it's heating up

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Wed Oct 25 06:49:37 PDT 2000


At 11:46 PM 10/24/00 -0400, John Halle wrote:
>Hi Folks,
>
>Our local Green party office is going to be picketed tomorrow (according
>to flyers) by a group which professes to want "to save the supreme court
>from Bush appointees" based on the premise that "Nader is endangering the
>Supreme Court and will bring Civil Rights back to 1950." Behind it,
>apparently, is a local attorney with close ties to Lieberman.
>
>There have also been several reported incidents of Nader lawn signs having
>been stolen from front yards.

I do not understand. In any normal country (i.e. one with a true parliamentary system) a small party's wet dream is to enter into a coalition with a large party to form a government. That means COOPERATION between a small party and a large party.

In the US, which arguably has the least democratic political system among developed nations, a small party's need to cooperate with a large one is even greater, because absent a proportional representation system, a small party will not even register on a political radar screen by itself, let alone form a government. What we see, however, is exactly the opposite - small parties trying to piss off the large ones as much as they can. This appears to be self-defeating behavior, because in addition to reducing the small party's chance of getting near the halls of power to nil, it also alienates its potential allies.

Is there anything I am missing here, or - putting it mildly - thinking strategically is not the strongest point of American politics, especially its left wing?

wojtek



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