[lbo-talk] partisanship in the USA

[Josh Narins]

> The best defense of the two-party system is the argument that while 
> it permits the majority party to govern, as it should, it also 
> centralizes the opposition in a single minority group, thus 
> preventing the dissipation of minority energy in sectarian disputes 
> and checking any tyrannical tendencies on the part of the "ins." This 
> argument has seldom fitted the facts of American life, where party 
> differences have rarely been profound and party structure so rigid 
> that minorities, instead of being focused in either major party when 
> it was out, have rather had to sunder their traditional party ties 
> and - in most cases - drown alone in the political seas.
> 
> The first post-Civil War victory of the Democrats, in 1884 (when they 
> had the estimable assistance of the Mugwump Republicans) is one of 
> the few exceptions to this American story of party loyalty; but the 
> subsequent Democratic administration only confirmed the profound 
> uniformity between Republican and Democratic principles.

1884 happened to be a spoiler election, where the influence of a third
party ruined the chances for the Republican (then the left) candidate.

Admittedly, the Republicans had grown very corrupt, having won for so
long.  The Mugwumps support for Civil Service reform was high-minded, if
self-serving (who should get these jobs, us!)

Benjamin Butler, a Radical Republican was the _Democrat_ Governor of
Massachusetts.

Butler ran on the Greenback ticket. The Prohibitionists also ran a
candidate, who did nearly as well.

This was the election that made "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion" famous.
Rum for the Democrats non-prohibition stance, Romanism for their
Catholicism, and Rebellion for the Civil War. Blaine himself credited
this phrase, used to damn Democrats, as alienating Roman Catholics from
his effort.

Professors Poole and Rosenthal would probably laugh at Hofstadter's
assertion that the differences have never been large.  There have been
times, like the 1950s, when the parties were relatively close. Now there
is almost no overlap.

http://voteview.com/Polarized_America.htm

The man that Stephen Grover Cleveland beat? James G Blaine, who was the
author of the amendments, passed in many States, that prohibited State
funds from going to religious schools.

Cleveland did really bad with the Pullman strike.

But, in his defense, he kept America out of Cuba, where McKinley-Hanna
and the Hearst/Pulitzer papers got us in. And when Cleveland learned
about the US involvement in the coup against Hawaiian Queen
Lili'uokalani by US business interests, he refused to annex.
His response to the depression during his second term would have made
Mellon or O'Neill proud... nothing.