Eight days ahead of the 2020 presidential election, Gallup reported that “[a] majority of Americans, 57%, say there is a need for a third, major political party. The poll results aren’t an artifact of Donald Trump’s presidency: “These views have been consistent since 2013.”

Easier said than done, though. Duverger’s Law puts it bluntly: “[T]he simple-majority single-ballot system favours the two-party system.”

With more than 140 years to entrench themselves in that system and fortify their position with ballot and debate access barriers to keep competitors broke and voiceless, the Republicans and Democrats  have little to fear.

Or do they?

Trump himself has quietly leaked word that he intends to remain with (and in control of) the Republican Party rather than launching a “Patriot Party” as many in his committed base, feeling betrayed by GOP cooperation in certifying the election results, had hoped and called for.

Perhaps he’s meditated on the fates of three Progressive Parties created as vehicles for former “major party” contenders (former President Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, Senator Robert La Follette, Sr. in 1924, and former Vice-President Henry Wallace in 1948).

Or maybe he’s just biding his time, waiting to see whether the Republican Party remains in his grip, before pulling the “Patriot Party” trigger if that looks like a plausible path back to power. Things could still get interesting.

Duverger’s Law predicts a two-party system in general, not the dominance or even survival of any particular two parties.

The Whigs, split over the issue of slavery, fell on hard times and were displaced by the Republicans in the 1850s. While it’s unlikely that a notional “Patriot Party” could replace the Republicans as a major party, such a Trump-centric effort might enjoy just enough support to take the GOP down with it, creating an opening for something new.

One side effect of the long Democrat/Republican “duopoly” is a sleepy centrism. If political ideology is a 360 degree circle, the “major” parties cover perhaps five degrees in the comfy “center-right” arc of that circle.  As third party (and proto-Trumpian) presidential hopeful George Wallace noted in the 1960s, there’s “not a dime’s worth of difference” between the two in substance, despite their “polarized” presentations.

Could the (third-largest) Libertarian Party or (fourth-largest) Green Party surge into the vacuum left by a Republican fade? Decades of failure to make much headway say Americans aren’t ready for that degree of change.

But if change is coming whether Americans are ready for it or not, both parties have advantages. They already hold a few elected positions (on city councils and in state legislatures, even one Libertarian congressman for a year). They’re veterans at navigating difficult ballot access barriers. They’re tanned, rested and ready.

As the news guys like to say, “developing.”

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “The Next Major Party Won’t be a Trump Production,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 01/27/21
• “The next major party won’t be a Trump production,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Elko, Nevada Daily, 01/28/21
• “Why the Next Major Party Won’t be a Trump Production,” by Thomas L. Knapp, CounterPunch, 01/29/21
• “The Next Major Party Won’t be a Trump Production,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 02/06/21
• “The next major party won’t be a Trump production,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Sterling Heights, Michigan News-Herald, 02/09/21
• “The next major party won’t be a Trump production,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Dearborn, Michigan Press & Guide, 02/09/21

“[T]o restore the soul and to secure the future of America,” President Joe Biden said in his inaugural speech, “requires more than words. It requires that most elusive of things in a democracy: Unity. … This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge, and unity is the path forward.”

The bad news:  Where politics is concerned, “unity” is a pipe dream.

The good news: Where human flourishing is concerned, the ersatz “unity” demanded by politicians like Joe Biden is neither necessary nor desirable.

There’s nothing wrong with unity as such. Unity is desirable when it’s voluntary, unanimous and based on shared values and interests. Otherwise, people should just do their own things.

Nor is politics as we know it about unity as such. It’s about ruling, and about making sure those who disagree with the rulers don’t GET to do their own things. That produces unity of a sort, among those who support the rulers. It also produces polarization between those who do and those who don’t.

Carl von Clausewitz’s aphorism, “war is the continuation of politics by other means,” is equally applicable in reverse.  Politics does not bring an end to Hobbes’s “war of all against all.” It merely recruits the fighters into competing armies, waving different flags and wearing different uniforms.

Such polarization might be ugly, but not as ugly as prospective political unity. Such unity would look like George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four: A society united under the rule of a single party dedicated to stamping out not only dissent but the very possibility and concept of dissent. Thankfully, that’s never happened (even with millions dead or dying behind barbed wire, the Third Reich’s “unity” was contested by its Hans and Sophie Scholls).

Polarization is not the opposite of unity. The two are simply complementary sides of one coin. One both produces and requires the other. To transcend one, we must transcend both. And we can, by trading them in for another coin, the two sides of which are freedom and peace.

How do we get there? Through deescalation and decentralization.

To the extent that politics is war, and it is, the more things government controls, the more things we have to fight about. And the more things there are to fight about, the more we’re going to fight. Every new thing to fight about produces new internally unified, mutually polarized factions.

If we want freedom and peace, we have to reduce the power of government (anarchists and voluntaryists would eliminate that power entirely). If we have less to fight about, we’ll fight less.

In addition to reducing the power of government as a whole, spreading that power out through devolution, secession, even panarchism (“competing governments” in overlapping geographies) would allow voluntarily “unified” groups to live their way without demanding that others do likewise. Less to fight about. Less fighting. The first two have been done many times. The third is worth a try.

What’s not worth continued trying is coerced “unity” under Joe Biden or anyone else.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• • “Political ‘Unity’ is Neither Necessary Nor Desirable,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 01/24/21
  • “Political ‘unity’ is neither necessary nor desirable,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Orange County, California Register, 01/25/21
  • “Political ‘unity’ is neither necessary nor desirable,” by Thomas L. Knapp, San Gabriel Valley, California Tribune, 01/25/21
  • “Political ‘unity’ is neither necessary nor desirable,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Riverside, California Press-Enterprise, 01/25/21
  • “Political ‘unity’ is neither necessary nor desirable,” by Thomas L. Knapp, San Bernardino, California Sun, 01/25/21
  • “Political ‘unity’ is neither necessary nor desirable,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Los Angeles, California Daily News, 01/25/21
  • “Political ‘unity’ is neither necessary nor desirable,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Long Beach, California Press-Telegram, 01/25/21
  • “Political ‘unity’ is neither necessary nor desirable,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Redondo Beach, California Daily Breeze, 01/25/21
  • “Political ‘unity’ is neither necessary nor desirable,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Redlands, California Daily Facts, 01/25/21
  • “Political ‘unity’ is neither necessary nor desirable,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Inland Valley, California Daily Bulletin, 01/25/21
  • “Political ‘unity’ is neither necessary nor desirable,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Pasadena, California Star-News, 01/25/21
  • “Political ‘unity’ is neither necessary nor desirable,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Whittier, California Daily News, 01/25/21
  • “Political ‘Unity’ is Neither Necessary Nor Desirable,”  by Thomas L. Knapp, CounterPunch, 01/26/21
  • “Political ‘unity’ is neither necessary nor desirable,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Richmond, North Carolina Observer, 01/26/21
  • “Political ‘unity’ is neither necessary nor desirable,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Hopkinsville, Kentucky New Era, 01/27/21
  • “Political ‘Unity’ is Neither Necessary Nor Desirable,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Madill, Oklahoma Record, 01/27/21
  • “Political ‘Unity’ is Neither Necessary Nor Desirable,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Roundup, Montana Record – Tribune & Winnett Times, 01/27/21
  • “‘Unity’ is unnecessary,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Richmond, Virginia Legacy [web and print], 01/27/21
  • “Political ‘Unity’ is Neither Necessary Nor Desirable,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 01/28/21
  • “Political ‘unity’ is neither necessary nor desirable,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Coos Bay, Oregon World, 01/29/21
  • “Political ‘unity’ is neither necessary nor desirable,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Lake Havasu City, Arizona News-Herald, 01/29/21
  • “Political ‘unity’ is neither necessary nor desirable,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Kingsport, Tennessee Times News, 02/01/21

On his first partial day as president,  Joe Biden issued 17 “executive orders, memorandums and proclamations” — two more than America’s first five presidents issued over their 36 years in office.

Ol’ Joe obviously walked off the inaugural stage with his honeymoon plans well-laid. While I don’t personally respect presidential honeymoons for either party, I do try to look at each new president’s actions with an open mind and  search for the good.

Here are a few high points you may have missed while sipping champagne at an inaugural ball or swilling cheap beer and watching MSNBC:

First, no “national mask mandate.” That’s a good thing. It indicates an understanding that there are some limits to presidential power. Biden’s  requiring that masks be worn on federal property and by federal employees, but merely “nudging” Americans to wear masks and leaning on state and local officials to force us to do so.

This could have been far worse.  And with trial balloons on re-invoking the Defense Production Act that his predecessor also used to interfere with and screw up the market’s response to the pandemic, it will almost certainly GET worse. But it’s not worse yet.

Biden came in swinging on immigration. The Obama-Biden administration deported more immigrants than any administration in history including Donald Trump’s. Having been nearly out-Democrated by (supposedly former) Democrat Trump on immigration authoritarianism, Biden did a 180. He reinstated the controversial and legally sketchy, but at least not intentionally evil, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, urging Congress to affirm permanent residency and “paths to citizenship” for the affected folks. He reversed the Trump administration’s plans for a fraudulent census excluding non-citizens, nixed Trump’s “Muslim ban,” stopped construction on Trump’s border wall, and round-filed Trump’s fake declaration of “emergency”  used to misappropriate funds for it.

Hats off to President Biden; all that’s a good day’s work by itself!

On the environment, Biden’s actions were mixed.

He signed a letter of intent to bring the US back into the Paris Climate Accords, a useless treaty that nobody but the US (and probably not the US) ever plans to actually implement, whether its provisions are  good ideas or not.

On the other hand, he put the brakes on a couple of high-profile corporate welfare schemes: The Keystone XL pipeline and sweetheart oil and natural gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Environmentally justified or not, I’m always glad to see government slowing down its giveaways to big business.

No more federal discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.  A welcome no-brainer that Republicans should (but probably won’t) let shuffle off the culture war battlefield over the next four years.

A couple of lemons: He’s extending the national eviction moratorium  (apparently  already forgetting about those limits on presidential power), and still toying with direct action on student loan debt instead of pushing Congress to change bankruptcy laws to discharge that debt.

But in places Joe Biden’s first day was darn good, and it certainly could have been far worse.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “Hey Joe, Where You Goin’ With That Pen in Your Hand?” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 01/21/21
• “Hey Joe, Where You Goin’ With That Pen in Your Hand?” by Thomas L. Knapp, Anchorage, Alaska Press, 01/21/21
• “Hey Joe, Where You Goin’ With That Pen in Your Hand?” by Thomas L. Knapp, Pottstown, Pennsylvania Mercury, 01/22/21
• “Hey Joe, Where You Goin’ With That Pen in Your Hand?” by Thomas L. Knapp, Exton, Pennsylvania Mainline Media News, 01/22/21
• “Hey, Joe, Where You Goin’ With That Pen in Your Hand?” by Thomas L. Knapp, CounterPunch, 01/22/21
• “Hey Joe, Where You Goin’ With That Pen in Your Hand?” by Thomas L. Knapp, Phoenixville, Pennsylvania Phoenix Reporter & Item, 01/22/21
• “Hey Joe, Where You Goin’ With That Pen in Your Hand?” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 01/22/21