Anne-Marie Slaughter has this article in Financial Times, about Howard Schultz and also about Americans who tell pollsters that they favor a new major party. She points to data that shows the voters who say they want a new party are wildly divergent from each other.
The actual URL link is https://www.ft.com/content/c883364c-3b56-11e9-9988-28303f70fcff
Well, no, it is https://www.ft.com/content/c883364c-3b56-11e9-9988-28303f70fcff?fbclid=IwAR0F7gyc5tfIxtLAAIUuDTf75XGFSQ7fGUaadwersM0IDnOvHLfB8cj6FZA
Weird website – lets me view it, but URL doesn’t work on click-thru from a post. So here it is in plain text:
SOURCE: https://www.ft.com/content/c883364c-3b56-11e9-9988-28303f70fcff
Today’s centrist candidates are not a cross-section of America
Those who espouse a new political middle ground are overwhelmingly affluent white men
ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER
Should we despair of the centre? Across Europe and the US — not to mention in Brazil, the Philippines and Turkey — mainstream parties have been steadily losing ground over the past few years to more extreme forces on the right and the left. In 2019, however, centrist forces are pushing back.
In the UK, eight Labour and three Conservative MPs have defected from their respective parties to create the Independent Group in parliament. In Israel last week two centrist parties agreed to join forces in upcoming elections, posing a serious threat to current prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And, in January, former Starbucks chief Howard Schultz announced to Americans on Twitter: “I love our country and I am seriously considering running for president as a centrist independent.”
In Israel and the UK, these new groupings could change the political landscape. But political analysts are quick to point out that the emergence of a new party is a very different proposition in a parliamentary system than in a winner-take-all presidential model. In the kind of first-past-the-post system that exists in the US, the only way a third party can avoid being a spoiler is to displace one of the two existing parties, such that it commands almost all its votes, as well as some from the other party.
That is not going to happen in the US any time soon. Mr Schultz cites the now well-known Gallup statistic that, in 2017, 42 per cent of the electorate identified as independents, while only 29 per cent identified as Democrats and 27 per cent as Republicans. That chunk of voters is a tempting prize. Another 2018 poll found that two-thirds of Americans want a third party. But here’s the catch. According to the politically diverse Voter Study Group: “About one-third want a party of the centre, about one-fifth want a party to the left of the Democrats, and about one-fifth want a party to the right of the Democrats, with the remainder wanting something else.”
Even riding an overwhelming centrist surge, Mr Schultz would thus only command about a third of the electorate, a few percentage points more than the Republicans and Democrats. And that scenario assumes that Mr Schultz’s interpretation of centrism is widely shared. Yet that same report found that only about 4 per cent of Americans are socially liberal and fiscally conservative, the quadrant that so many wealthy moderate Democrats and liberal Republicans inhabit and would love to believe commands mass appeal.
Equally relevant in trying to assess the strength of this version of centrism is the demographic composition of those who profess to espouse it. In the US they are overwhelmingly affluent white men. Consider the New Center and Unite America, two prominent centrist initiatives. The New Center is co-chaired by Democrat William Galston and Republican Bill Kristol. The initiative made a splash because they are unlikely political allies but demographically they are in the same box.
Charles Wheelan, a senior lecturer in economics and public policy at Dartmouth College, proposes creating a centrist party in his book The Centrist Manifesto. He envisages a small third party that would begin by capturing four or five Senate seats, enough for it to serve as a swing party that could force the others to make compromises. The group, he writes, “would be a small, disproportionately powerful bloc demanding what most Americans are asking for”.
The follow-on Unite America is “a movement to elect common sense, independent candidates to office who can represent ‘we, the people’ — not the party bosses or special interests”. The “people” represented on the website are overwhelmingly affluent and white.
I like and respect many of the people behind such initiatives, and endorse the idea of multiple parties if the US system were amended to permit them. But their claims of drawing support from all Americans at the centre of the spectrum rings hollow. Any effort to create a sustainable new coalition must reach across gender, race, ethnic, and generational lines. Otherwise “centrist independent” will become code for well-off white people who no longer feel comfortable in the Democratic party.
The writer is president of the New America think-tank and an FT contributing editor
The key point of the article is that the plurality voting system prevents the emergence of a new major party in the US. But an alternative voting system such as ranked choice voting, while that may not by itself create a new major third party, would enable a number of smaller parties, each representing the divergent views of independent voters, to influence the outcome without being spoilers.
NONSTOP minority rule gerrymanders in USA —
1/2 or less votes x 1/2 rigged packed/cracked districts = 1/4 or less CONTROL = EVIL / VICIOUS OLIGARCH HACKS making most laws.
Before the 1964 SCOTUS gerrymander cases the minority rule was 5-15 percent in many States and in the USA H Reps.
Much, much, much worse primary math — esp. if no incumbent.
IT SHOWS — in the now pending /(? actual) Civil W-A-R II in the USA
— RED Donkey communists v Trump Elephant fascists
— to CONTROL ALL folks 24/7/365-366
— esp. the USA GDP – now about a mere $$$ 20 TRILLION — count the zeroes.
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PR and AppV
@ WalterZiobro, No, the key point of the article is “a small third party that would begin by capturing four or five Senate seats, enough for it to serve as a swing party that could force the others to make compromises. The group, he writes, “would be a small, disproportionately powerful bloc demanding what most Americans are asking for”.”
How would such a thing be accomplished? By going after senate seats in small states: Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, Alaska, South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine.
@ JR Maine and Vermont seem to be the only real possibilities on that list, and, are, in fact, the only ones who actually have independent Senators. I suppose that that is the only possible route as long as we have plurality voting in most states, but, IMO, it’s a pretty small hope. The voting system itself needs to be challenged, as it has been in Maine.
Abolish the ANTI-Democracy minority rule USA Senate —
with its blowhard super-hacks — esp. from the below average small States.
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PR and AppV
Well, Democrats ARE centrists, so Slaughter’s working from a bad starting point. Nuff ced.
“Well, Democrats ARE mensheviks, so Slaughter’s working from a bad starting point. Nuff ced.” There fixed it for ya! No charge.
TOP New Age Democrats in the USA are obviously Marxist-Leninist RED communists – working from the wreckage of the dead 1991 USSR regime of death and tyranny.
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PR and AppV