Why Doesn't the United States Have a Stable, Viable Social Democratic Party?

An unlikely source provides the answer

If there is one great unanswered question about American politics, it's probably "who really killed JFK?"

At least, if you're a nutbar.

If, like the rest of us, you aren't a conspiracy-peddling, Manitoba-cigarettes-smoking weirdo, that question is probably "why doesn't the United States have a viable, stable social democratic party?

A passage from Al Franken's The Truth (With Jokes) ironically provides an answer -- and it's an answer that "progressives" like Franken probably won't like.

Starting on page 119, and continuing onto page 120:

"It is actually illegal for tax-exempt religious organizations to engage in partisan political activity. But that didn't stop the Bush-Cheney campaign from encouraging clergy in battleground states to do their civic duty. In Pennsylvania, for example, recieved this e-mail from a Bush-Cheney staffer:

"Subject: Lead your congregation for President Bush

The Bush-Cheney '04 national headquarters in Virginia has asked us to identify 1600 "Friendly Congregations" in Pennsylvania where voters friendly to President Bush may gather on a regular basis. In each of these friendly congregations, we would like to identify a volunteer coordinator who can help distribute general informatinon to other supporters. If you are interested, please email Luke Bernstein at LBernstein@GeorgeWBush.com your name, address, phone number and place of worship.

Thanks,
-Luke

Paid for by Bush-Cheney '04, Inc

Jesus Christ! And this from a Bernstein?!

Look. Churches are always going to be involved in social justice issues, on one side or the other. Just as Dr. Martin Luther King (for) or Dr. Jerry Falwell (against). ANd some congregations certainly have a political bent, such as Our Lady of Gun Control in Bayside, Queens. But this was ridiculous. Even the campaign's allies thought the White House had gone too far, considering the state of the law at the time.

There was only one solution. Change the law."

Oooh! Those dastardly Republicans, right?

Right?

Hold that phone.

"In early June 2004, Republicans in the House Ways and Means committee added an ammendment to H.R. 4520, the American Job Creation Act of 2004 (which cut corporate taxes, thereby creating jobs for people who gild bathroom fixtures), that would allow churches to commit three (count 'em, three) "unintentional violations" of legal restrictions on political activites each year without losing their tax-exepmpt status. I call that the "four strikes and you're out" law. Even more exciting, clergy would now be allowed to endorse candidates, as long as they made it clear they were acting as individuals and not on behalf of religious organizations.

Thankfully, when even the Southern Baptist Convention said the Republicans were getting a little too cute, the "Safe Harbor for Churches" amendment died a quiet death."

Hooray! A victory for the separation of church and state, right? Right?

Well, that is important. But, at the same time, there are numerous questions. What about the right of Pastors to express their opinions (politically or otherwise), alternately known as free speach? What about the right of religious congregations to organize as they see fit (again, politically or otherwise)?

Of course, these are important questions, but not necessarily pertinent for our purposes here. For that, we have to turn to the development of Canada's social democratic party, the New Democratic Party. (While the Bloc Quebecois often claims to be a social democratic party, they don't count because they are founded almost entirely on an exclusionary racial ideology.)

The NDP was formed in 1961 as a political merger of the CCF (Cooperative Commonwealth Foundation) and the Canadian Labour Congress. The annointed leader, Tommy Douglas (quite possibly one of the three best Prime Ministers Canada never had) was actually an ordained Baptist minister. (That's right, you read it -- Baptist.)

Both the CCF and the NDP after it were based almost entirely on the Protestant Social Gospel. The Social Gospel advocated that Christian values demanded a more generous and inclusive society (aforementioned by Al Franken as social justice).

It probably helped that in Canada churches were allowed to hold and express political opinion. An obsession with politically marginalizing religion certainly isn't anything that has never manifested itself in Canada (see: modern NDP), but it has yet to establish the stranglehold on religion that exists in the United States.

Comparing the two case studies, one can't help but draw the conclusion that the failure of the United States to produce a relevant social democratic party is at least partially due to its legal muzzling of religious movements.

Of course other factors, such as an obsessive, fearful suspicion of communism (although suspicion certainly was warranted, at least on a limited basis -- read: not McCarthy-esque) certainly played a role, one has to wonder what would exist today.

Maybe -- just maybe -- a stable, viable social democratic party.

(If you're reading this, Ralph Nader, you don't count. And it certainly was a shame that Howard Dean -- whom history may recognize as one the best Presidents the United States never had -- was judged to be too scary by Democrats.)

Naturally, the blending of politics and religion can go too far, and George W Bush is a fairly decent example of that (although most of the Republican party's intractable opponents find Mike Huckabee even more threatening). But one should also keep in mind that a liberal mixing of politics and religion can also have positive results.

Canadian public health care is, without a doubt, history's greatest example of this.

But before the specific values of the Social Gospel can take root, as they have north of the 49th parallel, religious organizations have to be allowed to at least knock at the door. It's ironic that some of those who most decry the lack of social democrats in the United States are the ones most determined to see that this is never allowed.

Uniting the Left Untenable

But Don't Ask the CBC

Anyone who tuned into CBC's The National on May 10, 2007, was treated to a unique postulation on behalf of the CBC about the possibility of a united left. In the piece, "The Divided Left", Leslie McKinnon explores the idea of a united left, compares it to the united right, and wonders just why they can't seem to "get the job done".

McKinnon points to the recent non-competitive pact between Stephane Dion and Elizabeth May as "the first tentative step" toward a merger of (allegedly) leftist parties in Canada.

It's hard to see where McKinnon herself stands on this particular issue, if the piece is examined solely for explicit statements. If one reads into the subtext, however, it begins to seem as if McKinnon is very much in favor of, if not an outright merger, at least cooperation between the various parties. At the 3:32 point of the segment, McKinnon even explains how voters could accomplish such a goal.

"The truth is, if progressive voters want to stop vote splitting in order to prevent another Conservative government Green Party numbers are too small," McKinnon explains. "The vital player that these voters need is the NDP."

She then seems to level the finger of blame at the NDP for the current government. "Last election, it was abundantly clear that cooperating with the Liberals is not in the NDP's game plan."

"Far from it."

In the 2006 election, the NDP locked their sights firmly on the Liberal party, urging Liberal voters to cast ballots in favor of the NDP. Knowing how many ridings were capable of swinging based on a defection of voters, Layton convinced Liberal voters in many ridings to switch their allegiances -- whether permanently or temporarily. The result was 10 additional seats.

This, however, was a reversal of the 2004 election, wherein the spectre of a "scary" Conservative government enabled then-Prime Minster Paul Martin to rustle up extra seats at the NDP's expense, using precisely the same mantra of strategic voting. Naturally, having won power on the back of this tactic, the Liberals went right back to the well in the next election, with far less success.

One of the segment's talking heads, University of Victoria Political Scientist Reg Whitaker notes, "[The NDP] have defined themselves essentially as in a death struggle with the Liberals to command the centre-left and if the collateral damage is that the Conservatives get a majority then so be it. That seems to be the thinking."

McKinnon also points the finger of blame at Ed Broadbent for not "siding with the anti-free trade Liberals" in the election of 1988.

For the record, The Liberal party would eventually switch to a pro-free trade stance, (just as the then-Progressive Conservatives had previously opposed it).

Broadbent netted 43 seats for the NDP. According to Whitaker, "that was a success but the result was they divided the anti-free trade vote, which actually represented the majority across the country and reelected a [Progressive] Conservative majority which then enacted free trade."

McKinnon insists that "ancestral resentments and intense party loyalties keep [the four centre-left parties] apart."

In reality, the divided left remains divided by issues of principle and political culture.

The NDP -- arguably portrayed as the villains of the segment -- were founded as an outright social democratic party. Originally estabished as the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, a party designed around the protestant social gospel, the party combined with the Canadian Labour Congress, largely divested itself of its religious underpinnings, and founded a broader social democratic party.

Although often taking arguably anti-business positions, the NDP has sought to become a party for middle class Canadians. As a result, it has often struck anti-elitist positions and advocated for wealth redistribution from wealthier Canadians to poorer Canadians, in combination with an expansive social safety net.

The Bloc Quebecois is, by nature, a Quebec separatist party. With the secondary purpose of representing Quebec's interests in Ottawa, the BQ's first goal is to advance the cause of separatism from Ottawa.

The Green party, for all its futile efforts to broaden its tent, is strictly an environmental party, although Elizabeth May does hold some very interesting views regarding abortion.

The true misnomer in the idea of a united left is the Liberal party. While purporting itself to be a left-of-center party, the fact is that there is very little in the Liberal party's record to account for that claim. Throughout the party's history, it has proven just as conservative as their primary Tory opponents. On the few occasions in which the Liberal party has enacted truly left-wing policies, it has always done so as a result of pressure from the NDP.

The Liberals have proven adept at following the Mackenzie-King model of "swing" politics, in which the party "swings" left to relieve pressure applied by a powerful NDP, or "swings" right to alleviate pressure applied by potent right-wing parties.

When "swinging" to the right, the Liberal party has often proved beyond conservative. The Liberals' budget-slashing endeavours following the 1993 election have been described by many observers as text book neo-conservative fiscal policy.

But that isn't where the Liberals' flirting with neo-conservatism ends. The party has always endorsed a Straussian view of elite rulership, while most recently spreading the "noble lie" of the Conservative hidden agenda. In fact, when compared to the ideological underpinnings of Straussianism, the Liberals meet a remarkable portion of neo-conservative criteria.

So, in essence, the four players of McKinnon's dream scenario match up like this: socialists, separatists, environmentalists and neoconservatives. However, it is much more complex than this.

The socialists dislike the neoconservatives, for obvious reasons. The neo-conservatives and the environmentalists are quite amicable to each other (despite the failure of the neo-conservatives to address the issues favoured by the environmentalists, or even keep that issue under control). The environmentalists see the socialists as not left-of-centre enough for them, while the separatists have a long-standing rivalry with the neo-conservatives. To top this all off, the separatists want to separate from all of them.

If that doesn't seem like a recipe for political disaster, it isn't immediately apparent what would.

How will, for example, the Liberals, NDP and Greens accomodate the BQ within this new party? Will the new party advocate separatism, or at least accept it within their ranks? Will the NDP and Greens adopt an elitist stance to match that of the Liberals? Or will the Liberals divest themselves of their elitist tendencies?

These questions have no suitable answers. Despite all the pie-in-the-sky dreams of the "unite the left" movement, this is an impossible goal.

But it isn't the goal that makes the "unite the left" movement dangerous.

In the end, the entire "unite the left" movement has one underlying goal: ensure that a Conservative government never again comes to power. Those who single-mindedly advocate for this union prove themselves more than willing to disregard the principles of each particular party involved in order to make this happen. And why not? When one is power hungry, nothing appeals more than a stranglehold on the political system.

How can any political movement that chooses to disregard issues of principle in order to unite in pursuit of a monopoly on political power represent anything more than the political enslavement of anyone who chooses to disagree with that movement?

Even under Elizabeth May's "virtual merger" vision of a European coalition wherein potential swing ridings held by left-of-centre candidates are kept safe by the absense of competing left-of-centre candidates, uniting the left can only result in a political environment that is less competitive, and fundamentally unjust for all Canadians who disagree with a potential united left-wing party.

McKinnon notes that, in Canada, the majority of voters traditionally support these left-of-centre parties. In a democracy, the majority rules.

But then again, what Dion, May, McKinnon, and all those who share their vision of Canada want isn't majority rules. It's majority dominates. It's a betrayal of the principles the country was re-founded on, both prior to and in 1981.

The healthiest democracies are the ones in which power alternates between competitors. Yet advocates of the "unite the left" movement seem intent on preventing this from being the case in Canada.

One actually wonders what they're afraid of.