United States of America
Elective Politics
Post Election Analysis
By Jonathan M. Feldman
The recent electoral fiasco has exposed the contradictions of American society and
its federalist and corporate dominated system. The contradictions came out because
one major party candidate led the other in the closest election in recent U.S. history.
Prior to the election, the closeness of support for the two major candidates encouraged
reactionary forces to intimidate African American and some immigrant voters. It revealed
the utter stupidity of election technology that is dysfunctional and generates errors.
It revealed the elitist and anti-democratic character of the electoral college system
in which a candidate can win the popular vote but lose the presidency. It revealed
the corruption of local state officials and judiciaries more loyal to specific political
parties than protecting voters’rights. It showed the ideological character of the
Supreme Court, a problem compounded by some justices’ illegal conflict of interests,
e.g. where justices had direct or indirect connections to the Bush campaign.
This triumph of power over ethics has been reproduced throughout the larger political
spectrum.
First, the far Right in the shape of Pat Buchanan who ran as President of the Reform
Party has shown that it is basically junior partners to the Republican Party. In
one contested part of Florida which has a large number of Jewish voters, Buchanan
won several thousand voters that statistical analysts suggest were meant for Gore.
Initially, Buchanan said that he did not want votes that were intended for someone
else. Later, Buchanan (who has made statements praising Hitler) said he should have
had the votes. Obviously, Buchanan sees a Democratic victory as marginalizing the
kind of right wing discourse that provides more space for politicians of his ilk.
Second, the Republican Party has revealed its willingness to use whatever methods
were necessary to gain the power of the presidency. Florida’s Secretary of State,
a member of Bush’s presidential campaign, repeatedly blocked the hand counting of
votes because electoral machines are supposedly unbiased. Yet, one news report found
the following error rates among diverse kinds of voting machines: Lever machines:
1/1000 votes or .1%, Optical scan: 2/1000 votes or .2%; and Punch cards: 33/1000
votes or 3.3%. The Party paid for a mob comprised of Congressional aides and other
partisans to intimidate the vote count (according to a widely circulated story in
the Wall Street Journal).
Third, the Democrats have shown that they can only support the franchise by using
legal challenges and not direct popular citizen mobilization. Democratic leaders
(except Jesse Jackson) also said little to nothing about systematic disenfranchisement
of African American voters. Their stategy was to pursue the most winable legal arguments,
even if that meant that larger principles about justice are sacrificed in the process.
They are also afraid of being lambasted by the establishment media which has basically
described Jackson as a fringe lunatic for his protest actions in Florida. The Democrats
must adhere to the filtering of mainstream media and established corporate interests
who pick and choose what contradictions within society can be questioned. They also
regulate the tactical methods of mainstream parties. Direct action or mass grassroots
protests to support electoral rights are seen as “irresponsible” and potentially
“disruptive” of the mainstream institutions. The corporations and established interest
groups have invested their capital in these institutions and want to reap the returns.
If a new independent space were to arise that shaped events, Gore and his corporate
sponsors could not control it. Actions independent from the established legislative
vehicles would decrease the managerial power of non-profit elitists and corporate
Democrats alike.
Fourth, large parts of the Left have shown that that they are entirely ill-equipped
to respond to and creatively influence events in support of citizens’ basic franchise.
A scan of web sites in various Left magazines showed a hodgepodge of old news and
very little coherent arguments about strategies for political intervention. In websites
discussing protest activities, not a notable left intellectual could be found. Some
Left publications had not even updated their websites to take into account what seems
to many like a coup in slow motion by the Republican Party. Other web sites had some
new information, but were a distracting jumble of twenty assorted analyses regarding
an equal number of ad hoc issues. Furthermore, many progressive magazines were showed
an active disinterest in reporting on grassroots protests to the coup. As a result,
they abdicated their function as guardians of the public interest and raised serious
questions as to just what their purpose is and whose interests they serve.
Fifth, parts of the postmodern academic community showed that were utterly useless
and ethically bankrupt when it came to protecting democratic rights. In The New York
Times, postmodern intellectual Stanley Fish wrote an article entitled “Politics Over
Principles — and Rightly So.” Fish suggested that moral relevatism is OK, it’s the
Bush and Gore camp’s political commitment that matters. He aptly deconstructed the
opportunism of both camps, but his larger point was that the ends justify the means.
This postmodern take on the elections simply won't do, however. The critical moral
issues center not on the dispute between Democrats and Republicans but the larger
interests of disenfranchised Florida voters. In Florida, there have been serious
questions raised about faulty ballots and intimidation of African American voters.
Many voters argue their voting rights were compromised. For such voters, the Democratic
and Republican party's contest is largely a sideshow. Do Republicans and Democrats
benefit from faulty ballots or voter intimidation for that matter? Whose ends are
served by such practices? Here is a question where moral relativism doesn't help,
nor the search for ends that justify means. Fish's moral relativism was not simply
irrelevant, it was dangerous, a form or repressive tolerance in which an attack on
democracy was ignored and turned into some kind of intellectual game.
Against the backdrop of this morass, there were a few bright spots. These individuals
and organizations tell us about who will be the significant actors in constructing
a new democratic politics within the United States.
First, an ad hoc group of advocates constructed a web site, discussion list and national
protest movement called “Counter Coup.” This alliance organized fifty local protests
on November 11th and had even more on November 18th. The movement's discussion lists
actively debate strategy and recirculate and evaluate the latest information from
CNN and major news media. Thus, it has provided and continues to provide a running
commentary on and link to the topical media that filter and produce the space surrounding
this crisis. Each new move from the Republicans, Democrats, judiciary, and various
political officials is rapidly evaluated and analyzed by the discussion list. The
webpage and demonstrations act as a focal point vis-à-vis this topical crisis
and are not hemmed in by an array of distractive causes and political side shows.
Second, Michael Moore, the television producer and media guerrilla and Jesse Jackson,
the civil rights advocate, traveled to Florida and supported grassroots mobilizing
efforts. Moore's webpage provided up to date responses to various twists in the Floridagate
story and is linked to an e-mail list of some hundreds of activists. His television
program on the Bravo cable network has created a kind of virtual political space
that makes Moore a focal point for local activists and critical citizens who watch
his national media broadcasts. Jackson has built up a national following from his
concerted activists campaigns and his prior runs for the presidency in 1984 and 1988.
Moore and Jackson as activists have made a critical connection that much of the Left
has failed to exploit: the linkage of topical crises, mass media audiences, and corrective
political organizing. These new organizers have realized that scandals define the
life of American politics but can be exposed and exploited for progressive social
change. They have each gone beyond mere muckraking and encouraged citizens to protest
against corporations and political elites who disenfranchise voters.
Third, a group called Million Voter March (www.millionvotermarch.org) organized a series
of ongoing national protest marches. The organization's goal is to support voter
rights and electoral reform. They seek to abolish or substantially revise the electoral
college, insure accurate vote counts, combat voter apathy, promote user friendly
ballots, provide opportunities for Third Parties, and fight for campaign finance
reform, among other related issues. Their first march was held on December 15, 200
in front of the United Nations. The Inaugural voter march was to be held on January
20, 2001 in Washington, D.C. On May 6, 2001, the organization will hold a massive
demonstration to further its educational work and protest the unfairness of the contemporary
electoral process. Many years ago, Thomas Jefferson envisioned the creation of a
permanent structure centered on localized “ward Republics” that would unite grassroots
citizens in decentralized collectives. These collectives would provide a means for
making centralized national politicians accountable to popular will:
Where every man is a sharer in the direction of his ward-republic, or of some of
the higher ones, and feels that he is a participator in the government of affairs,
not merely at an election one day in the year, but every day; when there shall not
be a man in the state who will not be a member of some one of its councils, great
or small, he will let the heart be torn out of his body sooner than his power be
wrested from him by a Caesar or a Bonaparte.
The new Internet and electoral reform organizers on the Left can serve as the new
“ready reserves,” the term Jefferson used to explain the decentralized chain of local
community activists and citizens’ groups necessary to sustain democracy. The new
technologies and grassroots protests activities are now common to the Right and the
Left, but an honest reading of the various news stories exposing the Votergate crisis
shows that it is imperative to take a stand against the increasing threats to basic
democratic principles of equal protection under the law and the right of citizens’
to have the votes accurately registered and dutifully counted.
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The author an American based in Stockholm, Sweden conducts research on
disarmament, economic democracy, media organizing and economic
development. He can be reached at <JonathanMFeldman@excite.com>