Dissecting the political party landscape

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There’s a surging populist progressive insurgency of Elizabeth Warren-type Democratic candidates all over the country, according to John Nichols in the latest issue of The Nation. But not in Colorado. Our politics are sometimes described as moderate, but actually should be called heterogeneous. In a profile of Colorado’s political divisions in 2012, journalist Ben Adler portrayed us as a typical “swing state”:

“Terms like ‘swing state,’ or a purple coloration on an electoral map, may create the false impression of a place filled with moderates who collectively shift from one election to the next. That’s not what such states actually look like on the ground. Rather, they are a collection of dense blue archipelagos — typically cities and college towns — surrounded by geographically vast swaths of less densely populated rural and suburban conservatism. The actual swing areas are typically limited to a few inner-ring suburbs. Even in those neighborhoods, victory might be determined by simply turning out more of your supporters rather than winning over converts.”

In such a situation, it’s easy to lose perspective when considering statewide races. A number of local progressives have told me they were annoyed at the numerous TV ads about Cory Gardner’s lousy stances on reproductive rights. “Is that the only issue?” they ask. But these ads aren’t aimed at them but at swing voter women in the Denver suburbs who don’t care for pushy Christian right-wingers.

Boulder County Democrats, who tend to be progressive, provide the margin of victory in a number of statewide races for candidates who tend to be more centrist. This can create friction with the state leadership. Just recently, some longtime Democrats have decided to punish Governor Hickenlooper over his pro-fracking stance by voting for Harry Hempy, the Green Party gubernatorial candidate.

This emotional response is understandable but problematic since the race is close. We need to think strategically. You can denounce the Democratic Party and join a third party. However, third parties are destined to remain marginal given the structure of the U.S. electoral system (the lack of proportional representation and the existence of winner-take-all districts and executive-run government that makes coalition governments impossible).

You can try to make the Democratic Party into a left-wing force, but you will find that the Democratic Party (and the Republicans) aren’t parties in any European parliamentary sense, where members are bound to a program or platform with some consistency, and where mass party organizations exist at the base. They are undisciplined and periodic coalitions which come together on the basis of electoral opportunism every two years or, in the national sense, only every four years. The party platforms are ignored by everybody.

Political analyst Carl Davidson says it makes more sense to argue that there are really six parties:

1. The Tea Party, which promotes anti-globalist nationalism and “libertarian” economics. It also merges with paleo-conservative traditionalists, which serves as a cover for defending white and male privilege and armed militia groups.

2. The Republican Multinationalists who are the moneybags of the GOP — the Bushes, Cheney, Karl Rove, the Koch brothers (petroleum, defense industries and other U.S. businesses with global reach).

3. The Blue Dog Democrats who are tied to “Red State” mass voting bases — the military industrial workers, and the Southern and Appalachian regions. Their “party” frequently sides with the GOP in Congressional voting.

4. The Third Way New Democrats who are the U.S. electoral arm of global and finance capital (the Clintons and Rahm Emanuel). They were formed to break with “economic populism” of the old FDR coalition, and assert a variety of globalist “free trade” measures and the gutting of Glass-Steagall banking regulations.

5. Old New Dealers of the AFCIO who have a Keynesian approach to economic matters, and criticize finance capital and globalist trade deals.

6. The Congressional Progressive Caucus with Keynesian and, in some cases, social-democratic policy views.

Progressives should ally with one of the left-of-center factions/“parties” in the Democratic Party.

Davidson argues that we need to develop a strategy to defeat the Tea Party, GOP multinationalists and Blue Dogs (who block any progressive legislation). We then build a popular front against finance capital.

As Alvin Toffler put it, “If you don’t have a strategy, you’re part of someone else’s strategy.”

Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com 

This opinion column does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.