Working As Designed

In his op-ed at RealClearPolitics Mort Kondracke does an able job of explaining the problems with our present political system but I’m afraid he hasn’t come to terms with the reality. Here are the areas he outlines for reform:

The Democrat-Republican “duopoly,” Porter said, sets the rules by which politics operates in America. The parties battle savagely for power, but collude to polarize the electorate so it has only two choices in elections. They freeze out Independent and moderate competition and write campaign finance and lobbying rules ensuring that they, their consultants and special interests will grow in money and power without independent regulation.

The methods include partisan gerrymandering (which may be outlawed by the U.S. Supreme Court, or not), primary elections closed to all but party members in most states, “sore loser” laws in 44 states barring primary losers from running as Independents in general elections, and rules making it all but impossible for an Independent or third-party candidate to participate in presidential debates.

to which I’d add smaller more numerous Congressional districts and devolution. But here’s the basic problem:

“The system is not broken,” said Gehl. “It works just fine for the people who designed it—the parties, their donors and the special interests they serve. The system is not broken. It’s ‘fixed.’”

Mr. Kondracke’s evaluation of the progress of his organization is:

The movement scored some limited successes in 2015 and 2016…

but I’m going to rain on his parade. Limited success is all that can be achieved within the present conventional political process. The sitting Congress are the robber barons and the political system is the Rhine. The original robber barons’ excessive tolls ended when Emperor Rudolph burned their castles and hanged them. Nothing short of that will bring reform to our system.

The alternatives we have are a Constitutional convention which would open an enormous can of worms or a civil war overthrowing the present system which would open an even more enormous can of worms.