However, while I am no fan of the Electoral College (and as a matter of fact, find the arguments in it’s favor to be extremely fallacious) by no means do I consider it to be the Enemy Number One to our freedom. A much bigger problem is the fact that over the course of our nation’s history, two parties have managed to collectively gain a complete stranglehold on the electoral process.
From the earliest days of the Republic, our political system has rarely been dominated by more than two parties. However, at the start, those two parties did not have the same iron grip on our system that they do today. As a matter of fact, neither of the original two political parties even exists today. It is true that one of those original two is generally considered to be a precursor to one of today’s political parties – but it is not actually a continuation of the same organization. For the first eighty-two years that our current Constitution was in effect, every time one of the two political parties fell out of touch with it’s constituency, it was (for better or worse) ousted and replaced with a fresh and new organization.
Then, in 1860, something happened. The Democrats in the Northern states and the Democrats in the Southern states could not agree on what candidate to get behind. As a result, Abraham Lincoln became the Sixteenth President of the United States. As much as most of us today (at least I hope most of us) consider it a no-brainer that the pro-slavery views of the Democratic party of the time were reprehensible, that does not change the fact that their losing a Presidential election by such means has had an indelible effect on how American voters have approached political parties ever since. It drove home a message that has been strongly emphasized ever since then – that if you aren’t really happy with either of the two major parties, you’d better pick the one you dislike less of the two and support it unless you want the party that you dislike more to win.
It is for this reason that while no party was able to remain part of the co-dominance on American politics for the eighty-two years before that election – the same exact two parties have remained the dominant ones for the one-hundred-fifty-six years since then. And the numerous attempts to challenge this two-party duopoly in the form of third-party candidates have had the opposite of the intended effect. The few such candidates that seemed to have any significant impact at all in the election were perceived as being spoilers, thereby strengthening the message that to vote for any third-party candidate is effectively throwing your vote away.
Though this exact intergenerational drama took place through the course of our Presidential elections, the two-party duopoly has also gained immense power in all of the states and even most municipalities in the United States. And it seems like just when it looks like a successful third-party candidacy is as remote a possibility as ever, another election cycle drives the prospect of a third-party coming out on top even further.
Defenders of the status-quo claim that the primary elections are the opportunity for voices other than two big ones to have their impact on American politics. However, history has made it quite clear that primary elections are no substitute for a system in which third-party candidates actually stand a fighting chance. Very often, party-elites have too much sway in the primaries — and even in the rare cases when they don’t (as a matter of fact, especially in those cases) the polarizing effect of everyone having to pick one of two teams really diminishes the chances of any truly centrist candidate emerging on top.
And if primary elections really were capable of fulfilling this vital role of giving alternative voices their place in politics, that would make it extremely difficult to explain why three of the last five Presidential elections have been characterized by an outrageous percentage of Americans voting for whom they saw as the lesser of two evils. And yes – I know that many Americans did not feel that way — but even if you are one of those who went to the polls this last November 8 and voted for one of the two major candidates, feeling that you really could put your heart behind the person you were voting for – you still have to admit that (right or wrong) many Americans did not feel the same enthusiasm you did.
So if running as and voting for third-party candidates fails to dislodge either of the Big Two, and if primary elections fail at providing an alternate venue for alternative voices – what can the solution be? It turns out that there is only one thing that will help – and that is Instant Runoff Voting (also known as “Rank Choice Voting”) in elections of every level – from President of the United States to the local dog-catcher.
Some people will point out that such a reform will be difficult – and they will be right in doing so. It goes without saying that the parties in charge won’t want this change, as they know that it’s this duoploy that keeps them in power. At the Federal level, especially for the offices of President and Vice President of the United States, it will even require a constitutional amendment – and those are by design hard to get passed. (Sorry – but a system where each state uses IRV to select delegates that go to the same tired old and unreformed Electoral College that has always been won’t solve that problem. More on why it won’t in a later article.) But though it will be difficult, it is not impossible. People have demanded change and gotten it before. As for amending the Constitution – that too has been done before – twenty-seven times as a matter of fact (most recently in 1992).
So what does such change take? It takes Americans of many different stripes banding together and demanding it. This will require the cooperation of Americans whose political views are so divergent that they have to hold their noses, even superglue their nostrils shut (metaphorically speaking, of course) just to be in the same room together. But this is possible if they all realize that this same cause is absolutely vital to a common interest they all share – which it is, because nothing less than the very future of American freedom depends on it.
The idea looks good – but will such a system protect us from a skillful and crooked demagogue? Maybe it would have prevented us getting to the sorry situation we were in – with both partys bent only on staying in power. Maybe one should worry about the role of the media, both mainstream and social.
I also have a question: Is IRV used to choose delegates in some states? You seem to address that!
You ask: “Will it protect us from a skillful and crooked demagogue?”
Well — not entirely it won’t. But it will offer us some protection. In short – it won’t protect us from every factor that a demagogue can use as an opportunity — but it can protect us from some factors.
Two of the factors that Trump exploited – possibly the two that he exploited most – were (a) the environment of polarization (which as discussed, IRV will at least somewhat reduce) and (b) the tendency of voters to feel that they’re only going to the polls to pick the lesser of two evils (which is also a symptom of the two-party duopoly).
So in short — no — it won’t provide iron-clad protection against any skilled demagogue —- but it will make it much harder for such a demagogue.