31 July 2023
I read with interest Chuck Slocum’s Community Voices commentary, “The two-party system has a hole in the middle.”
Since Minnesota actually once elected an independent governor, people of that state do have an independent streak, which once in a while manifests itself in Minnesota politics. As a lifelong independent voter, I would like to point out a few facts that most people who register independent or vote for an independent candidate are never even aware. The fact is, which Slocum alludes to in his commentary, that independent voters were created by the writing and adoption of the Constitution of the United States and the constitutions of the states that held the elections. There were no organized political parties in the United States before the election of 1800 because the Tory Party of England had made political parties unpopular in the United States by starting the Revolutionary War through high taxation of the American colonies to pay for political party excesses in England.
Both of the first two presidents of the United States, Washington and Adams, spoke out against the formation of political parties, and Adams blamed Hamilton’s Federalist Party for causing him to lose the election of 1800 by tying him to a vice presidential candidate he did not like, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney.
We see from this that independent voters have a Constitutional basis for their existence, which political parties do not. George Washington referred to political parties as “self-created societies,” which he said would have a bad effect on governments that hold elections. But most Americans came from Europe, where political parties were a way of life, so it did not take long before political parties took over the United States government. The two-party system that Federalists and Republican-Democrats started in 1800 took an unfortunate turn in 1803 with a Supreme Court decision in which the Supreme Court declared itself to be more powerful with regard to legislation than Congress by declaring that the Supreme Court was “striking down” an act of Congress. This gave the Republican-Democrat Party started by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison control of the judicial branch of government, which they used to enforce slavery in the United States for the next 60 years, starting a Civil War because of the inability of the United States government to abolish slavery. Contrast this to English abolishment of slavery in 1834 because the English government had adopted a Declaration of Rights when William and Mary deposed James II that prohibited English courts from “striking down” acts of Parliament. When Parliament passed abolition of slavery in 1834, neither the monarchy nor English courts could change it because of the Declaration of Rights.
The tireless efforts of political parties to eliminate independent voters from American politics have only increased the number of independent voters in recent years. Starting with a single digit percentage of independent voters when John F. Kennedy was president, independent voters have increased in numbers since that time to 49% of registered voters today, according to the latest published figures. That means that political party members will soon become a minority in American politics, most likely before the next presidential election. As already noted, the best efforts of political parties to stop independent voter registration always seem to increase, rather than decrease, the number of independent voters. Where political parties have been successful is in eliminating independent candidates for public office. They do this by making it impossible for independent voters to become candidates, usually by unconstitutional state election laws that make it too difficult for independent candidates to gain ballot access.
This appears to be a vain effort to me because independent voters are eventually going to say, George Washington and John Adams were right about political parties. The controlling two parties are incapable of providing good government. Then all independent voters have to do is agree among themselves. We will choose an ordinary American from among ourselves and elect that person as a write-in candidate because political parties come up with worse candidates every election, and there is no reason to pretend that these candidates can provide good government.
Or if independent voters decide to keep supporting political party candidates, we can start discussing the things that political parties have given us, a Civil War, two World Wars, numerous lesser undeclared wars, economic recessions and depressions, corruption in government and political candidates that are unbelievably unqualified to hold office. The higher the political office, the more ridiculous their candidates seem to be. I go back to what George Washington said about political parties in his Farewell Address, and I cannot see anything he was wrong about. In any event, it is good to see some discussion starting to take place about independent voters. I hope that this trend will continue.
Robert B. Winn is a regular reader of MinnPost.