Can Party Realignment Ever Happen? Not If the Establishment Media Has Any Say.

I've been saying for a while now that if there were any sense in politics, we would see another party realignment like we haven't for a long while. The inevitable two-party system guaranteed by the structure of our voting systems would remain, but the new parties would essentially become the Blue Dogs and the Progressives, with the Republicans becoming irrelevant. If we think about the debates we've been having lately - mostly the economic ones: Social Security, stimulus, health care - all the substantive issues from both sides have come from Blue Dogs and Progressives. Anyone to the right of the Blue Dogs was busy yelling "socialism" and other various racist and classist things, and thus were not even trying to contribute, despite the media's constant amplification.

Today I learned that this alignment is pretty much how the debate is explicitly structured in Britain, and that there are more general terms that map pretty well onto Blue Dogs (or maybe more accurately Obama-liberals, a little to the left of the DINO Blue Dogs) and Progressives--"neoliberals" and "social democrats."

The thing about Britain is that their debate is closer to the real meat and potatoes of what this argument is all about. Ours is frustratingly diverted into "Like or Dislike Obama" or "Is the Tea Party Racist" and other tangential questions.

Britain makes it clear: it's really about social democracy vs. neoliberalism.

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When Barack Obama made his famous remarks about Ronald Reagan being transformational, it was misinterpreted as being political, an attempt to reach out to the other side. It actually was, as some feared, philosophical. It really did mean, sincerely, that except around the edges, he thought that Reaganism-Thatcherism was irreversible. Just as Bill Clinton does, just as Tony Blair does.

The Third-Wayers are serious about this. Seriously deluded, perhaps, but dead serious. There was never an attempt to triangulate the "independent center", those who still believed in Reaganism but were distressed by the partisan cultural meanness. That was sincere. Those who were played were the Democratic base. They would have to be satisfied with corporate-style knockoffs of social-democratic ideas (health care being the most obvious example). Labor reformers would have to be mollified with "we don't have 60 votes". And symbolic gestures devoid of content like inviting Pete Seeger to the White House.

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The Third Wayers were born of the idea that Communism had failed. It had, but the Third Wayers went much too far in sweeping the entire social democratic program off the table with it. The social democratic reforms of the twentieth century are what enabled the West to defeat the problematic communist opponent. The mistake is in cynically jettisoning them after the threat passed. Bait and switch, really. But going back to the nineteenth century for economic inspiration ignores why social democracy and communism gained the traction they did in the first place.

Free-market fundamentalism is not the answer, but the Third Wayers have no answer to it, because they cravenly accept its orthodoxies. In the current situation we have to drag them, kicking and screaming, back from this abyss.

If the Dems were to win big this year, I would go ahead and say that the party change is well under way--the thought being that the two new parties are both currently factions of the Democratic Party, and the split will result from people being unwilling to accept a one-party system. Of course, instead of the unlikely result of the Dems winning big (partially because of our unwillingness to have a one-party system), the anger is going to go to the only other option, and the GOP will win. Then of course, the "usual suspects will say that it was because Mr. Obama was too liberal — when his real mistake was doing too little," or as I'd put it, being too conservative, useless and weak.

So what has Britain got that we don't? I'd place the blame primarily on the differences in our political systems, but given that won't change, the media certainly absorbs the responsibility. The winner-take-all system, preceded by primaries, that we have basically mandate a two-party system, unlike that of Britain. That means that in Britain, when a Party in power is horrible, you can vote them out from the left or the right.creating more accountability. However, with a two-party system, anger at the status quo means removing those in power, regardless of the fact that those out of power will be worse.

This is the point where the blame lies with the media. The media completely accepts this two-party idea. Thus, anything to the left of the Democrats is unSerious and dismissed, and instead of focusing on the substantive debate, and who's having it, it's always Republicans vs. Democrats. For instance, there's this article, claiming that the factions within the Democratic Party will stall their ability to do anything, rather than noting that these represent the entirety of substantive debate out there, and that Republicans are irrelevant.

This is a major Catch 22. Party realignment simply cannot happen except all at once. When everyone is convinced that it's only the two parties as options, anger at those in power just translates into losses for those in power. The media than sees that the polling numbers favor Republicans and see no reason to declare the Republicans dead in the water. Therefore, they report that polls are good for Republicans. Rinse and repeat. In order to achieve party realignment however, the media needs to come out and note that the substantive debate is actuallyde facto parties once again, nearly overnight.

The media have all the control here. Party realignment boils down to nothing more than a choice of phrasing, than a determination of who is actually Serious and credible, which is basically the definition of how the media controls political debate. The media cannot possibly lose in this, because no matter what they say, it will be self-fulfilling. However, a party-shift requires a media that pays attention to the issues and to the serious policy debates, rather than merely be stenographers. It requires principle and courage. I'm really not holding my breath.