The idea of serious third and fourth American political parties merits two cheers, or maybe one cheer and a few quick claps.
During a paean to now-independent congressman Justin Amash of Michigan, columnist George Will touches on, without deeply analyzing, the idea that challenges to the Republican-Democratic duopoly might be salutary for the public weal.
“Voters need not invariably settle for a sterile binary choice,” Will writes. He is not averse to “the idea of offering temperate voters a choice of something other than a choice between bossy progressivism and populist Caesarism.”
My colleague Eddie Scarry vociferously disagrees, but what Will muses about when writing of Amash could well serve the entire body politic if attempted nationally. For example, the presidential elections of 1824, 1860, and 1948 all featured four serious general-election candidacies that helped the nation sort out major political crosswinds. The elections of 1912, 1968 and 1992 featured very significant third-force efforts whose results might not have been desirable, but which served as pressure-relief safety valves for tensions boiling beneath the political surface.
Frankly, the three-party option is a bit more fraught with danger. A third party would almost inevitably be perceived as leaning at least a little right or at least a little left, and thus take the bulk of its votes from its own “side” of the mythical ideological midline rather than equally from both. By splitting that side’s votes, the result in most cases would hand a plurality victory for a presidential candidate on the other side, one whose basic political philosophy is opposed by a clear majority of voters.
A four-party situation, however, could serve a good purpose without such risks of perverse results. Two equally attractive upstart efforts, one somewhat right of center and one somewhat left, could help the system retain basic left-right equipoise while providing fresh voices, creative policy options, and leavening tones of discourse that are lacking in today’s polarized politics.
Moreover, by giving voters more choices, the third and fourth parties could provide political way-stations for Americans appalled by the hard-left turn of today’s Democrats and the volatile, nativist proclivities of Trumpist Republicans.
If both new parties manage to win pluralities, and thus electoral votes, from a few states, thus denying any one candidate an Electoral College majority, then Congress might need to use Twelfth-Amendment procedures to choose a president. So be it. That situation could improve the American polity in two ways – especially if those new parties can also field congressional candidates who can, perhaps Amash-like, nab a few House seats. Those few seats could deny either party a clear majority of state delegations in the House, making it unclear which candidate would emerge the victor.
This could actually be beneficial. The first benefit would come in the public’s attitudes toward the presidency. Right now, the president arguably is too omnipresent in American life, too much the repository for the citizenry’s dreams, and too powerful. Much of this mystique comes from the public’s sense that it selects the president directly, as an elective near-king. By making a president occasionally dependent on Congress for his very office, the extra political parties could negate this halo effect – bringing the presidency, in the public’s mind, back to earth.
The second benefit would be within Congress. The scenario described above would require coalition politics to break the impasse. No more pure party automatons. A return to the sorts of deal-making and compromise once seen as essential and honorable facets of legislating. The system needs more coalition politics, in place of partisan impasses. Third and fourth parties, if hearty, could provide it.
