By Big Al Remmber “Nemo” and his third party philosophy? At this point Big Al feels that he is correct.
Both political parties are more dysfunctional than Trump White House – Contributed to our site by Timothy Howe
BY ANDREW MALCOLM Special to McClatchy
The nation’s Founding Fathers had numerous brilliant, innovative ideas for designing our new form of self-government, many of which endure to this day. One of them was a thorough disdain for coarse political parties.
However, the rejection of parties did not last long. Humans, like wolves and whales, have an apparently innate need to inhabit packs, pods and political groupings. So, here we are about a quarter-millennium later stuck with two major political parties, neither of which is functioning very well.
Both U.S. political parties have gone through identity crises and internal turmoil before, though rarely at the same time. The Democratic and Republican parties, the world’s second and third oldest parties, have been amazingly resilient — yes, and loud — political organisms, adaptive and roughly balancing each other out.
Like a playground teeter-totter, when one was down, the other was up and ruled as the dominant political grouping until the other provided voters with a more attractive alternative. Think of the Democrats’ 20-year White House rule under Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, which ended in 1953 when Gen. Dwight Eisenhower led Republicans out of the political wilderness.
But what happens when both parties are down? The system is out of balance.
We’re living through that difficult experience right now with partisans at both ends of the spectrum happy in their fervent bitterness. And the rest of us feeling a mounting, disturbing sense of unease and disquiet.
Nothing is set in concrete in such turbulent times. But as spring starts its slow northward creep across the country, the outlook is for prolonged political paralysis. If historical midterm election patterns stick, Democrats will re-capture at least the House of Representatives, where all financial legislation originates.
Tracking polls in last week’s special House election near Pittsburgh revealed Trump animus motivated far more voters to overcome the district’s long-term GOP tilt and narrowly elect a Democrat.
The historical average first midterm loss for a president’s party is 30 House seats. Turnover of just two dozen would give returned Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her minions control of all House committees with their broad investigative and subpoena powers. Can you say Donald Trump impeachment?
That would return Washington’s power balance to the partisan gridlock that modern-day voters seem to prefer, one party holding the White House, the other controlling one or both chambers of Congress.
But either way neither party has shown an ability to get much done. While Democrats pine for Barack Obama to play a key role, he’s shown more interest in the show business that produced his successor. Hillary Clinton is “only” 70, but she’s on an Asian book tour falling down almost daily and explaining how American women voted for Trump as ordered by their husbands.
Democrats’ political bench is thin and …read more
Source:: The Korelin Economics Report
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