Replies

until recently ~ like today for example ~ both major parties had a variety of coalition partners.

The same is true today, of course. Gays vs. environmentalists vs. feminists vs. blacks vs. hispanics vs. outright socialists in the Democratic Party. Social conservatives vs. fiscal conservatives vs. libertarians vs. neoconservatives vs. paleoconservatives in the GOP.

Many people of course belong to more than one of these groups. Like the socialist lesbian latina environmentalist.

In most of the world, with multi-party systems, the coalitions necessary to govern are assembled after elections by negotiations between parties. Here, the negotiations take place before elections within parties.

In both systems there is a pull into the coalition created by a desire for power and greater dislike of the other side, and a push out of the coalition created by discomfort with your coalition partners.

That's the story. The single member district (house, state, nation) serves to create the bimodal saddle ~ after all, the winning team will always win with 50% +1 vote. Things might not start out that way ~ e.g. the United States ~ but very quickly the smart guys figure it out and take over the elections ~ see Jefferson for that one. He tossed the Federalists aside like they'd never existed. They had more or less thought that elections would always consist of men of property and power selecting responsible public stewards. Little did they imagine somebody might think things ought to work differently!

People unwilling to work in a coalition before the elections are doomed to lose. With the GOP-e having managed to hijack the party machinery over the last 79 years it's no wonder that 11 of their Presidential candidates have been beaten like an old rug ~ they don't play coalition politics well and simply fail to get out the existing Republican voters.

There are several solutions to the dilemma. For example:

1. Detach the GOP-e from the Republican coalition,

2. Create a new centrum ~ a NEW REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE for the state parties to meet with and let the current RNC wander into the wilderness of small party dissolution with the GOP-e.

OR, 3. Try to create an entirely new party ~ in some manner more pure in purpose than the current coalition.

Of those 3 possibilities, I Prefer #2. It's consistent with the only other successful party break down and take over that ended up with a viable national party ~ that was when the Republican party was formed ~ mostly as a Committee devoted to the selection of a candidate to run for President in 1856. They linked up with still extant Whig party units (why you still find Whig monetarist theories current in Republican circles) and they linked up with Abolitionist units at the state and district level which had almost, but not quite, achieved status as independent political parties.

That's where Republican idealism continues to arrive ~ that's our Socon, Defensecon, etc. movements emanate.

What we need to do is quite simple ~ detach the political leaches. They have a home over in the Democrats if they want.

So, can we do it? Odds are if only a handful of lifelong Conservative Republicans get together behind the idea it can be done in weeks. All the other approaches will take years and we don't have years or this republic to futz around.