...So Did Ya' Get The Memo?

Binary opposition. Day and night. A pair of theoretical opposites. The key part of the phrase here is “bi” – meaning two. These two words together – sounding authoritative and categorical – led me to believe that like a lot of other similar phrases, they came from some grand archive of existing, concrete factors. After further research, of course, I found that binary opposition – according to some – is simply a social construct. Although through a structuralist’s perspective, binary opposition is a “fundamental organizer,” under all the “post- eras” of thought – including structuralism, feminism, colonialism, anarchism (and other such “isms”), however, binary opposition holds as nothing other than a misinterpreted, only seemingly-meaningful order.
Now, what do these archaic theoretical tidbits have to do with politics? Well, lets just say in respect to the political landscape of the United States, two more symbolic words have been added to the extensive list of things considered as binary opposites – democrats and republicans.
I would now like to lay down my own theory on the table and ask a question: Isn’t the two-party dominant system just another social construct as well? Either everyone missed the fine print in the Constitution of the United States where it says that everything has to run under a two-party dominant system sustaining absolutely nothing else or somebody added a clause we haven’t heard of. I’m sure they would have taken the time to leave a gigantic asterisk in front of it had that really been the case. So, when and where and furthermore why has the American electorate been socially constructed to accept this two-party system? We forget that between day and night are dawn and dusk and that between democrat and republican people posses a list of hybrid ideals and values.
Again, this is arguably a manifestation of a fundamental habit of human thought. History follows structural patterns and therefore we might indeed have a hard time escaping from it. But since it is arbitrary we should feel ourselves liberated to alter it. The argument will be that because we have adopted a particular structure, third or forth parties really don’t make sense for people who want to form them. I say, why not break from the structure and allow the electorate a closer relationship to government where they can crystallize their values and ideals and actually have them represented accurately?
Getting back to the archaic subtext of binary opposition, we’ll look at Claude-Levi Strauss’s notions of structural anthropology. Strauss argues that people see the world in terms of these opposites and in turn every culture can be understood in terms of these opposites as well. Strauss’s position goes back even further to the fundamental philosophy of Hegel who explains that in every situation there can be found two opposing things and their resolution (thesis, antithesis, synthesis). Strauss takes Hegel’s approach and applies it to cultural structures, asserting that regardless of the existence of the structure itself, people are unaware of the subconscious workings of it in their daily lives. If you want to really get into it, Strauss in his early anthropological work with Amazonians, argues that even tribal kinship groups are usually found in pairs. He also shows how their cognitive maps work in categorizing anything from animals and trees to rituals – pointing out that they are all based on a series of oppositions as well. So what do the theories of structuralists like Strauss have in common with American political figures like George Washington and James Madison in context to our electoral system? Well, lets see what our forefathers really intended for this nation and what actually happened.
It’s ironic how the first president of the United States, in his farewell address actually urged that we avoid forming political parties altogether. I wonder how happy general Washington and idealists alike would be with today’s landscape. In fact, political factionalism was one of the main themes of his speech. Washington saw the potential harm that political factionalism would have on the country. This fear was manifested as the two factions that had already developed into political parties in the early 1790s – the Federalists and the Republicans – gained power. Through his message he foresaw how the political polarization would play into the new government, and it didn’t look satisfactory. As the parties grew stronger to shape the nation in correspondence to their own thoughts, Washington’s prediction proved to be true. Even a realist like Madison (Federalist Papers No. 51) argued against factions. However, he realized that factions would inevitably exist and went further to explain that the only thing to extinguish the polarization of power and counteract its effects would be, in fact, to establish numerous factions – which is where my argument comes into play. Today’s political landscape is very polarized by the democratic and republican parties. As a republican, if you have a few liberal points of view on issues among an array of conservative ones you are automatically accused of not being a true republican (McCain ring a bell?). Kind of reminiscent of the witch hunts trials in Salem. All it takes is one comment against you and the stake is all fired up and ready to go. I’ll make a reference back to Reagan, Carter and Anderson to give you a better glimpse of similar situations in the past. John B. Anderson, former Republican representative from the 16th District of Illinois, was one of the most conservative members of the Republican caucus. But as he continued to serve, some of his positions on social issues started to lean to the left although his fiscal policy remained conservative. Guess what happened because of his political drift? He got the boot from his “fellow” Republicans and got screwed when he tried to run for president in the 1980 election with Carter and Reagan (this is the same guy who introduced a constitutional amendment that would have “recognized the law and authority of Jesus Christ” over the United States). So what did Anderson do? He dropped out of the republican race, and decided to run as an independent. How many votes do you think that got him? Anderson was unable to make headway against the de facto two-party system as an independent. It’s been said that Anderson's 1980 candidacy is a prime example of how the spoiler effect harms third party candidates. Surprise, surprise, in the 1984 Presidential election, Anderson supported the Democratic candidate Walter Mondale.
Josephine Andrews and Jeannette Money present an argument in "The Spatial Structure of Party Competition: Two-Party versus Multi-Party Systems," where they discuss that in multi-party systems (systems with 3 or more parties), the further parties are located from the position of the median voter, the fewer votes they receive, but in two-party systems, no systematic relationship exists between proximity to the median voter and vote share, suggesting that parties in two-party systems can adjust their policy positions significantly without penalty. They find that the ideological distance between parties in a party system is greater in multi-party systems than in two-party systems. I think that the concentration should not be so much on as to how different the ideologies are, but the details in which they differ. Only when pulling up the logistics of the difference can you then see the similarities in between. If anything, the two-party system in the U.S. makes such a stark contrast between democrats and republicans that you cant share values of both and instead must align with one or the other. So in that sense, the spatial proximity, I think, works in an opposite manner than that proposed. The ideological distance, to me, seems so much further between two opposing parties than multiple hybrids of party platforms. You can either see the factions as expanding the proximity, making one end further than the other, or agree that with each faction represented there is a closer, more accurate ideology that is easier for the voter to relate to, as opposed to the politician – who is pretty much selling it as their platform.
According to Ian Budge and Michael D. McDonald in “Election and party system effects on policy representation: Bringing time into a comparative perspective,” public policy is supposed under democracy to be necessarily linked to popular preferences through elections. Election outcomes are however shaped not only by the votes cast but also by the party-policy options on offer and the rules by which votes are aggregated into seats. I couldn’t agree more with the position that policy should be directly linked to popular preference, but in fact the party that holds majority ultimately shapes it. The problem is not that the policy is solely shaped by the party, but instead that the party who shapes the policy doesn’t even fully represent every ideal that its members hold – only a bulk of it in proximity to the other party.
The important factor to take into consideration is that the two-party system is a function of the U.S. electoral system – specific to this country – as opposed to a parliamentary system for example in regards to Britain. In a parliamentary system, there is more room for maneuvering multiple parties because they can claim a piece of action by parlaying their numbers into power. After all, their executive “branch” emerges out of their legislative one in a coalition. However, the stark difference for the electorate is drawn in terms of where the decision is made. In a parliamentary system, the people are not making the decisions but only electing representatives who will do it for them. But in the two-party system people have to make that decision with themselves first, and after the dealing, they negotiate a compromise with their positions as they align with those of an official, and even after that they negotiate with them. It’s not necessarily a direct representation of all your values but it is the closest you can come to and still maintain having a say in congressional laws. In a parliamentary system, people get to have themselves and their interests represented but they are not in a position where they are permitted to decide and instead the decision is deferred to another level of society (those in parliament). In the two-party system, you have candidate X for example, and you like at least a few aspects of their platform. You find an accommodation for yourself, you negotiate and vote accordingly. In parliament, there are different factions with mirror-like representation of a group of people. But assuming that one has not achieved a majority, they have to cut deals among themselves to see who gets to form governmental policies. So technically, you might have someone representing you down to the T, but if they do not hold a majority then your positions don’t hold the majority base and must be negotiated into being put aside for another that does hold majority. In the two-party system, every candidate you vote for is going to be, at best, an imperfect representation of who you are and what you stand for, but because of the nature of the system you have to vote for candidates who do not necessarily perfectly represent your positions. You are always cutting a deal with yourself, sitting back and saying what’s the lesser of TWO evils and which interest are you more headstrong about promoting. Is it better for the people to have their interests and their selves perfectly represented at a legislative level with the catch that says that the compromise is not made by them anymore but is trusted in the hands of a representative – to do it the way that you want?
There you see that binary opposition again through political defeat. The lesser of two, not the least of more. I’m not necessarily advocating a parliamentary system over that of the U.S. government, however, I’m trying to show the distinction of the two and how there is no middle ground where you can have different representatives and simultaneously manage to be heard without needing to hold the majority first.
People are disenfranchised from government and politics because they find their power is limited. In the U.S., this disenfranchisement takes the shape of the two-party system through which democracy – representation of, for and by the people – is being stifled. Can we keep the system but attempt to restructure it to enfranchise voters again or will we continue to see only Red and Blue? If, in fact, this country advocates for its peoples’ voices to be heard, then its pretty ironic that really only two voices are heard at the end of the day, and even those voices are not complete representations of the masses. The purple area needs to exist if the United States government truly wants the electorate to not only overcome its politi-phobia but also actually engage in their civic duties as citizens of the “best democracy in the world.” The system can work under a different structure, but jaded politicians need to be able to step out of their political polarization in order for the electorate to – after all we’re supposed to look up to the leaders of our country for guidance, right?