On 2012-03-12, at 2:38 PM, Shane Mage wrote:
> The point, the only point originally raised, is that a majority of the American electorate sees so little difference between the duopolistic candidates offered to them that they perceive no reason to make the minimal effort involved in voting and therefore abstain.
Like other wishful US leftists, your suggestion is a) that the US has a uniquely duopolistic political system, and b) that the slight majority of the electorate which abstains from participating in it are more politically advanced than the slight minority of voters who sees some difference between the two parties. This is a case of trying to fit the facts to the ideology, the ideology being that the US Democratic Party can somehow be outflanked on the left by appealing to the anonymous non-voting mass of the population.
This analysis is faulty on both counts.
a) All bourgeois-democratic political systems are duopolies - control of the state apparatus alternating between liberal parties supported by the trade unions, minorities, and social movements, and the conservative parties strongly opposed to them. They have been duopolies since the demise of the CP's as mass organizations and the abandonment by the social democrats of even a nominal commitment to placing the commanding heights of the economy under public ownership.
b) By your standard, the US working class would have to be considered the most politically advanced in the West since its abstention rate is the highest - far higher than the European, Latin American, and Asian working classes, who turn out in large numbers to vote for parties whose liberal domestic and foreign policies are, with rare exceptions, virtually indistinguishable from those of the US Democrats. That is, to say the least, a highly questionable proposition.
Some interesting info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout#Reasons_for_decline