Reuters news service recently carried an article about the formation of a new political group - the Forward Party, launched by former elected officials and candidates from the Republican and Democrat parties.
The Forward Party is co-chaired by former Democrat presidential candidate Andrew Yang and former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, a Republican. They say they hope the party will become a viable alternative to the Republican and Democrat parties.
Initial elements in the platform include open primaries, ranked-choice voting and independent redistricting committees.
So, what are we to make of this? Traditionally, start-up political parties exist because of loyalty to a founder, like George Wallace’s American Party or Ross Perot’s Reform Party. Once the leader is no longer politically relevant, neither is the party, which then fades into the history books. The exception would be the Libertarian Party, whose members have loyalty to an ideology rather than a personality.
The Forward Party seems different, with its origins in mainstream America’s disillusionment with the two parties that have dominated national politics since the Civil War. At the national level, the Republican and Democrat parties have spent the last three decades polarizing themselves and moving farther and farther toward extreme right-wing and left-wing positions, leaving a chasm in the middle that is filling up with voters who feel the parties have abandoned them.
Such was not always the case. From the 1930s to 1970, the Republican and Democrat parties were broad spectrum, with both including divergent elements.
There were the Southern Democrats, focused on preserving small government and segregation and becoming the in-party counterweight to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and later to Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. The Republicans had a strong liberal wing, led by Nelson Rockefeller, long-time governor of New York and later the Vice President under Gerald Ford.
The parties had distinct identities, but their diversity kept them going down the middle of the road. In the 50 years since then, though, the two parties have swerved into opposite ditches and now fill their time with partisan posturing and name-calling. Compromise and consensus for the greater good are long gone at the national level. You have to wonder if the two parties’ ruts have grown too deep for them to ever get out and free themselves from the grasp of the radical fringes.
So, we agree: the time is perfect for a new third party to represent the middle of America and not the shrill voices of the left-wing Democrats and the right-wing Republicans.
It will be interesting to see how the Forward Party fares and if it can get enough viable candidates at the national and local levels to survive.
We hope it does. Party politics has become a cancer rapidly metastasizing across the country.
The Forward Party’s platform includes this statement: “We’re not building a copy of the current parties, which are dragging our country backwards. We’re moving American politics forward, with a party focused on innovative, collaborative, and common- sense solutions that work for the majority.” Frankly, that sounds like exactly what we need.