Michael Bloomberg and a posse of self-styled centrists have proclaimed a new movement that will save America from the tyranny of partisan gridlock: No Labels.
Maybe I’ve been radicalized by reading blogs for too long, but this is one of the dumbest ideas of all time. It doesn’t even have novelty to recommend it; an organization like this pops up every few years. (Remember Unity08?)
Sure, putting aside our differences and working together for the common good sounds like a lofty goal. Fine. But how is it actually supposed to work? Efforts like this are based on a fundamental unfixable mistake: the idea that what matters about politics is process, not issues. The idea that it doesn’t really matter what we do, only that we do it in a civil and constructive matter. The idea, in other words, that substance doesn’t really matter.
Here is an early post from the No Labels blog:
Lately, I find myself fielding variations of this question: “so what position will No Labels take on (insert issue)? The honest answer is I don’t know and to answer with exactness is premature. It’s not that there aren’t a lot of issues of importance out there. From the start, we’ve known that we want better approaches in the areas of the deficit, economic growth and education just to name a few examples.
Right. “Better approaches.” Why didn’t anyone think about this earlier. My predictions: they will come out firmly in favor of a lower deficit, more economic growth, and improved education. My heart beats faster just thinking about it.
Politics has a bad reputation. People don’t like it. You see family members saying silly things and then getting overly emotional about their commitments. There is an appealing fantasy that we could just learn to work together and get along, and then all of our problems would be solves.
But at the end of the day, the marginal rate of the top tax bracket has to be a certain number. There is or is not a public option for health insurance. We do or do not invade Iraq. People disagree about these issues. And politics is the way we make decisions in the face of those disagreements. Pretending otherwise is not principled, it’s wankery.
Politics might be distasteful, but it’s necessary, and taking it seriously is a virtue. Pretending to float above it all is not.
Many are wondering if Bloomberg will make a presidential run in 2012. But most assume he will have to run as an independent because the base of both parties will reject him (how sad is it that the word “both” encompasses all our choices in america…).
If anyone has the money to create a new party, it’s Bloomberg! And if this leads to a viable third party in this country, a centrist one at that, it’s all for the better!
Of course, the Rep and Dem machines will squash it. But how great would it be to have another option to keep the left and right in check. God knows the media isn’t doing it’s job at that.
There hasn’t been an idea this bad by a New Yorker since the “nametag” idea that came from Lloyd Braun, an advisor in David Dinkins’ administration.
Cost him the election.
http://bit.ly/uDZvd
One of the best defenses of dictatorship I have ever read.
Bobito,
I sympathise about wanting a third party. Or more. After all, other democracies around the world have large numbers of political parties. Israel has, I think, around 30. Now I think having “only” two parties is the best defense we have. Why? Because it forces compromise. Did you know that Arafat was the elected leader of the Palestinian people and he got there with THREE PERCENT of the vote. 97% of the Palestinian people couldn’t stand him. On one of his trips outside the city the people threw rocks at him. Two parties forces a situation where something approximating a majority (election 2000 notwithstanding) elects an official. Yeah, there’s a lot of partisan bickering. Think they have less partisan bickering in a country with 30 political parties?
People tend to believe what they believe. And they tend to feel pretty strongly about it. Having two parties “forces” most folks to pick a side and put up with the shortcomings.
I agree with Sean. They do seem to have lost themselves in pleasing ideas without practical reality.
I think we (the population) need to step away from not thinking. Lack of thinking allows the politicians to focus on using simplistic and often misleading statements. It also makes people think that all issues must be agreed upon within one party. This is also something the politicians take advantage of.
No Labels seems to blame the politicians for creating this bipartisanship. While I’m not saying they walk around clean, they are only acting in an environment created by our own desire for simplicity and certainty. By our desire not to have to think.
I doubt anyone will fix that. Its probably part of our lizard brain and takes an active effort to overcome. This means most people won’t.
I suspect part of this comes out of the toxic political climate that besieges the US for several decades now (and it only seems to be getting worse).
Thanks for not requiring registration. I am glad to see this posting, and am cross-posting it to Phi Beta Iota. I nailed these guys the minute I saw the names and the money, you can see my November post at The Huffington Post at the below URL, and then my later slam on IndependentVotiing.org for giving up its integrity in one night at the second URL.
No Labels “Non-Party” Equals “Four More Years” for Wall Street, Goldman Sachs, Grand Theft USA
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-david-steele/no-labels-nonparty-equals_b_790153.html
IndependentVoting.org Sells Out–No Labels + Americans Elect + CUIP =Trifecta of Electoral Fraud
http://www.phibetaiota.net/2010/12/independentvoting-org-sells-out/
Have started a No Labels “Running Update” at http://www.tinyurl.com/NOLABELSNO
Arnold Zwicky has taught me the mantra “labels are not definitions”. In this case it would appear that the label doesn’t even hint at the definition.
@4 “Because it forces compromise” Unfortunately, our compromises seem to be taking the worst from both sides rather than the best these days… 😉
The reason I brought up the presidential run is exactly to the point that there is no label. The fact they don’t have a position is what lead me to believe this may be Bloomberg’s plan. Generally, people that are running for POTUS get really quiet about contentious issues until the race picks up steam.. Serious contenders, at this stage of the game, are merely working on image. They don’t want to alienate anyone before the race even begins.
Good point!
I find the lack of more available choices of political parties in America disturbing. In essence, we have five or six political movements that have all become rapped up inside these larger political coalitions.
No Labels sounds like an objectivist libertarian’s dream.
I always thought that the “can’t we all just get along and do the right thing?” crowd is usually trumpeting the “can’t we all just do what I know is right?” line more than anything else. Most people are in favor of compromise until they actually have to do it.
For people wanting third parties so desperately:
Are you ok with all of the major decisions in the government, up to and including which party controls the speakers’ gavel, being decided by backroom deals? Because one only needs to look at the semi-dirty coalition rumblings we’ve had recently in Canada and England recently to see the pitfalls one could have THERE. Not to mention the French Fourth Republic and postwar Italy. Votes in a list system pretty much just determine which parties have the best bargaining position when they show up to pick a prime minister.
More parties = more choice at the ballot box, less connexion between your vote and who actually governs.
Any political party suffers from one serious flaw (OK there are lots of flaws but I’m only going to talk about the one). They are expected to have positions on every matter conceivable. Their members are typically expected to support all party positions and this is doubly true of the party executive.
Since this is a difficult thing to achieve the decision making process within the party is a central thing to party ideology. There are real consequences to both the process and the party position that results.
The result of this is a certain kind of cognitive dissonance. Party members and the executive frequently do not support the party position on all issues. If the gap between party ideology and personal belief grows too strong, the member can drift away, become a fierce critic, or gain a reputation as a “maverick”.
How many parties perfectly capture your personal philosophy? More parties help but do not comprehensively solve the problem.
Well, I gotta say Dr. Carroll, I agreed with every single word you just said.
@Valatan:
“More parties = more choice at the ballot box, less connexion between your vote and who actually governs.”
In a 2-party system, only the votes of the winning party matter. No minority can get accurate representation. If 45% of people think that something shoudl be done, it will not get done in a 2-party system, whereas in a multiple-party system, the prties supporting it could compromise with others to get it done, provided that they support something that another group of at least 5% wants done. I find that very much more desirable than your system. Of course the multi-party system can be abused, but looking from the outside in, it seems to me that the 2-party sustem cannot be anything but abused.
Politics is about resolving conflicts of opinion and conflicts of interest. The pretence that everything can be reduced to the former, so that better politics becomes a matter of better “problem solving”, is attractive primarily to those who’d prefer the latter didn’t exist, in particular to those whose public-spiritedness is tempered by reluctance to see their advantages under the current political settlement too heavily questioned.
I think we need to form a commitee to solve these problems…
@15: “More parties help but do not comprehensively solve the problem.
I think the only comprehensive solution would be to march all the “professional politicians” out of DC and into Virginia like they did with the DC hookers a few years back.
Re: http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1989-07-26/news/8907264884_1_northern-virginia-virginia-sign-photographer
By itself, politics matter. At least in the US, if your toward the center of the political spectrum here, you opinion matters little though. You have two political parties that dominate everything with standpoints on policies lean towards the extremes of the political spectrum on each side while the majority of people support some mix of ideas between the two parties. Primaries allow the extremes to typically control who each party offer up for general election.
Given this reality, I can’t complain about something like No Labels. Even if it’s pointless in the end. The belief that people should drop party labels, run for office based on what they believe rather than a party platform, and the people should vote the same way is something I can applaud. That’s how a representative system is supposed to work. It’s pointless though because as people group together under a common ideology, they gain power. Individuals have no chance to compete unless they form their own groups and even if you somehow reset everything, political parties would form again.
Civilised searching for better solutions is a noble idea that depends on a highly intelligent electorate with high levels of consensus and good will, a condition that has never applied anywhere in human history.
Well said, Sean. People on the left or the right get a bad rap for being “too partisan”, but at least they have real opinions on the issues, rather than a wishy-washy “can’t we all just get along?” sentiment. If you want to build a centrist coalition, great, find some issues that moderate Democrats and Republicans can agree on. If you don’t know where you stand on the issues, guess what, you don’t have a political movement, you just have a bunch of self-congratulatory rhetoric.
I agree with Sean that the source of the tensions in our political sphere arise partly from the fact that the nation faces real issues and we disagree on how to address them. However, no one on this page seems to have listened to no labels people speak about what they intend to do. The idea is to engage with your representatives at the local, state and national level and to engage with people who are or are thinking about running for office. The no labels part is really about engaging no matter if they are in your party or if they agree with you on the issues. Since politics is a necessity, the more we are engaged in the process, the more we will be able to live with the results. One thing I have learned in this process is how complicated the issues really are once you get past the 24-hour news echo chamber sound bites. Learn what is really at stake and then voice your opinion directly to your representatives.
Sounds like Bloomberg/Stewart 2016 NoLabels party presidential bid!