That dinosaur of sophistry, Stanley Fish takes on independent voters in the
New York Times today, in a column entitled "
Against Independent Voters". As a lifelong independent voter, Mr. Fish's call that I should stop treating politics as a "shopping bazaar" and get "down and dirty" by becoming a partisan is laughable. I've voted in every election available to me since I was 18. I'm active in politics.
Like many Americans my age (I'm under 30), I've voted both for Democrats and Republicans. Many of my political beliefs could be characterized as firmly Republican. I think family values are in danger, I am against trimester abortions, I think the federal government aught to be smaller. And some are decidedly Democrat. I support gay marriage, I support universal health care and regulating carbon emissions.
Fish argues that the reason political parties exist is so that we can "organize with other like-minded folks and smite the enemy." Heh. I think this is exactly what many Independents do.
Neither of the two majority parties offer much to the independent-minded voter. The Republicans have a dangerously pragmatic tendency to cobble together ideologically inconsistent planks together: Pro-death penalty vs. anti-abortion, right to privacy vs. Orwellian anti-terrorism. This issue pandering approach has created, as we see in this election, a house that can not stand. The party leaders are corrupt because their ideology is corrupt.
The Democrats, until recently, have been either uninspiring, ineffectual, arrogant or, in the case of the Clinton's; far too eager to to play the game "if you can't beat them, join them." Given these two choices, neither of them appeal to me as "like-minded people" who I want to join in battle with, rather-- I feel a deep seated urge to smite these entrenched cabals that prevent American democracy from solving the profusion of problems it now faces.
Being an independent is not simply a protest stance, however. Mr. Fish is caught up in the idea that politics is an either/or proposition. It's a strange case to make in an election cycle in which both parties have revealed the seams of the patchwork that hold them together. A political party isn't a monolithic bloc; it's a coalition of similar interests. What we're seeing this year is that these coalitions interests are not all that similar after all. Even if a Hillary-nomination is able to galvanize the Republican base, the fissures that divide libertarians, Evangelicals and corporate conservatives have been revealed. These divides look likely to continue widening.
For Democrats the horse-race of Obama and Clinton also reveals significant differences between party members. Since Fish is comfortable with generalizing, so will I: Democrats who vote for Clinton do so because she's convinced them she's the best person to beat the Republicans, Democrats who vote for Obama do so because they want a new politics. It's less of an ideological struggle than it is a generational struggle for how the party presents itself. The Clinton's showed how to win by sounding like Republicans, Obama's candidacy argues that "sounding like a Republican" means "standing up for what you believe in".
In this climate, the independent voter is more likely than the partisan. There is no center to either party and everything in this election is up for grabs. Maybe it's because I grew up right next to New Hampshire, but from my perspective, every voter is an independent one nowadays. The days of people voting the party line are over. I know Republicans considering Obama and I know that should Hillary get the nomination, I would have to seriously consider voting for a Republican (especially if that Republican is John McCain).
Finally, Fish says that you should vote by party because it determines who will be appointed to the administration. This is a lie. As pointed out earlier, both parties cover large swaths of ideological territory. A vote for G.W. Bush brought in a very different administration than say if John McCain had been the nominee in 2000. The same holds true with the current candidates. It's naive to think you'll get the same administration from Romney that you'll get from Huckabee or that Obama and Clinton will appoint the same types of Dems.
The President, the individual, not the party sets the tone and tenor of his or her government. AThat's why the smart American; be they Dem, Republican, Independent or something else, will vote for the person, not the party; no matter how much partisans wish it weren't so.
Labels: politics
