RFK Jr. and MTG are using the same dismissive term for major-party differences. I took at look at this phenomenon at New York:
Partisan polarization has been steadily growing in the U.S. since roughly the 1960s. Ironically, during this time, the complaint that the two parties are actually too alike has become increasingly prevalent. For years, right-wing Republicans have called people in the GOP who don’t share their exact degree of ideological extremism RINOs, or “Republicans in name only,” suggesting they’re basically Democrats. Left-wing Democrats occasionally echo these epithets by calling (relative) moderates “DINOs,” “ConservaDems,” or — back when maximum resistance to George W. Bush was de rigueur — “Vichy Democrats.”
Today the term “Uniparty” has come to denote the idea that Democrats and Republicans are actually working for the same evil Establishment enterprise, their loudly proclaimed differences being a mere sham. This contention was the culmination of a five-page letter Marjorie Taylor Greene recently sent her Republican colleagues calling for House Speaker Mike Johnson’s removal, unless he changes his ways instantly. She wrote:
“With so much at stake for our future and the future of our children, I will not tolerate this type of ‘leadership.’ This has been a complete and total surrender to, if not complete and total lockstep with, the Democrats’ agenda that has angered our Republican base so much and given them very little reason to vote for a Republican House majority …
“If these actions by the leaders of our conference continue, then we are not a Republican party – we are a Uniparty that is hell-bent on remaining on the path of self-inflicted destruction.”
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also leaned heavily into the Uniparty idea in his recent speech introducing running-mate Nicole Shanahan:
“Our independent run for the presidency is finally going to bring down the Democrat and Republican duopoly that gave us ruinous debt, chronic disease, endless wars, lockdowns, mandates, agency capture, and censorship. This is the same Trump/Biden Uniparty that has captured and appropriated our democracy and turned it over to Blackrock, State Street, Vanguard, and their other corporate donors. Nicole Shanahan will help me rally support for our revolution against Uniparty rule from both ends of the traditional Right vs. Left political spectrum.”
The Uniparty claim is ridiculous, of course, as FiveThirtyEight’s Geoffrey Skelley demonstrates:
“[O]ur current political moment is arguably farther away from having anything resembling a uniparty than at any other time in modern U.S. history. Based on their voting records, Democratic and Republican members of Congress have become increasingly polarized, and both the more moderate and more conservative wings of the congressional GOP have moved to the right at similar rates. Meanwhile, polling suggests that Americans now are more likely to view the parties as distinct from one another than in the past, an indication that the public broadly doesn’t see a uniparty in Washington. Although there are areas where the parties are less divided, the broader uniparty claim is at odds with our highly polarized and divided political era.”
Kennedy’s subscription to the Uniparty notion is understandable on two points. The first is that his candidacy is vastly more likely to tilt the 2024 presidential campaign in the direction of one of the two major-party candidates (likely Donald Trump, according to most of the polling) than to actually succeed in winning the presidency. Maintaining that it really doesn’t matter whether it’s Biden or Trump running the country is essential to maintaining RFK’s appeal as November approaches and the futility of his bid becomes clearer. Second, Kennedy’s pervasive conspiracy-theory approach to contemporary life lends itself to the argument that the apparent gulf between the two major parties is a ruse disguising a sinister common purpose.
MTG’s Uniparty contention also reflects dual motives. In part she is simply echoing Trump’s weird but useful contention that he’s an “outsider” battling a Deep-State Establishment that secretly controls both parties, which is pretty rich since he dominates the GOP like Genghis Khan dominated the Golden Horde. But there is a marginally more legitimate sense in which key elements of the two parties really are in line with each other on isolated issues that happen to obsess Greene, such as aid to Ukraine. If you are a hammer, as the saying goes, everything looks like a nail.
The same is true of other implicit Uniparty claims, particularly those made by progressive pro-Palestinian protesters who adamantly argue that the need to smite “Genocide Joe” Biden for his pro-Israel policies outweighs all the reasons it might be a bad idea to help Trump return to the White House (including the fact that Trump is palpably indifferent to Palestinian suffering). If the two parties do not appear to differ on your overriding issue, then the fundamental reality of polarization can fade into irrelevance.
So we’re likely to hear more Uniparty talk even as Democrats and Republicans head toward another highly fractious election with very high stakes attributable to their differences.
As near as I’ve been able to see so far, Kerry’s stand on the issues is exactly like Bush’s except that he thinks we ought to have some sort of health policy, and he isn’t ready to ban abortions or utterly ban gay marriages.
I don’t think we have that much of a consensus in the voting public. If Bush and Kerry split the Bush vote, that leaves a whole lot of people to vote for someone else if someone else can get funding and organization.
So people can pick Kerry or Bush depending on party loyalty, or whose eyebrows they like better. But it’s a sad state of affairs when that’s what we’re stuck with.
I don’t think working for Nader is going to be a trendy thing to do this year. In fact, I think you would put yourself in serious danger of getting a face full of rotten tomatoes. This might cut down on the effectiveness of Nader’s campaign organization.
Unfortunately, the Republican controlled media will probably give him as much media exposure as they can possibly get away with.
I have to disagree with my Good Friend Charlie Cook whose OP ED appears in today’s NyT….he ought to get out more often..,,,,
If he’d come to visit us in San Francisco, specifically if he were here today, he could see Ralph Nader speak at SFSU.
He and probably not too many others for I saw exactly two, Xerox’ed flyers…
No enthusiasm at a place like State means Ralph is going to have a real hard time breaking 1%…Of course the poll that Charlie easily demolished showed him at 6%..and the Post Poll at 3%
And read Ruy more often Chuck
It’s a long, long time until November, guys. A little too early to be engaged in the practice of chicken counting. I think that these poll numbers are about as good as its going to get for Kerry. Once job numbers begin to improve, which they will, Kerry will go down in the polls. When Osama is caught, which he will, Bush’s numbers will rise.
I feel for you, though. It’s not any fun to root for the stagnation of job creation or to tout the military endeavours of the current administration as failures.
The more Nader is on TV the less impact he has is my observation.
Plus, you need funding to pay for enough “volunteers” to collect all those signatures to gain ballot eligability. Good luck on that.
Campaign finance laws will probably provide enough transparency that the republicans will be exposed if they try too hard to prop up Nader.
No offense Ricky Vandal you may donate your time but the numbers Nader needs to be a player/spoiler won’t come without some cash to get the organization in the states that matter.
Rick, The people who are willing to subjet themselves and their families to the insults, privacy invasion and criticisms of politics seldom have the resume of Mother Theresa. Partly it is the reality of ambitious persons, partly it is what we get for allowing negative campaigning to work. Unfortunately, we have to treat it like sausage making. Enjoy the end product of environmental protection, human rights, more economic democracy etc. and don’t judge the politician by an unrealistic standard of purity. It really, really, really does matter who is in the White House, even if they have the blemishes of major personal ambition.
A lame deduction. A majority of the eligble voters do not vote. That is where Democrats should find voters. Trying to take Naders voters is nonsense. If they liked Cut and Run Kerry they’d vote for the backstabber.
Following up on the Miami Herald poll, it shows Kerry leading Bush 49-43. Amiong Independents, Kerry gets 57% and Bush “a little over a third”. It’s a terribly-written story at http://www.miamiherald.com. Also shows that Graham or Nelson add nothing to the ticket, but that Bush is doing better than in 2000 among Hispanics, carrying them 56-40 (they broke about evenly in 2000, with Bush having a one-point avantage) So maybe Bill Richardson would be the best choice for Florida.
If I understand Florida law correctly, Nader needs 93,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot, and he’ll have to have help from the Republicans for that, since he won’t have the Greens.
Nader will only make it onto the ballot in a relative handful of states. So, I don’t care if he’s polling 6 percent, because it won’t impact the race all that much.
“Florida is lost to Kerry.”
Not so fast. This from today’s Miami Herald:
Increasingly critical of President Bush on his handling of the economy and the war in Iraq, more Florida voters now say they plan to support Democrat John Kerry than to help reelect the president, according to a new poll.
The Herald/St. Petersburg Times survey reveals striking vulnerabilities for Bush among key independent voters in the state that narrowly put him into the White House four years ago.
More Florida voters disapprove of his job performance than approve, another sign of the president’s lagging popularity since the 2001 terrorist attacks transformed Bush from a polarizing figure into a popular wartime president.
A majority of voters believe that the United States is ”moving in the wrong direction” under Bush — a marked reversal from two years ago, when 7 in 10 voters, including half of Democrats, approved of Bush’s job performance.
(Unfortunately Nader is still polling 3% in the Sunshine State. Let’s just hope Ruy is right about that fading by election day.)
Thank you!
I have no idea if you are right (though my lone brain cell and my gut tell me you are), but I’ll be able to sleep now.
I don’t see FL as remotely out of play in 2004, though I’d like to hear Ruy speak to that state. Interestingly, The Decembrist makes a decent case for Senator Bill Nelson of FL as VP.
AB
21,000 GOVERNMENT jobs, by the way!
Buchanan is my guess. It was Florida that Nader cost Gore. Florida is lost to Kerry. What he will pick up in 04 will be Ohio and NH, in neither of which will Nader be a factor. The very type of state that will be closer for Kerry will be a type that will not have much of a Nader factor.
Kerry is going to sweep the old North, save Indiana, which was sometimes referred to as Klandiana. The political forces are pushing the Dems in the direction of being the Party of the North, the modern day heir of the Party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. It is a unified base that can be held together. This in-between is what is killing them at times. Resistence is futile. They should accept their destiny as such a party.
The Dems can hold onto the Louisiana seat with Chris John. What they need is more Northern seats so that they do not have to rely on the Southern states, forcing the GOP to rely on them more heavily. Once the parties again become one for the liberal, individualistic North and one for the conservative statist South, although the reverse of 1860, politics will become more civil and more will become involved in elections and party activities.
We need to defeat them one more time. Show them that Lee’s surrender cannot be undone!