So here we are again. Our political choices have been constricted and constrained. It is only March and seemingly the die has been cast for November.
We will apparently have a choice between an able man who is deeply insecure and deeply lacking in respect, for both persons and institutions, and a doddering old man whose chief qualification for the presidency is that he has been around for
40 years.
One, to quote John McCain’s indictment of George W. Bush, does not understand the presidency. The other long ago lost hold of any intellectually vital center within himself.
We can do better.
It’s far from an original thought. But, if we had four candidates instead of two in November, would there be closer to 100% turnout than 50%?
For years, abstainers were thought bad citizens by the editorial writers of the country. Some even advocated a fine for the nonvoter, as in Australia.
But we know that not every nonvoter is indifferent or ill-informed, just as we know that not every voter is informed. Some nonvoters are really saying: No thanks, none of the above.
They have the right.
And they have a point.
Suppose we had four parties on the November ballot: the old guard GOP represented by, say, Mitt Romney; the populist GOP represented by the president; the establishment Democrats, represented by Joe Biden; and the populist Democrats, represented by Bernie Sanders.
More choice always behooves a free society and a free people. Four instead of two would be good for the country.
I have two reasons for thinking this. One is that in every election in which there has been a significant third party in my lifetime, save the time George Wallace ran in 1968, the debate has been clarified, sharpened and our political life enlivened.
Thus political freedom was expanded.
Ross Perot, both times he ran, injected actual ideas into the campaign when the major parties avoided them. He was right about the federal debt and right about trade and NAFTA. And he was right that the Democrats and Republicans were indifferent to both problems.
It is hard not to feel that, for most of us, our political freedom is contracting in 2020.
One thing Donald Trump and Joe Biden have in common is that they think, as well as speak, in sound bites.
A friend said this brilliant thing about the two current major political parties: They are both like doctors who have only one medicine. A doctor whose answer to cancer is to amputate a leg, because he is a surgeon, is as useless as a general practitioner whose answer to broken bones is to drink plenty of water and rest in bed.
The GOP’s remedy for all ills is to cut regulation and taxes. This is not a prescription for a national public health crisis. The Democratic remedy for all ills is “diversity” and government programs (and therefore uncontrolled spending).
It is not a very nuanced or targeted approach.
The Democrats have become a weird amalgam of K-Street and political correctness: Give us the government and, after government, lobbying jobs and let us try to out posture each other.
The Republicans are a weird amalgam of business whores and fake yahooism: We unravel environmental regulation even when we cannot profit by it!
There is little intellectual honesty at the core of either party. Our poor choices are the ultimate result of our bad faith.
And that may be because there is so little competition. It is squelched within the parties by party bosses. It is squelched without by election law and the realities of campaign finance.
The core of the Democratic corruption is the necessity to make a living at politics. Government is the store and influence peddling the family business.
The core of the Republican corruption is seeking and holding office for years when many Republican officeholders do not really believe in the power of government to make life better for most people. If you think government is the problem and not the solution, why do you want to be a congressman, a senator or president?
Bad faith.
The peculiar new, momentary corruption of the Dems is Trump hate: Anything — any moral, intellectual or political compromise to remove Donald Trump from office.
The momentary malady of the GOP is the fear to dissent. The Trump voters or the president will punish the Republican who thinks for himself.
Our bad choices derive from bad faith. I don’t know if greater choice and competition would alter or displace some of this bad faith with honesty, but it would be worth a try.
Keith C. Burris is executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and vice president and editorial director of Block Newspapers (kburris@post-gazette.com).
