DEMOCRACY AND OUR MAJOR PARTIES (II)
Thomas, Norman
Democracy And Our Major Parties (II) By NORMAN THOMAS" EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second of two articles by Mr. Thomas analyzing present and future political trends in terms of the recent election...
...The basis for such a development has already been laid and materials for the superstructure are already to hand...
...Government action will not be consistent, and it will not rise to the dignity of a well thought out program...
...A variant of this might be the use of both parties by a well organized minority group outside of them which would manipulate them for its ends, much as the Anti-Saloon League did in winning Prohibition...
...The old parties will continue of necessity to further some sort of collectivism whatever slogans they shout...
...That is why the Socialist Party feels that its work was never more important than in these months or years of preparation for that new political alignment upon which our hope of deliverance from an American version of fascism will depend...
...It is very strong opinion that a successful struggle against slavery to war and poverty requires a new party as surely as did the struggle against slavery in the middle of the last century...
...It provides neither the climate nor the method for working out and enforcing a whole program...
...Today they seek power by any means...
...Already, according to a recent Fortune poll, 14 per cent of the American people would like a third party...
...This is the stuff for a new party platform...
...Such is the American psychology that it will have to be organized with widespread enthusiasm on a national scale...
...At least pending postwar reaction, the probabilities are that our Government will be what it has been: the resultant of pressure politics by different groups, a combination of shifting minorities, little influenced by any old party platform, but greatly influenced by Presidential policies, especially if the President is a strong man...
...I do not think such a party will grow like an oak from an acorn...
...Thomas analyzing present and future political trends in terms of the recent election results...
...I do not think it will work out a satisfactory comprehensive program or successfully impose it by manipulating the old parties...
...There may be some shift in the line-up of parties but not much so long as a man like Sen...
...The Canadians have done well to avoid such control in the constitution of their CCF...
...Once the Communists sought power by any means to achieve their conception of socialism...
...If labor unions as such must not dominate a democratic workers' party, still less should they be trusted to manipulate the existing parties on the Anti-Saloon League pattern...
...The problem will be beyond solution by a mere subsidization of unemployment...
...But such a platform, however educational it may be, will scarcely win mass support until a new emergency of unemployment is on top of us...
...The divisions between Communists and Socialists were never stronger...
...More than that, it is a necessity to any fair democracy, and is the obvious way to avert the extreme unrest and even violence which might attend the choice of a candidate with a minority of the popular vote by...
...Satisfactory political organization will never outrun political intelligence...
...Elections will provide no intelligible popular mandate...
...A Marxist mass party is out of the question...
...It may be doubted whether Prohibition could ever have been enforced...
...Then it may...
...A common set of general principles would be necessary to a new party, but a mass party in the near future will not be held together or inspired by any such ambitious or dogmatic philosophy as Marxism...
...Whatever is done by way of manipulating the old parties, capturing one of them, or building a new party must be done by a coalition of the progressive elements of society and not by the labor unions alone...
...But if the actual formation of a mass party must wait on events, there is important preliminary work to be done...
...Labor unions as such are not and cannot be identical with the whole company of workers with hand and brain, or adequate instruments to express their interests as consumers as well as producers...
...Preliminary conversations between interested groups will be enormously useful in preparing for the new party and hastening its coming...
...America will not escape the worldwide drift to collectivism in which we are already caught...
...And internationalism is not self-defining...
...Many of the most articulate liberals, probably a majority of them, have made enthusiasm for the war and "internationalism" a test of liberalism...
...They will probably continue to divide those who otherwise might be united in seeking a political realignment...
...Finally, there is the basic need for forthright education on the issues that confront us...
...Rival pressure groups will grow stronger and more insistent on what they want for themselves...
...And all over the world, not excluding America, they are making progress in finding it...
...As for capturing one of the old parties, it is not likely that what wasn't done in 1936 can be done in the years that lie ahead...
...But both plenty and freedom will depend on the kind and degree of collectivism and the sort of controls for it...
...THE war and the peace settlement remain factors to complicate political prediction...
...It is at this point that we must fear the rise of an American totalitarianism out of economic depression and political confusion, a totalitarianism probably fascist rather than communist...
...As in the Philippines at the end of the last century, so in the whole postwar world, imperialism will win the support of a great many well-meaning Americans, filled with a missionary zeal "to do others good" and blind to the ease with which imperial governments pass from the better to the worse meaning of that phrase...
...Government policy will be almost a mathematical resultant of pressures by veterans, old folks, organized labor, farmers, business men—and the will of the President...
...An amendment to the Constitution providing for the direct election of the President of the United States by the people would greatly facilitate a political realignment...
...There will be strong differences of opinion among those to the left of center concerning the nature of the peace, the degree to which what is called internationalism is triple alliance imperialism, and the necessity for postwar military conscription...
...the majority of the Electoral College...
...The basis of a new people's party will probably be a point of view on the best way to deal with poverty and unemployment rather than any foreign policy, but difference concerning a foreign policy may greatly complicate any political realignment...
...Joseph Ball can bolt his party ticket and keep his regular standing...
...Capture An Old Party...
...The first, of course, would be a better peace and above all a more prosperous postwar economy than those who are most concerned over our political parties and techniques dare to expect...
...In the effort, it can doubtless win concessions of some immediate advantage to labor unions...
...It is this latter policy which the PAC will probably— but not certainly—try...
...Its supporters will have to make considerable sums of money available for" its use...
...Today, the Communist creed is loyalty to a person rather than to any set of principles...
...But nothing in America is so reactionary, so shot through with racism as the Democratic Party in the solid South, and nothing is so cynically corrupt as the big city machines of the North, predominantly Democratic...
...Second would be the capture of one or other of the old parties by a progressive group with a consistent and comprehensive program...
...Then a new party, with a positive substitute for fascism, will be a necessity to democracy...
...Strongly as I respect the social value, indeed the necessity, of labor unions, I cannot imagine the leaders of the AFL or CIO as leaders of a successful crusade in a postwar emergency against a fascist answer to chronic depression and ever threatening new war...
...One result might be a dangerous inflation especially since the size of the national debt and the interest on it will be an additional factor in the situation...
...These two articles constitute the first installment in a series The Progressive will publish on the political prospects ahead for progres-swes...
...It is hard to believe that Roosevelt himself or his successor— certainly not Harry Truman—can do in a new crisis what Roosevelt did by taking some Socialist and progressive immediate demands in his first term...
...Especially will this be true since in America as in Europe during the last hundred years imperialism and militarism will be the most respectable forms of boondoggling for the alleviation of unemployment...
...Marxists themselves are too divided and too much in need of a working program for our times, which Marx does not provide...
...One reason for the disappointing record of the British Labor Party is the fact that it is dominated by the leaders of the labor unions through a system of bloc voting...
...The first article appeared last week...
...it is certain that it could not be enforced when it was won as the result of political manipulation rather than mass education...
...The Republican Party is now so well established in the popular mind as essentially conservative and the favorite of big business that those who talk about capturing an old party usually have their eyes on the Democratic organization...
...America's foreign and domestic policies will strongly interact on each other and any intelligent party program must take account of that fact...
...They will still use Bolshevik slogans when convenient, as emphatically is not the case in America today, but their real master is not Marx or Lenin, but Machiavelli—or rather his able disciple, Josef Stalin...
...Political manipulation by a well disciplined minority may win for labor through the PAC this or that favor...
...It is inconceivable that the two old parties, accustomed to fighting about offices and little else, will offer to the electorate a substitute for this fascism or an effective implement for fighting it...
...Certainly, democracy cannot stand the steady deterioration inevitable when an increasing number of voters look to the Government which they elect for bread and circuses...
...Any worthwhile new political venture in America must have political principles and a moral enthusiasm which will be far better conserved and expressed in the formation of a new party than in the effort to capture one of the old parties...
...In at least a dozen states, reasonable laws for placing1 new or minor party candidates on the ballot must break the strangle-hold now possessed by the old parties...
...Collectivism Not Enough A mere faith in collectivism will not be an adequate basis for a new party...
...Important issues will scramble the parties in Congress...
...Therefore, vital as would be their support to a progressive political party, they cannot be the sole creators and masters of a desirable political movement...
...But support of the best of wars is no basis for a new liberal or radical party...
...It must be remembered that the very method which brought success to the Anti-Saloon League contributed to its ultimate failure...
...Theoretically, two or three things might change the picture...
...Marxism will be influential but not basic in political action...
...It is, however, very doubtful how long the postwar economy can stand a Santa Claus in Washington who will deal out benefits in proportion to pressure...
...The amount of such organization will be an obvious need of something that not only the old parties but no single leader of them will supply...
Vol. 8 • December 1944 • No. 50
