America Lacks a Moderate Party

The U.S. system of political parties is in crisis. Deep fractures between Democrats and Republicans pave the way for a new political force.

The American People Have Decided

There is a silver lining to every cloud, the saying goes. Experience teaches us, however, that in every crisis doom lurks. For Barack Obama, who was reprimanded in the midterm elections, it means an end has come to the surge that brought about his glorious triumph in November 2008. His party is no longer securely in power. The erosion of power threatens to continue through the next two years, and with it an end the big promises and expectations launched by the president after only one legislation period.

The American voters forgive their presidents for a lot: weak domestic policy (Harry S. Truman was totally amazed to be reelected in 1948); political scandal (before Richard Nixon’s relection in 1972, there was speculation about his Watergate entanglement); record deficits (Ronald Regan increased the debt in his first legislation by about 11 percent); or sexual misconduct (after the Monica Lewinsky affair Bill Clinton left the White House with the highest approval rating of any president).

Obama isn’t blamed for the crisis

One thing Americans voters cannot forgive is continuing negative economic statistics. In the current case this may be unfair. Obama has demonstrated concern for the unemployment rate and the housing crash and overcame the anxiety of the population. He took a chance on his enormous stimulus package. But of, course, when the president has done everything right, the stock market in the U.S. looks no better.

The moderates of politics are poorly defined. When the free economy — the biggest in the world and one in which they lived above their means for decades — implodes, they must have decided that it was simply a lack of competitiveness. What should the U.S. sell the world to provide a much needed increase to the export-quote?

The market for plastic toys, home appliances or textiles has been wrested away from minimum-wage America by the cheap labor in China and other south-Asian countries. The U.S. is second, after the EU, in importing food. In the automobile market, the German sector grows rapidly. What you can’t sell in your own land is internationally hopeless.

The Fringes Strengthened by Frustration with Washington

The dominance of the U.S. by iPhones, information technology, many chemical and pharmaceutical aspects, airplane construction and weapons technology is not enough. Obama wants to push through with innovation and correct the erroneous trends of the past decades. The Republicans block the president and silence Obama in order to shoot through a new Speaker of the House of Representatives. It is questionable if a mutual “blame game” can save the Democrats in 2012 or if trust in the Republicans can be restored.

The likelihood of this: probably not. Then there is the current frustration with Washington, the politics and all politicians, which would grow and the extreme edges would become stronger. The Republicans fell under the wheels of the populist and reactionary Tea Party Express. And the Democrats fell back into miserable polarization ideology.

150 years have tested the two-party system. Observers like columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winner Thomas L. Friedman see the rise of a third party, which would make a run for the White House in 2012. No Tea Party and no right-leaning independent like Ross Perot, who in 1992 split the Republican spectrum and Bush Sr. lost to Clinton.

A Third Party is Emerging

Also, there is no left-leaning party like the Green party of Ralph Nader, who cannibalized the democratic voters in 2000 and made George W. Bush president. But there is the “Party of Facts,” which comes out of the middle class.

Is it totally unthinkable that such a party would be a real danger for Democrats and Republicans when both parties are worn out and have gambled their trust away? Especially when such a third party is where political and professional billionaires would take the lead. Someone like New York Mayor Mchael Bloomberg? Perot came close to 19 percent. Bloomberg’s potential would be far greater. Especially if the standstill in U.S. politics should stick around until 2012.

The crisis is there. The chance for cooperation between Democrats and Republicans is there. But time is running out before Doomsday.

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1 Comment

  1. This solution may be an option but doubtful to create a strong third party with staying power. American vision has been narrowed down by the strong Jewish lobby for more than sic decades to keep Israel from harm by its neighbors and to keep it afloat by maximum aid. This vision is now shattered causing a shock and a cruel disappointment to the Jews. The Jews have a nose for smelling the rumblings when threatened by God for their iniquity. The iniquity made by Ben-Gurion in outright rejecting God and replacing his name with a symbolic “Rock of Israel” at the swearing ceremony of Israel, arguably surpasses the past iniquities combined. Americans are very religious people. The Economist magazine wrote in a story that there are more worshipping places in America than anywhere else and more are being built. How is it that the Americans didn’t know this anomaly in the Israel’s creation? The strong Jewish media in America is now going to lose face if the hand of God decides to strike Israel. It is much more to it. America lies wide open to be possibly sucked in the maelstrom for its dubious backing of Israel in all the past sic decades. Now, please, don’t take me as a doomsayer and Anti-Semitic. I am a great admirer of Jews of their past history, especially the twelve consecutive centuries of the Jews with Islam. It comprised seven glorious centuries under Umayyad Spain and consecutively another five with the Ottomans. It is remarkable that the Ottomans rescued them from Ferdinand’s oppression by sending Turkish ships to haul them in safety with a welcome mat in Turkey. It is the fault of America’s dominant Jewish media that is still busy in stoking fire of Islam phobia. What an irony that the future of Jews has suddenly come to depend on the very people in the Middle East whom they tried to terrorize by Israel’s hegemony. Resident Barack Obama might usher a new era for America in both Middle East and central Asia by outreaching the Muslims there. He is being provided feedbacks on how to find his way around and his presidency might echo that of the illustrious Bill Clinton.

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