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Tuesday, September 30, 2003

Taking sides in politics 

Posted by Hei Lun : 9:56 AM

So far: Steve at BTD says most of us are either of the "left" or the "right", I and others respond, and now Steve has a response of his own. Steve writes:

Ultimately in this country you do take a side.

It's all because of our Single Member District Plurality electoral system, or "first past the post" voting. In virtually all American elections, each voter selects one candidate, and the candidate with the most votes wins.

***

The practical effect of all this is that in America, two large parties perpetually do battle for the hearts and minds of the centrist voters who tip the scale, ever so slightly, one way or the other. These two parties loosely represent the "left" and the "right" (whatever those arbitrary terms happen to mean at the time) and together they occupy all positions of power. Ultimately, whether we like it or not, every act of political participation matters only insofar as it helps or hurts the two major parties. George W. Bush is president today because of Nader voters in Florida.

***

Many of you are still thinking that political science aside, you are still an individual. You'll still vote Libertarian as a matter of principle. You'll pick and choose the bits you like from each of the parties.

Fine.

But I think our electoral system infiltrates the national psyche in ways we diminish or fail to perceive. I think almost all of us take a side, with reservations.
Then he gives us another thought experiment:

Think back to late November, 2000. Bush and Gore are arguing about hand counts and hanging chads. Lawsuits are pending. Nothing is decided. One of these men is going to be president, but no one knows which it will be.

You had a preference, didn't you? Maybe you didn't vote for either of them, or maybe you didn't vote at all, but you knew who you wanted to win. And in knowing, you made a choice. You may not have been enthusiastic, but you were not neutral. You envisioned an ideal future achieved through incremental gains. Welcome to America.
I know I'm probably an exception, but this thought experiment didn't work that well for me. That's because I voted for Gore, but thought that Bush was right on the merits of the law. I'm probably more conservative than I was three years ago, but I seriously doubt that that took place all in the thirty days between the election and the Supreme Court decision. The choice I made was for the rule of law, not for Gore or Bush. So here I am, straddling the fence once more.

ALSO, I seem to remember Jacob Levy having some extensive thoughts on how single issue voting affacts this divide (i.e. what is a pro-gun voter to do when the two Cogressional candidates are a pro-gun Dem and an anti-gun Rep?), but I can't find it in his old archives.

UPDATE It just occured to me that I didn't actually address Steve's substantive argument, bur fortunately Will Baude already made the point I would have made, which is that taking a side in a specific election is not equivalent to taking a side generally.

UPDATE TWO Found the Levy post. His conclusion is that it sometimes makes sense to vote for a candidate from the other party if that candidate agrees with the voter on an important issue. Not sure how much it relates to the issue we're discussing, but worth a read nonetheless.
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