Thoughts on American Political Parties

I think that instead of rebuilding the Republican party, a new party should emerge from the left. The Republican Party seems to be a party that values paying a lot for national defense, favors very little governmental regulation of financial markets, and coddles bigots (sorry, "values voters"). Once you take away the bigotry and anti-woman posing, there is nothing unique about the Republican Party's arguments, and the new faces of the Republican Party, like Meghan McCain, have advocated toning down the anti-gay and anti-abortion rhetoric. Without that, there's really nothing different between the two parties. Both favor proportionately big defense spending and a combination of free market principles and governmental regulation.

The world has seen the problems with an unregulated financial sector, and we must re-regulate our markets if we want to remain a robust global trading partner. There is no way that Europe and Asia will trade with us and intertwine their markets with ours if we don't fix the lack of regulations that led to undercapitalized banks, toxic assets, and "too big to fail". Free market capitalism isn't a real argument anymore; there is just a discussion about how much regulation the market can tolerate, and Obama has espoused his confidence in the free market and his desire to let it work as much as possible. This is also true on the health care side: Obama does not advocate for a single-payer system to replace our current non-system. Instead, he offers a plan that creates a government system that will compete with the insurance industry's plans for American's dollars. Obama has increased defense spending and seems to be expanding our military's presence in AfPak, which will finance the work of defense contractors for years.

On the social issues: they're dying. Young people are less religious and also less likely to oppose gay marriage than any previous generation. Birth control is commonplace (though not commonplace enough). Almost nobody abstains from sex until marriage, and cohabitation rates are up. The Right has lost the culture war it waged. Meanwhile, Obama hasn't yet repealed Don't Ask Don't Tell, Barkey Frank stripped EDNA of any reference to employment discrimination protection for transgendered persons, and nobody has suggested the Full Faith and Credit problems with the Federal Defense of Marriage Act. Essentially, DOMA says that no state needs to recognize a gay marriage that occurred in any other state. However, the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution says that states have to respect the "public acts, records, and judicial rulings" of other states. DOMA is patently unconstitutional. Obama is not a radical. He doesn't even favor same sex marriage. His stance is slow-moving and moderate on social issues, no matter what the abstinence-funding, purity-ball-attending, gay-bashing crowd thinks.

Obama's presidency is moderate, with respect to social issues as well as policy. Clinton's was, too. A Progressive/Socialist party that advocates governmental interaction with the market on a much larger scale would provide a meaningful alternative to this Democratic party, one that respects market freedom as well as regulation. The real questions that remain are on the Left: debates over legalization of marijuana and perhaps other drugs, birth control pills available over-the-counter, vastly expanded infrastructure spending, low defense spending and a non-agressive foreign policy, federal regulation of the market on a scale heretofore reserved for the dreaded France (be afraid!), the expansion of the welfare state in an attempt to level out the class system and eradicate poverty, socialized medicine, gay marriage at the federal level, and a provision prohibiting discrimination based on LGB and also T status in employment and housing.

We need voices to the left of the Democratic Party's current incarnation to help implement a truly progressive agenda and to give people who oppose GOP bigotry and big guns a real choice about how far left they wish to go. This country desparately needs to give voters more choices than two! We are multicultural, multilingual, and multiracial. We have different sexual orientations and different concepts of family. We are Americans, and our political discourse must expand.