The Life and Very Slow Decay of a Single-Issue Party

The Life and Very Slow Decay of A Single-Issue Party

A Republican National Convention (RNC)

Until 1854, the primary political parties in the US were the Democrats and Whigs. That year, the Republican Party started in Ripon, Wisconsin. It united people against the Kansas-Nebraska Act. This allowed for the possibility of slavery in new states after referendum. The party found enthusiastic support in the North. Its predecessor was the Free Soil Party, founded in 1848. In 1848, one of the most important years in history, the largest wave of European revolutions began overseas. The so-called "Springtime of Nations" were liberal in nature. Abolitionism, suffrage, and liberty influenced the early Republican Party. The party opposed the spread of slavery, as both a moral evil and a danger to farmers' and workers' interests. They saw the Democrats and Whigs as irredeemable, controlled by a "slaveholding power". This power restricted Northerners' economic interests of free labor - the ability to work to support oneself. Thus, we can say the Republicans started as a "single-issue party."

The party succeeded in abolishing slavery a decade later. But their platform was not fully realized. Single-issue parties like the Republicans face challenges of unity. Most fizzle out due to infighting (see also: Janata Party in India, Five Star Movement in Italy). But Republicans became popular to the point of ubiquity in the North. Anyone who was anyone was a Republican; so they remained. But, they ran out of stamina due to infighting, and by the 1880s abandoned civil rights or land redistribution in the South. They relied on certain big business, which were fine with a planned economy if it benefited them. Lincoln's successor and internal bickering prevented this. Republicans were expelled from the South. Land distribution from the “slave power” stopped, and reactionary elements remained powerful. Freed slaves and their allies did not receive property rights or security guarantees. The South was never liberalized.

By the early 1900s, the GOP had a diverse base. It included Northerners, business interests, urban progressives, workers, westerners, and enfranchised Blacks. There was little ideological unity here, save for tariffs to promote industry. Factionalism between business-friendly conservatives and urban progressives resulted in a crisis. The famous split in 1912 and later reunited, but the coalition was unstable. Such an unstable coalition could only exist in a party that had coalesced around a single issue.

How does a liberal anti-slavery movement find itself here? 

FATE

Meanwhile, Democratic party changed: slowly and steadily, it became a center-left liberal organisation. The Great Depression was blamed on Republicans, who were handily defeated by Franklin D. Roosevelt's Democrats. FDR assembled a broad coalition based on social progress and modern liberalism. It was growing larger and larger. Democrats passed Social Security and an early welfare state. America transformed from a developing nation to a developed one. By 1948, Republicans weren't even able to beat Harry Truman, who faced attacks from both segregationists and the left. They had now lost five presidential elections in a row. Republican bosses sought to remain relevant. Popular General Eisenhower won under their banner, but it didn't translate to party popularity.

Democrat Harry Truman defeats Republican Thomas Dewey.

The party was in chaos. In the 1930s, divided on the New Deal. In the 1940s, progressive Republicans started to switch parties. The party floundered in congress, not winning the house once from 1954 to 1994. Many of their backers despised Roosevelt for creating the New Deal. They tried antagonizing Democrats, but rarely presented a broad agenda of its own. In the 50s, they opposed and neutered to labour unions. In the 60s, opposition to the Great Society. Democrats were more likely to run on a legislative vision. Examples include Wilson's New Freedom, Roosevelt's New Deal, and Johnson's Great Society. When that didn't work, they turned to reactionary populism. 

It began long before, but 1968 is when Republicans hit the point of no return. Richard Nixon's "southern strategy" aimed to shift the South from Democrats. Republicans tapped into white southerners' virulent racism. under the guise of "fiscal conservatism" and "states' rights". Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina , the most famous segregationist, became a Republican. From this point, Republicans would rely on this strategy to win elections. The reactionaries in the evangelical "religious right" fit seamlessly in this new system. This system has essentially continued into the modern day.

Naturally, their intellectual capital declined. Nowadays, the Republican Party continues to define itself by opposing Democratic policies. Democrats take office when economic problems arise, and Republicans take office once the Democrat becomes unpopular and the population becomes complacent with growth. 

The one thing that united Republicans was tariff policy, which I mentioned earlier. The "neoliberal revolution" of the 1980s ended this. After this, both parties became split on tariffs and free trade (see here). With this, Republican were not united behind any vision for America. After the southern exodus from 1964 to the end of the century, the party became much more reactionary. Republicans now relied on "wedge issues" related to culture wars to get elected. Politicians who didn’t conform faced humiliation from their party or in the polls. George Bush made the sensible decision to raise taxes to prevent an economic crisis.

Modern demagogue Donald Trump is a symptom of the Republican Party's failure to govern. I won't go into him in detail because anyone who is reading this knows who he is. We now have a man and party, that insist on being the opposition, even when in power. Trump espouses only grievances while delivering zero policies to actually cure America's ills. The party with no identity in 100 years became the party of reaction, preying on Americans' worst instincts. And the United States is worse for it. 

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POSTSCRIPT

Any "American Nationalist" would want to support their country by ensuring all Americans have access to social security through payroll taxes. But for a certain type of commoner it would be bad if a black or brown person received these benefits. And a certain elite opposes anyone getting these benefits, because they do not actually care about the good of their country. Because of this situation, a country that is 5 times poorer is about to make ours client state. 

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"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

-Lyndon Baines Johnson

Thank you for reading. Please stay updated for more cool stuff later on. 

Presidential Primaries Should Be Abolished

By Shivum Ganesh, Contributor

First and foremost, this piece is only about presidential primaries, not any other primary elections. Maybe I'll address those later. I am going to assume you, the reader, have some idea what a primary election is, in most cases, it's where a the public - generally registered with a given party- chooses that party's nominee for an election.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Primaries at the presidential level have existed (sort of) since the Progressive Era (broadly 1896-1920), with states introducing them for both parties as early as 1912, a year that signified the height of the Progressive Era. Briefly, this was an era defined by an expansion of the democratic process, with the introduction of the direct election of senators, ballot initiatives, and women's suffrage. 

These elections were not taken seriously by the party bosses and were largely ignored. For the next 60 years, nominees for president would continue to be decided by bosses and power brokers at the party conventions. The turning point for primaries, as with the United States as a whole, was in 1968.

That year, as March drew to a close, President Lyndon B. Johnson, after a lot of introspection, withdrew his candidacy for that year's election. The party had since 1932 been organized under the New Deal coalition of Labor, Southern Whites, African-Americans, Immigrants and Urban Liberals. It was now bitterly divided due to the Vietnam War and racial issues. George Wallace, a Southern Democrat who favored segregation decided to run an independent campaign and took Southern votes with him. But for the first time, major candidates like Robert F. Kennedy emphasized campaigning in states that held primaries. After RFK was assassinated, the New Deal coalition was divided on the Vietnam War and Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who largely supported LBJ's policies, won the nomination despite not competing in the primaries at all. While Humphrey still retained broad support and came within a hair's breath of winning in 1968, he did not win and the party and its image were weak. Soon after, the McGovern-Fraser commission would recommend the institution of primaries to nominate candidates. "Superdelegates", aka party elders, would now have a much smaller role. The Republican Party, which was also divided between its Moderate-Liberal wing and its increasingly radical Conservative wing, pushed similar reforms for 1976. This system has largely remained the same to this day.

In theory, these reforms are admirable in their attempt to expand democracy in political parties. But actually, well...

THE PROBLEM

Ok, so first of all, political parties are not the government, and thus are not obligated to select their leaders "democratically". Other countries, especially European countries, elect a leader at a party meeting when the previous one steps down. Because the two-party system is so entrenched in American politics, the primary elections are not held by the parties but generally by the counties and states themselves. This should not be the case - state resources should not be used in any extensive way to assist political parties and their campaigns. The Democratic and Republican parties should be political, not institutional. While political parties should challenge each other throughly on policy and governance, they should not have the government assist them in choosing their leaders. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Take 2008, as an example. The Democratic primaries between then-Senators Obama and Clinton were extremely close, with the popular vote in a dead heat and Obama taking the pledged delegate count (basically the party's electoral college) by the barest of margins. In reality, both candidates agreed on policy and the campaigns differed more in aesthetics and rhetoric. Without the primaries, major and minor party figures could have simply met in the summer and picked who they liked better, with the other being promised the nomination in 8 years time. Of course, the drawback is that 8 years is a long time and unlike in the United Kingdom for example, the President cannot simply resign willy-nilly and hand the job over to whoever they want. 

Turnout is generally quite low in primary elections, since more people are apathetic. Only the most committed voters turn out to vote in these, and evidence shows that these voters are more partisan, and enable more extreme voters and candidates in the party's nominating process. This creates a situation where a party nominates someone who doesn't align with the leadership's interests, which causes chaos. Moreover, primary elections mean that a party de facto divides itself into several parts where candidates smear each other instead of building the party's image. 

Now let's look at 2016. In 2016, as populist candidates surged, bitter primaries badly weakened both major parties. General election voters, more likely to not have strong political views, were more dissatisfied than ever with both party nominees. While a two-party system might be seen as detrimental to voters, 1968 and 2016 show that party disunity can also be detrimental to voters.

THE SOLUTION?

On July 21, 2024, President Joe Biden withdrew from the race, facing mounting pressure from party veterans like Nancy Pelosi. It was a long time coming by that point, but left many questions on the table. However, Biden answered most of these questions in his withdrawal letter, in which he endorsed VP Kamala Harris as his successor. While Biden made history primarily for being the first president to withdraw after one term since the 19th century, he also may have made history for making the first significant change to the political process since 1968. By immediately endorsing Harris and directing all of his political machinery to her, party leaders had no choice but to get behind her and a majority of party delegates were pledged to her within a week. The rapid turnover with which this all happened is important to underscore - this move circumvented the entire primary process, and virtually no one cared, except for some Republicans, hilariously. Remember, Biden, while only facing token opposition, was officially nominated through the primary process, which had wrapped up in June. 

President Biden and VP Harris at the White House

The Democratic Party has not been this united, maybe ever, and Biden's withdrawal provides a framework in which a successor can be handpicked and confirmed without party infighting in a politically damaging primary election (see: Hillary Clinton, Jimmy Carter, and Gerald Ford). 

While voters may have their own opinions, the people inside the party that dedicated their lives to it should have leading influence on who gets chosen as leader. Voters can have their say come November in the general election. 

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POSTSCRIPT: If you want more choices, may I suggest ranked-choice/instant-runoff voting? This enables many candidates to run on a general election ballot without a "spoiler effect". Through the ranking system, you can support your favorite candidate without harming another candidate you approve of. Spread awareness and help campaign for electoral reform in your state!