a more likely hypothesis for the Bible Belt divorce rate would be lower marriage threshold. These people are culturally/socially/religiously pressured into tying the knot faster and easier than folks elsewhere who might be much more cautious. But once the knot is tied, they are still subject to the same environment that is not conducive to marriage stability but which the younger, less experienced people find harder to handle. Shotgun marriages can work, but you need a more conservative, anti-divorce, “patriarchal” culture for that to work. Which culture the Bible Belt apparently has not been able to preserve even though they may want to pretend and wish otherwise.
ETA: when non-Bible Belt young couple (in Portland and similar) moves in together and then breaks up a year later, that’s does not count as divorce. When a similar couple marries and quickly divorces in Bible Belt, that’s divorce. Even though the underlying reasons might be exactly the same.
On the hard left as well there are some differences that seem pretty minor to outsiders, but within the movement lead to completely different world views. Even if the end goal is the same, the method of approaching it will be radically different.
Back when I were a whippersnapper, the big dispute was over entryism - should the hard left stay as a faction of the Labour Party or operate independently. Then, also, to those who are Centrists or on the Right, a Trot and a Tankie may look to have very similar views, but there is a whole history of struggle for control between them that means they can never be happily represented in the same umbrella organization.
The Far Right, I understand, does the same thing. But I’ve never hung around with them, because Neo-Nazis honestly don’t make good drinking companions.
That is a legitimate concern – some radical movements, left and right, have indeed used, or tried to use, entryism as a tactic; and its legitimacy, no less than its efficacy, is bound to be highly controversial in practically any political setting. OTOH, a go-it-alone strategy, anywhere proportional representation does not exist, will freeze any minor party out of office entirely. (See discussion in the OP.)
I know a “Trot” is a Trotskyist, but what is a “Tankie”?
Yes - but it then developed a little further than that. Tankies became the name for the slavishly pro-party line, pro-establishment student lefties. Student politics tended to be a battle between the different groups on the left - line voting, solid Labour Club people became called Tankies, and often ended up in battle with the Trots, mainly the Socialist Workers Student Society (or Swizz). The Labour people tended to attract a lot of support from the non-Trot hard left groups, because of (a) entryism (mainly the group Militant); (b) hatred for the Trots and particularly the Swizz; and (c) a grudging respect for the complete control it managed to exert over its power hungry student leaders who saw it as a stepping stone to bigger things.
I don’t agree with that theory because extremist parties in power also splinter and purge. The Nazis purged the SA and the Soviets purged Trotskyists and various Czar loyalists. The
I’d assume when an extremist group in power purges, it is because of fears/paranoia about infiltration, power battles and obsession with purity.
I don’t know about the motives of minor parties. But my understanding is Malcolm X was assassinated because of similar reasons, he was going to split from the NoI movement and take a lot of publicity, money and power with him.
When you believe you have divined The Truth (as extremists tend to do) an obsession with purity becomes more central to political praxis. Extremists tend to be ideologues, not pragmatists. The latter are more comfortable with the idea of politics as negotiation and compromise (within reason) than the former.
I suppose it’s understandable that if you are convinced you have finally acquired the Truth on golden tablets by virtue of ideological reasoning, you see a powerful need to protect it and prevent it being diluted. It is of the essence of certain ideas about truth that it is inerrant and invariant, and any toleration of variation erodes the perfection inherent in it. Wrong-headed, mind you, but understandable. In politics, there are very few if any grand truths, just a bunch of opinions.
The same thing pretty much drives petty religious schisms.
Look at the range of political beliefs in each of the major parties. Then look at the monolithic political beliefs in the minor parties. If you can compromise with someone who shares 50%+ of your views in order to advance those, you join a major party. If you insist on political purity over actually winning any of your program, you join a minor party. Given that, minor parties are primed to split on the most minor of disagreements.