The Political Outsiders: A Series on the Possible Future of American Politics

I have always been fascinated by the question of how political outsiders—those who are not the elite or influential members of the major political parties—can become influential and affect the political process. I operate from the assumption that America is a democratic system and all citizens and residents should have a voice. The system, if it is working, therefore, should accommodate political outsiders. When ordinary people feel they do not have a voice or a stake in the system, then the system of American democracy has failed.

I am going to attempt a rather ambitious series of blog posts which will present and analyze various ongoing efforts to enact political reform and wider participation in the American political system.

• The Fusion Strategy as touted by the Committee for a Unified Independent Party (CUIP)
• A takeover of the Democratic Party by Progressive, grassroots activists as described and exemplified by the books Crashing the Gate and Taking on the System
• Structural political reforms championed by the organization FairVote such as Instant Runoff Voting and the National Popular Vote

I chose to focus on these three because I have been observing these efforts for a long time—for a number of years. I have been observing the efforts by the CUIP to organize political independents since I first heard about them in the early 2000s. I have been consistently amazed observing FairVote’s incremental success in enacting IRV and NPV city by city and state by state year after year seemingly under the radar of mainstream political media coverage and public consciousness.

Being a political junkie I am a voracious reader of political books. Two books in particular—Crashing the Gate and Taking on the System—made a deep impression on me. These books led me to start researching and observing the efforts of Progressive, grassroots activists who have used the power of Internet technology and social media to challenge entrenched powers in the Democratic Party to create a powerful and influential niche for themselves in recent years.

Part I: Independents and Fusion

In a recent article at my other blog, An Ordinary Person, I examined a political strategy that is being touted by Independent activists for people who do not belong to or believe in the traditional political parties. This strategy is called Fusion. I contrasted the Fusion approach with the approach of third and minor parties of running candidates in electoral politics:

The third party strategy has failed to bring power back to the people in the American political system. Third party candidates who run in local and national elections, except for some anomalies, routinely post miniscule results. This is primarily the result of structural factors and the lopsided rules by which electoral politics in the US is conducted.

The CUIP asserts that there is absolutely no need to wait for these crucial reforms to happen before independents can start participating as players in American politics. Independents have to find ways to participate in politics and affect the political process now. Independents have to be willing to join in the fray of mainstream politics and be ready to throw its support behind any candidate from any party, major or minor, which represents and speaks out for independents. Salit calls this the fusion strategy.

For political outsiders who view issues and politics outside of the prism of Republican or Democratic perspectives, the CUIP’s fusion strategy presents an intriguing possibility for political outsiders to affect the political process as players instead of marginal participants. Indeed, if Independents act as a unified bloc or an organized group of political actors, whatever agenda they represent can be attractive enough for mainstream political candidates who seek their support to adopt.

This crux of the Fusion approach (and its main weakness) is that political independents can and should act as an organized bloc of voters who will throw their support behind any political candidate or movement which represents their interests. If independents are united and mainstream politicians see the benefit of getting their support, independents can potentially alter power dynamics which have traditionally favored the entrenched two major parties. With more than a third of the American electorate now self-designating as independent, the Fusion approach has real potential to have a major impact.

I say weakness, however, because the job of organizing independents and enacting an agenda that this third of the electorate can rally behind is easier said than done. Absent such a consensus, this approach is still heavily dependent on the major parties to set the agenda of political choices. In addition, independents span the political spectrum left to right and there is not a consensus even within independents what types of reforms, if any, the majority of them favor.

What pretty much unifies independents is their distrust of the traditional major parties and their skepticism of both Democrats and Republicans in addressing and actually solving problems. But is that enough to rally them into an actual, bona-fide movement for political reform?

The ongoing efforts by the CUIP is the only existing effort I know that is attempting to do this. I am not aware of any official outreach within the Democratic or Republican parties to appeal to independents in-between election years.

Recommended reading:

• We the Purple by Marcia Ford
• Committee for a Unified Independent Party
• Spoiling for a Fight: Third-Party Politics in America by Micah Sifry
• Electoral Fusion (from Wikipedia)

Progressives and Independents

I: Kicking the Left with Impunity

There was an interesting discussion at the Open Left blog today in the wake of Barack Obama picking conservative evangelical pastor Rick Warren to say the convocation at his Presidential inauguration:

[T]here are clear benefits for Democrats who are able to generate public, left-wing outrage against their actions…This is a widely held view, and is openly shared by Democrats as high ranking as Rahm Emanuel. As long as the generation of public, left-wing outrage toward their actions is understood to be politically beneficial to Democrats, then many Democrats will continue to undertake actions that have the direct or indirect goal of generating public, left-wing outrage at their actions. This is pretty straightforward. As long as the cost of annoying progressives is not only zero, but actually a net positive, then Democrats will continue to annoy progressives ad infinitum.

For a solution, the article argues:

Progressives must make the political cost of such actions unacceptable to the Democrats who are willing to undertake such actions for political benefit. At the congressional level, I accept kos's premise that the only means of holding Democrats accountable for angering progressives are primary challenges (sitting on your hands or supporting third-party candidates just doesn't work). Or, to be a bit more accurate, the only way for outsiders like us to engage in progressive accountability for Democrats in Congress is to spend actual resources attacking a member of Congress in his or her district.

The commenter “leftvet” observes:

The only accountability that works for politicians are political consequences. The left is currently unable to exact political consequences on any politician, so we are, of course, ignored or vilified. Chris has summed it up very well. Progressives have no real choice but to continue to support mainstream Democrats, no matter how many times they f**k us over, because there is no other electoral option available to us. The Dems know it, and continue to exploit that situation.

This conversation is fascinating to me on so many levels. As someone who self-identifies as a Progressive, it is truly maddening to witness case after case after case of Democrats kicking Progressive values and politics to the curb once they get elected even after they ran on the promise and symbolism of Progressive idealism. It is as if once elected, the best way to gain political credibility is to take gratuitous potshots at liberals and left-wingers who supported them in elections.

The discussion at Open Left, although it hits upon many of the right points, completely misses a very big point -- not everyone agrees the best strategy to enact a Progressive agenda is to elect Democrats into office. Many people who are potential supporters of any Progressive movement are NOT Democrats, have absolutely no intention of being Democrats, and do not have any particular loyalty to the Democratic Party given the party’s record on many issues Progressives care deeply about.

No one seems to be seriously talking about appealing to and bringing Independents into the fold -- and this comes at a time when satisfaction with government is at an all-time low and the number of people who are self-identifying politically as anything other than Democrats and Republicans is at an all-time high. I don’t claim to be an all-knowing political guru but I am tired of Progressives getting their asses kicked by Democrats in the process of playing by the rules of the game of American electoral politics.

Is the only viable goal for Progressive activism to elect Democrats into office (even if they are better Democrats)?

II: The Fight for Open Primaries

Here’s an idea: how about Leftist Progressive activists join Independents in efforts for radical structural reform? One effort they can join very easily right now is the effort by Independents for Open Primaries. A petition is circulating right now to ask President Barack Obama to:

• Initiate and support federal legislation to create open primaries for election to federal office in all 50 states that guarantees full access for independent voters;

• Establish a Presidential Task Force on Political and Electoral Reform that includes representatives of the broad movement of independent voters to consider sweeping nonpartisan reform of the electoral process and its administration;

• Use the bully pulpit to speak out on the importance of open primaries and the inclusion of independents in all aspects of the electoral and political process.

They are trying to reach 1,000 signatures by Inauguration. This is one way Progressives can get themselves introduced to the burgeoning movement among Independents who, increasingly, are becoming aware of their political potential. It is one way Progressives can form a bridge with Independents to join in an effort they care about (and which stands to benefit voters and political parties who seek a viable alternative to the Democrats).