The New Two Party Political System

The United States, unlike parliamentary democracies, has primarily been a two-party political system, the Republicans and Democrats. In post-industrial America the ideological leanings of these two parties have been quite different. The Republican Party has been the champion of free market capitalism with minimal government intervention in the economy. In the post-Reagan years it has stood for lower taxes and leaner government, even while Republican administrations were racking up record budget deficits.

The Democrats’ core belief, on the other hand, was that there are problems and issues that only government is large enough to tackle and that it is the role of government to regulate the economy so corporations do not do irreparable harm in pursuit of profits. While the Republicans were the party of Ronald Reagan’s philosophy of small government with minimal regulations on corporations and the “trickle down” theory of economics, the Democrats were the party of FDR’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. The core value of the Democratic Party was the belief in the legitimate role of government to provide for the welfare of its citizens, and that government intervention is needed to regulate the economic vagaries that have negative impact on the country and its citizens.

However, as a result of the recent debate and vote on extending the debt ceiling we have a new two-party configuration – the Republican Party and the Tea Part – with the moribund Democrats as an inconsequential third party. With only 60 members out of 435 members of the House of Representatives, the Tea Party Caucus, representing only 13.7% of the House, was able to hold the debt ceiling hostage to their demands. President Obama conceded to the demands of this small minority party, whose Congressional members represent only 38.8 million people in their congressional districts, or a mere 8% of the US population. His capitulation in this debate signaled the end of the Democratic Party as an entity with any real influence.

In every encounter with the Tea Party and their Republican counterparts, since the 2010 mid-term election, the President has abandoned the core values of the Democratic Party, rendering it to footnote status. In December the President agreed to an extension of the Bush error tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, adding $32 billion to the deficit annually. He did this without winning any concessions, while backtracking on a campaign promise to end these destructive tax breaks for the wealthy that needlessly add to the debt without creating significant economic activity.

Now, in his most recent capitulation to this minority party, Obama has agreed to spending cuts without revenue generation. This Democratic President, has come down squarely on the side of those most privileged among us. To pay for his extension of tax cuts for the wealthy and his inability to close tax loopholes, providing $100 billion annually in tax subsidies to profitable corporations, President Obama has agreed to an immediate $1.4 trillion in cuts, bringing federal spending to its lowest since the Dwight Eisenhower administration. Only under a Democratic President could we bring the country back to the same spending level that existed before the civil rights movement and before the War on Poverty.

Without core values that set it apart form its rivals, a political party ceases to exist. This President has abandoned the core values of the Democratic Party ceding power to the Republicans and the small but now emboldened Tea Party Caucus. While referring to the debt ceiling deal as a compromise, it is evident that the President does not understand the meaning of compromise. For an agreement to be a compromise, both sides must give and get something. However, in this so-called compromise, the Tea Party and their Republican counterparts gave nothing and got everything, while the Democrats gave everything and got nothing. Hardly a compromise.

While we continue to shower the wealthiest among us with tax breaks and subsidies and impose cuts on the most vulnerable among us to pay for this largesse heaped on the wealthy, we also mourn the loss of the party of FDR, JFK ad LBJ. Seventy years of social welfare programming, that has lifted millions out of poverty and extended a lifeline to others is now on the chopping block. With President Obama leading the retreat, the Democrats have not only turned their backs on their core constituency, but have blocked the hopes and dreams of millions of low income and working Americans for a better life. The failure of the Democrats and this President to stand up for the American people can only signal the Party's death knell. President Obama has committed the most egregious political sin, raising the hopes of millions of people and then doing little to help realize those hopes.

How many of the millions of previously disenfranchised young people and people of color who registered and voted for the first time, just to cast a vote for Mr. Obama, will stay home disillusioned in 2012? It is too late to win them back, the damage has been done.