State Vs. U
Downblog, TGGP recommended “The Two-Party Swindle,” by Eliezer Yudkowsky. Much of it is pretty good, a deeper variation on what you’ve read before about the dangers of identifying with politicians. But Yudkowsky doesn’t get it quite right. First:
And so the fans of Favorite-Football-Team all praise their favorite players to the stars, and derogate the players on the Hated-Rival-Team. We are the fans and players on the Favorite-Football-Team. They are the fans and players from Hated-Rival-Team. Those are the two opposing tribes, right?
And yet the professional football players from Favorite-Team have a lot more in common with the professional football players from Rival-Team, than either has in common with the truck driver screaming cheers at the top of his lungs. The professional football players live similar lives, undergo similar training regimens, move from one team to another. They’re much more likely to hang out at the expensive hotel rooms of fellow football players, than share a drink with a truck driver in his rented trailer home. Whether Favorite-Team or Rival-Team wins, it’s professional football players, not truck drivers, who get the girls, the spotlights, and above all the money: professional football players are paid a hell of a lot more than truck drivers.
And then:
The problem dates back to olden times. Commoners identifying with kings was one of the great supports of the monarchy. The commoners in France and England alike might be cold and starving. And the kings of France and England alike might be living in a palace, drinking from golden cups. But hey, the King of England is our king, right? His glory is our glory? Long live King Henry the Whatever!
But as soon as you managed to take an emotional step back, started to think of your king as a contractor – rather than cheering for him because of the country he symbolized – you started to notice that the king wasn’t a very good employee.
And I dare say the Big Mess is not likely to be cleaned up, until the Republifans and Demofans realize that in many ways they have more in common with other Voters than with “their” Politicians; or, at the very least, stop enthusiastically cheering for rich lawyers because they wear certain colors, and begin judging them as employees severely derelict in their duties.
I wish it were that simple. Where Yudkovsky probably goes wrong is analogizing politics to professional rather than college sports.
A late passage in Michael Lewis’s superb football book, The Blind Side, talks about the paradigmatic in-state football rivalry throughout the South, between “State” – Mississippi State University; Arkansas State University; Etc. – and “U” – The University of Mississippi; or University of Arkansas; or wherever. The rivalries are bitter because they reflect real class distinctions among the fans and alumni, between the downmarket State partisans and the gentry from the U systems. And yet, as Lewis notes, each side ends up rooting for a bunch of poor black kids on athletic scholarships. Like Rome’s Blue and Green factions or Yudkovsky’s politicians, the tribunes of State and U – the players on the rival football teams – have more in common with each other than their fans. And the fans probably have more in common with each other than with either set of players. But the fan factions feel the factional differences keenly, and the differences are real enough.
American politics resembles Lewis’s world of college sports fandom more than Yudkovsky’s parable of professional sports fandom. The “fans” – voters – represent real cultural differences. That’s what all the Red-Blue bother is about. Politicians as a class probably are like the football players at State and U – a lot more like each other than like the spectators. This probably gets even more true when you go beyond the candidates themselves to the class of staffers and consultants. And I agree with Yudkowsky that the practical outcomes of the political process tend to be stubbornly stable – we spend more under Bush than we did under Clinton; Clinton, like Bush, increased federal surveillance power as much as he could get away with. But the allegiances, anxieties and resentments projected onto Team Red and Team Blue represent real cultural and demographic schisms within the country. Yudkovsky gestures in this direction with his thought experiment on “Better Seating” / “Cheaper Tickets” factions, but then seems to back off it at the end.
Comment by Badtux —
January 2, 2008 @ 1:26 am
The two party system has nothing to do with grand conspiracies and everything to do with simple arithmetic of the Strong President system and Winner Takes All. Let’s say you have five parties, A, B, C, D, and E, from right wing to left wing. In a parlimentary system, C, D, and E may form a coalition and appoint a Prime Minister from amongst them. In our Strong President system, D (classic FDR liberals) could win the Presidency with 21% of the vote. To prevent that, A (the Religious Right) and B (the Pro-Business Right) form a coalition called the “Republicans” and try to split up C (the centrists) to get the 51% of the votes needed to guarantee election in a winner-takes-all system. Similarly, FDR liberals and the radical Kucinich leftists will form a coalition and try to get the Centrists to similarly try to get above that 51% of the votes. There may be occasional third party burps like Ross Perot’s, but the system eventually devolves back to two parties, each party a coalition of what in a parlimentary democracy would be smaller parties, in order to try to get the majority needed to guarantee a win in a winner takes all election.
In short, the two-party system is a guaranteed outcome of our Constitution. Our founders didn’t foresee this outcome, but our Constitution’s method for electing the President guarantees it. It also guarantees that the resulting political parties will be an ungainly conglomeration of what in a real democracy would be separate parties — let’s fact it, the religious right and the big business Republicans have little in common other than their desire to get elected. As long as we have a winner-takes-all election system combined with a Strong President system, rather than a parlimentary system like real democracies, though, smaller interest groups have no choice but to create these ungainly “Republican” and “Democratic” coalition parties… it’s the only way the math works out.
- Badtux the Math Penguin
Comment by Thoreau —
January 2, 2008 @ 1:52 am
Badtux-
You identify the composition of the coalitions, but the point of this post is that the people in DC who actually make the decisions are closer to each other than the coalition footsoldiers realize. The differences between the coalition members are real, but the leaders that each coalition actually install are not terribly different in practice. They, or at least their staffs, handlers, advisers, etc., are quite similar, and so their policies are quite similar.
Comment by Frank —
January 2, 2008 @ 2:41 am
Anyone who tries to frame things on the basis of claimed symmetry between the Republicans and the Democrats is simply an idiot full stop. Unless you are under 13 and can’t remember the 90’s at all you have no excuse.
Comment by Lawrence Krubner —
January 2, 2008 @ 4:31 am
“In short, the two-party system is a guaranteed outcome of our Constitution. Our founders didn’t foresee this outcome, but our Constitution’s method for electing the President guarantees it.”
That’s factually inaccurate. The Constitution does not tell states how they should divide up their electoral votes, nor does it tell the states how or why candidates should be allowed onto the ballot.
There is a movement to get states to make the primaries the actual election, and then treat the election in November as a run off-election between the top two vote getters of the primaries. No change is needed to the Constitution, the states can do this on their own. The New York Times had a big article about this early in 2007.
Under this new system, 3rd parties could thrive, because there would be no penalty to voting for the “good” party during the first election. For instance, if you really want to vote for Nader, you could vote for him, knowing full well that if, in November, the run-off was between Al Gore and George Bush, you’d still be free to vote for Gore.
Again, no change is needed to the Constitution. So you’re wrong to suggest that our current system arises from the Constitution. Rather, it arises from how the states have handled their relationship to candidate requirements over the last 100 years.
Comment by Lawrence Krubner —
January 2, 2008 @ 4:37 am
“The Constitution does not tell states how they should divide up their electoral votes”
By the way, I am in New Jersey right now, visiting my parents, and New Jersey just came close to passing the most amazingly odd law ever regarding the electoral college. The law would have required that the electors of New Jersey vote however 51% of America voted. Mind you, it wouldn’t mattter if 80% of New Jersey voted Republican, 100% of the electoral college of New Jersey would be forced to vote for the Democratic candidate, if the Democratic candidate won 51% of the popular vote in the US. Yes, I know that is hard to believe. You can look it up online. The bill got voted down, though barely. I think the idea was to avoid a repeat of 2000, where Al Gore won the popular vote but not the electoral collge.
Actually, I’m not being fair, the bill had a clause saying it would not go into effect until enough states pased an idential bill. “Enough states” was defined as states possessing 270 electoral college votes, enough to actually elect someone.
Comment by Carlos —
January 2, 2008 @ 8:07 am
Yudkowsky? Jim, the guy believes math has magic powers. [google] Oh dear sweet heaven, he has a press kit now.
Anyway. No, he doesn’t understand football. But it’s not a story about political process; it’s a story about how Yudkowsky as a slan (subspecies Vinge and Friedman fils) is superior to those hopeless prole mundanes. He sees things more clearly, you see. The correct football analogy is not important.
Comment by Thoreau —
January 2, 2008 @ 12:18 pm
Anyone who tries to frame things on the basis of claimed symmetry between the Republicans and the Democrats is simply an idiot full stop.
I know! Look at the anti-torture bill that they passed, and the way that they are led in Congress by people who have refused to even consider warrantless wiretaps!
Man, a few months ago, when my neighborhood held a parade for all the returning troops, I kept thinking to myself “Thank God we voted for Democrats!”
Comment by Eric the .5b —
January 2, 2008 @ 12:36 pm
Oh, be reasonable Thoreau. The 90s, man! Back when we didn’t have extraordinary rendition, hinky surveillance programs, attempts to pass most of the PATRIOT Act’s provisions, continuous fear-mongering about Iraq’s WMDs, or 9/11 conspirators living and training in the US.
Comment by Thoreau —
January 2, 2008 @ 12:51 pm
And certainly no troops overseas for drug interdiction. Not to mention that the President in the 1990’s was way too cool to say things like “You can’t love your country and fear your government.”
Good times, man. Good times.