From Peter’s Desk: On “Politics as Usual”
As the presidential campaign enters its closing weeks, the American electorate is getting a healthy dose of “politics as usual.” With a date at the polls just five weeks away, many voters continue to assess their options … or wish for better ones.
For decades, I sought, with many others of good will, to parse the Democratic and Republican platform offerings along their conservative-progressive political spectrum. Though I valued some positions on each side, in practice it meant, in the voting booth, some issues of importance are forfeited and some ambitions are left wanting.
How much would today’s voters desire to hear a candidate defend both human life and preservation of the environment? How welcome would it be to hear from a single source the call for just wages and working conditions as well as the centrality of natural marriage and family in society? Is it possible that a political party could at once be concerned with national sovereignty and border security as well as with the fair treatment of refugees and asylum seekers? There is nothing contradictory in any of these positions. In fact, they are fundamentally in harmony. Nonetheless, they are often split between red and blue factions in the two-party system. This forces voters into tribal positions, favoring some while not just forfeiting but often opposing others. What’s more, it leads to politics tending to shape one’s principles instead of faith guiding that understanding.
If you are like me, you cannot find a place on the political spectrum. You can’t find the right balance of social justice and social conservatism. Yet the two-party paradigm forces us to accept the spectrum. The reality is, many voters' beliefs do not fit neatly into the left-right, blue-red, progressive-conservative political categories. This political binary is failing us when it comes to delivering a genuine pursuit of the common good.
A vote is a valuable tool. When used in support of one of the two major parties, it confirms the positions and condones the conduct on display in the political arena. It feeds parties’ desire to secure and retain power. It cements attitudes that working “across the aisle” is anathema and that compromise is capitulation. Unfortunately, it also fosters a self-perpetuating paradigm known as duopoly: the two-party system.
The American Solidarity Party is one antidote to that problem. The ASP aims to be a political alternative that transcends those categories to promote a vision of the common good shaped by long-held principles. Taking inspiration from such figures as Abraham Kuyper, G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mother Teresa, it offers a platform built on respect for human dignity and a desire for peaceful collaboration, economic security, and healthy local communities and families. It’s a movement founded by citizens who have lost connection with the political mainstream yet who see a society full of potential for greater human flourishing.
Some will recoil, arguing the purpose of political parties is to win elections and earn government control. They will contend that a third party vote is wasted or that it serves to spoil the outcome for one party or candidate. Support for either of the two major parties is in many cases predicated on contempt or dread of the other. As a result, many voters feel compelled to vote defensively.
The only wasted vote, however, is the one not cast. On the other hand, a vote cast for a third party is always measurable, and may even be for the greater good. It can introduce marginalized voices and ideas into the public square, and challenge the status quo by showing the political establishment the values and interests they have failed to represent. At this point in American politics, a consistent advocacy for human life and human dignity is precisely what is lacking, and it needs a voice.
The 2024 election is the third in a series of presidential campaigns in which the two major parties have endorsed candidates that have left the American public wanting. This refusal to depart from the support for the “lesser of two evils” perpetuates the same failing system. The two-party paradigm will continue until Americans vote to change it. An opportunity to vote for a greater good awaits us November 5.
