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Articles/Essays – Volume 02, No. 2
In Opposition to the Two-Party System
Certain segments of the American voting public will be in a real dilemma next year. We don’t yet know which segments, but following are three hypothetical cases to illustrate: a) if the Democrats nominate candidate X, a pillar of the military-industrial complex, and the Republicans nominate candidate Y, a civil-rights foot-dragger and champion for the status quo, liberal voter Z is without a candidate; b) if the Democrats nominate candidate A, a left-wing radical, and the Republicans nominate candidate B, a liberal with an independent voting record, conservative voter C is without a candidate; and c) if the Democrats present labor candidate L and the Republicans present conservative candidate M, centrist voter N is still without a candidate. George Wallace’s third party is a step in the right direction, since it would correct one of the above eventualities, but there is nothing to correct the other two.
Part of the problem seems to lie in the fact that the Republican and Democratic “political philosophies” have largely lost their meaning. For example, one can find few platform tenets in common between Ronald Reagan and Nelson Rockefeller, or between William Fulbright and Lurleen Wallace. Both parties have become so broadminded that they cannot possibly run on common platforms that extend to all their candidates. George Romney could not in honesty even support Barry Goldwater as the presidential candidate of his party.
Having lived for the past six years in a country in which the two-party system never did exist (and which, incidentally, does not function as well as the United States as far as representation is concerned—but for different reasons), I have observed some conditions that I would consider improvements if they existed in our American political life.
Americans are among the world’s best educated peoples. And they are among the most politically naive. A peasant woman in India was asked why she had voted for a certain candidate; she replied that his party symbol was the butterfly, and she preferred butterflies to hummingbirds, the symbol of the other party. The woman was illiterate and can be forgiven. But what about the American with a university diploma who votes for a man because he has a pretty wife or because he plays heroic roles in the movies? Last summer I met on a bus a senior from the University of Utah who told me Ronald Reagan would be the best president the country ever had, because “he is known and loved by every American. Every citizen would feel as if he had a member of his family in the White House.”
Years ago, Bertrand Russell observed that the British voting public was leaning toward immature voting practices. He warned them that, rather than vote for a man, one should vote for his platform. One should inform oneself on the issues, decide how he stands, and vote for the man who stands for his point of view. Young “first voters” still pride themselves in following this idea. It might be good advice for the American television audiences, who are swayed by the man who has the best makeup job, or who can discourse the most poignantly on “freedom” or “honesty” or the other catch-all words that bring tears to the eyes of a patriot.
In analyzing the constructive aspects of the French system, it might be simplest to describe how the various parties functioned during the legislative elections last March, and refer to the Presidential election in 1965. Each French election consists of two parts: the election in which all the political parties present their candidates, and the “run-off” (le “ballotage”) election a week later. When de Gaulle missed getting the 51% that would have kept him from having to run in the “ballotage,” the lighter side of the French press went almost hysterical. If we had had a Trafalgar Square, the newsmen of Le Canard Enchainee would certainly have gone and splashed in the fountains.
Some candidates do get this 51% in the first election, and no ballotage is held in their district. If all candidates presented get less than 51%, the two highest present themselves a week later, and campaign at fever heat during that week.
In March, the French Chamber of Deputies (Congress), consisting of 487 members, were elected or re-elected to the Assembly. These candidates are named by not two parties but at least seven main ones and a couple of other little ones. The Communists presented their candidates in the first election without making any “deals” with other parties for the run-off. But when they saw that de Gaulle’s majority could be effectively threatened (as indeed it was), they formed coalitions for the run-offs. De Gaulle saw the threat, too, and delivered a “red scare” tirade that made McCarthy look pale in comparison, but so little attention was paid to it that de Gaulle’s party squeaked by with a majority of one seat.
The Unified Socialist Party (PSU) led by Mendes-France, the Socialist Party led by Guy Mollet, and the leftist faction of the Radical Party formed a coalition called the Federation of the Socialist Left, which presented candidates in common for the first election and coalesced with the Communists for the run-offs.
The M. R. P. (Popular Republican Movement) led by Lecanuet leads a coalition called the Democratic Center, incorporating the Independent Peas ants, the rightist segment of the Radical Party, and other centrists who oppose de Gaulle.
Just to the right, but still claiming to be centrist, is a weak little party called the U. N. R. (Union for the New Republic) which at the present time has one trump: Charles de Gaulle.
And to the far right is the party of Tixier-Vignancour, those who wanted to keep Algeria French, etc. It’s interesting to note that in the presidential election two years ago when Tixier was eliminated, he threw his votes to the leftist candidate, Francois Mitterand. In other words, he said to the French voters, “Elect the devil himself, but not de Gaulle.”
In cases where the Federation of the Left candidate got more votes than the Communist candidate, the Communists threw their votes to the Federation candidate in the run-offs, and vice-versa. Lecanuet did not throw his votes; he told members to decide for themselves. De Gaulle, of course, has never thrown any votes anywhere; he is only handicapped if his party fails to win a majority over all the other parties put together—like Johnson or Wilson or any other parliamentary executive. Tixier’s doctrine is “beat de Gaulle,” and in each district his followers vote for any party that has a chance of doing this. He bears de Gaulle a heavy grudge for giving Algeria its independence when he wasn’t supposed to—after four years of trying not to.
Sometimes when votes are thrown, not all of them are caught. The Communists were told to vote for the leftist candidate when they lost out in the presidential election, but there is evidence that some of them voted for de Gaulle.
At a glance, all this looks a little muddled. And to muddle things further, we have little constitutional clauses that permit the deputies to throw out the President,[1] the President to throw out the deputies, or the leader of the government to throw out the dissidents (which happened in 1947 when Ramadier quietly threw out all the Communists). The one advantage is this: Whatever your political feelings, there is a party that believes as you do, and works to put its philosophy into effect in the country.
In the United States we have two political machines, both split, and no political parties. Very often a voter will substitute party loyalty, which is meaningless when there is no party philosophy, for any sort of effort to decide for himself.[2] And even if one wants to be informed and vote intelligently, it is very often difficult to do so because the candidates permit themselves to be evasive on certain controversial issues, or in some cases run on one platform and reverse themselves after they get into office. The fault still lies with the electorate, which does not use its power to force the candidate to take a stand on vital issues and then to follow through as he proposed to do. Goldwater was not unjustified in saying, “When I talked about bombing North Viet Nam it was called foolhardy extremism. Now it’s called statesmanship.”
In order for Americans to inform themselves adequately, and to vote in their own interests, there need first of all exist and be recognized at least five political parties; inside the two political camps that now exist, we have people that fall loosely into the following categories:
The Radical Right. The Bomb China Firsters who are against civil rights, against social reforms and welfare agencies, for stamping out Communism wherever it raises its head and by whatever means at our disposal, and for the “survival of the fittest.”
The Right. People who are in favor of going all the way in Viet Nam, slowing down on civil rights, reducing civilian welfare agencies in favor of defense, opposing Communism by maintaining the status quo,[3] and maintaining “natural monopolies.”
The Center. Middle-of-the-roaders who believe we must stay in Viet Nam until a capitalist bulwark is assured (but not bomb the North), move along moderately on civil rights, maintain capitalistic colonies (but seek acceptable terms between investors and the local population), maintain the Truman status quo policy (but work for reforms) and control trusts and monopolies.
The Left. People who would negotiate an immediate withdrawal from Viet Nam, move fast to solidify the application of civil rights legislation, allow foreign investment at the risk of the investor, junk the status quo policy and withdraw support of unjust, corrupt, or autocratic governments, and push socialist reforms while maintaining capitalist institutions.
The Communists. Withdraw American troops and materiel not only from Viet Nam, but Laos and Thailand as well, insist on equal rights in all cases for racial minorities, not support foreign investment, support only the leftist governments of the world, and nationalize industry.
It seems to me particularly important that the Communists be recognized and that we overcome our paranoid fear of them. Neither Britain nor France seems to fear an overthrow of its government because a number of their citizens are Communists, and one of the most unhealthy aspects of our political climate is the lumbering imbalance toward the right.
The rightist organizations of our country have never borne the taint of social stigma and official banishment that the Communist party and related groups have; and because the rightist groups are generally made up of affluent people, they can afford a gigantic propaganda effort to convince the public that what’s good for them is good for everybody. “Everybody” is inclined to believe it, because the American dream gives us all the right to go from rags to riches; so as we wear our rags we cast our votes to the advantage of the rich man we are sure to become. Under the aegis of superpatriotism, all sorts of crimes against humanity can be, and have been, committed. Americans don’t always seem to remember that the Nazis were superpatriots too.
The French have no such illusions. They have recently seen the awful effects of creeping overnationalism, not only in their neighbors, but among themselves; and since the chances that a French laborer will ever be rich are far less than those of his American counterpart, he is much more pragmatic and realistic. And that may be why, out of fifty thousand votes, the Communist party is likely to cop ten thousand. It is also interesting to note that, although only 20% of the French vote Communist, in a recent IFOP (Gallup-type) poll, 40% of the French are favorable to having Communist ministers in the government (Le Monde, 19 Jan. 1967).
Rightly so. Directly because of the activity and influence of the Communist Party, the French working person is entitled to four weeks’ minimum paid vacation a year; French social security covers at least a percentage, if not all, of his medical expenses and those of his dependents; and, most important, the radical right is counter-balanced by a radical left,[4] leaving a stable political climate.
Even more important to us than the fact that a political balance seems constructive, it seems necessary to have some sort of check on the smell of treason that the rightists of our country attribute to the leftists. Since the time of McCarthy, and even before, it has been not only possible, but a common practice, for a conservative candidate to insinuate or declare that his liberal opponent was willing to threaten the security of the United States by “making deals with the enemy,” and such candidates have been so zealous to protect their compatriots from their enemies that if we didn’t have any conceivable enemies at the time, they were left at a great loss until we did.
I don’t presume to say that in France all political thought is tolerated with benign generosity, or that a fatalistic lethargy typical of American don’t know-and-care-less types doesn’t exist. I enjoy drawing people I meet, particularly taxi drivers, into political arguments, and once or twice I have been disappointed to hear familiar old bromides from back home: “What does it matter what I think? It’ll all come out the same anyway,” or “Politicians are all crooks. What does it matter which crook wins the election?” What I do find here that is very constructive is a wide variety of accepted political opinion. Nobody campaigns for anarchy, and nobody comes out for Nazism, but just about anything in between can be tolerated, now that the plastic has stopped flying.[5] And I firmly believe that a person has no freedom of opinion or action unless the people among whom he lives accord him that right—whatever form of democratic, fascist, or communist government he lives under.
Recently two distinguished French journalists have made the statement that French politics “s’americanise.” What they mean is that right now the French political parties are divided into two camps, for and against de Gaulle. But the fundamental difference remains: The French political parties retain their identity; even in the “federations” they function independently and in sist on compromises toward their philosophies and points of view. And when de Gaulle is gone, no doubt they will again split up and promote their separate platforms. In the American political parties there are no segments who feel and operate together; there are only individuals with widely varying feeling and philosophies.
One man alone can do nothing. And a lot of people with the same opinion can do nothing, unless they have a vehicle, an organization, a realistic plan. A really free man must be able to identify himself with a functioning political party—and in that one respect, the French, and most of the rest of Western Europe, have left us far behind.
[1] De Gaulle’s tailor-made constitution has cleared things up a bit and incidentally has given the President “more power than Napoleon or Louis XIV had,” according to Francois Mitterand.
[2] In 1952 I voted for Eisenhower against Stevenson. I discovered many years later that I was in agreement with Stevenson on every single issue.
[3] Truman , in a March 12, 1947, message to Congress, states, “.. . It must be the policy of the United States to support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressure. … “
[4] The Radical Party is not radical at all. It’s smack in the center with a split down the middle.
[5] We did have a very tense summer in 1961 when de Gaulle had made clear his intention to negotiate Algerian independence. The rightist terrorists left plastic bombs in the apartments or houses of prominent Gaullists or anticolonialists, generally set to go off when no one was home, but unfortunately you can’t always tell when someone might be walking by. The Communist Party headquarters was “plastique,” and a small bookstore in my neighborhood was gutted. The people were neither leftist nor of any particular political bent, but the name of their bookstore was “The Progressive.”