Solidarian Political Strategy

Why voting for the ASP isn't a wasted vote

The thing people don't realize about the efforts of the American Solidarity Party is that its goals are completely attainable and reasonable. They will take a lot of hard work and effort, to be sure, but they are totally doable. It isn’t some kind of pipe dream to say that the ASP could actually have a good deal of impact on the future American political scene. There are a couple of reasons for this, and in this article we would like to outline a basic strategy that the ASP could use to help create a better future for America.

The Myth of the Wasted Vote

The main reason people who like the ASP and her political philosophy don't support her is the idea of the “wasted vote.” It’s a common opinion: “if you vote for a third party you're just wasting your vote and supporting the bad guys in the 'other party.'” Now there are a couple problems with this line of reasoning. For one thing, what if both parties are the bad guys? What do you do then? Just vote for a “lesser of two evils,” like a lot of people do? That is the first problem.

The second goes even deeper. Maybe this argument about the “wasted vote” has some validity if you're voting for what is essentially a breakoff party that really should just be a coalition or a caucus within one of the big parties (here we could think of the Green Party and the Constitution Party, which really just support particular sub-ideologies within the Democratic and Republican Parties respectively). If you support one of these kinds of third parties and want to have any kind of influence, the way to do it is to try to build support within the big party that is most aligned with your goals and piggyback off the political influence that they already have. That would be the smart thing to do.

But what if your political ideology doesn't let you do that? What if you are a true centrist? Or better yet, what if your ideology doesn't even fall on the political spectrum? That is where third parties like the Libertarian Party and the American Solidarity Party come in. Parties like these simultaneously appeal to interests on both ends of the spectrum and can draw voters from both sides. So what is a party like that going to do?

How to Not Succeed as a Third Party

The traditional approach for third parties is essentially to try and build another big party from scratch. And that is a problem in a situation like America is in, in which there is basically a duopoly that squelches any potential competition. That is why the Libertarian Party has been struggling for decades and still has hardly any real political power despite having quite a bit of cultural interest. Their focus has always been on gaining power on the top, particularly the presidency, and there has been a perception among Libertarians that “if we could just manage to get a Libertarian president, all will be well.” Well, not all will be well, because the entire political machinery will still be in the hands of the big party duopoly, and so any real, lasting social change will continue to elude the Libertarians.

But here's the thing: a third party like the ASP doesn't need to become a gigantic party like the Democratic or Republican Parties to have a positive influence on society. You just have to have the right strategy, and up till now third parties really haven't been taking the right strategy.

Now in order to have a good strategy, you have to have a realistic view of things, and right now, unless things change, part of a realistic view of things is to accept the fact that the big parties aren't going away any time soon, and many aspects of the current political system will continue to reinforce them and keep them in power. If your hopes for the future of your third party hinge on your ability to get someone in the White House, you're going to be disappointed. However, it's worth noting that if the ASP follows its own political principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, it's actually got a shot at making a difference.

Principle #1: Start Local

In the first place, subsidiarity focuses on keeping things local as much as possible. The basic idea is that local issues should be solved locally, state issues should be solved on a state level, and national issues should be solved nationally. Solidarians aren't interested in micromanaging things from afar. That's one of the advantages that Solidarians have over Libertarians; we have a positive political philosophy that goes deeper than just “we need less government.” Now one of the things about local politics is that the big parties really don't have that much influence on who gets elected. If you think about it, most school board and town council members are not running as Republicans or Democrats. They're just running as your neighbor from the other side of town.

That's where the ASP can step in and fill the gap. What we need is more people on the local level making decisions that positively impact concrete, local communities. And so on a certain level the main things that the ASP is aiming for—things like stronger communities and a more just society—are actually best achieved on the local level, not on the national. And while national elections at this point in history are not really winnable by third parties, local elections definitely are.

This means that the ASP can really step in and become the party of local politics. ASP members can be the people who are actively working to improve their communities while the big parties are up there squabbling over who knows what. In order to have the impact that it wants, the ASP doesn't need to win one big, impossible election. It just needs to win a hundred, small but doable elections.

Now you might ask why then do Solidarians even bother running a presidential campaign if it (a) knows that its candidate isn't going to win and (b) isn't even particularly aiming at the presidency in the first place. Well, it really all comes down to awareness. In order to win a hundred or a thousand local elections, the ASP needs to have lots of ordinary people standing with its cause, and that's not going to happen unless people know it exists. And so the ASP’s presidential campaign is really just a publicity campaign to gain support for the party. It's not (ultimately) an attempt to take the White House, because in order to accomplish its goals, the ASP doesn't need to have a couple really exceptional candidates to run for national office. It needs hundreds (or better yet, thousands) of local, everyday citizens who just want to see their towns and communities do better, and are willing to run for local office. Now that's a big goal for a country where civic participation isn't doing well (to put it nicely). But it's doable, and that's the main point. And given that civic participation is very low, the ASP has an incredible opportunity to step into low-competition races and get into positions that none of the big parties are interested in.

Principle #2: Play the Tiebreaker

Now suppose that things go well, and the Solidarity Party wins a hundred local elections and starts to gain widespread support and name recognition. That's roughly the point that the Libertarian Party is at right now. In that case, the ASP is still not likely to win any national elections, but it still doesn't need to in order to help influence society in a good direction. At that point, the main goal of the party would still be to increase local presence, but it would also be the time to really concentrate on getting people elected to the state legislatures. At the time of writing, the Libertarians only have one elected official in a state legislature (in Vermont), which may be due to a variety of factors, high among them likely that fact that the Libertarians don't have a positive political ideology to offer people other than “leave us alone.” The Libertarians are also hurt by an excessive emphasis on national elections that it can't win.

But suppose that the Solidarity Party came along and offered people something different—a party with a positive, compelling view of society and that has gained a reputation for being the party of the people, the party of local politics, the party that throws all its energy into helping communities and families grow stronger. That would a party that might garner some support on the state level. And if the Solidarity Party could get as few as one or two people elected to a state legislature, it would potentially be enough to start influencing things in a better direction.

The ASP wouldn't need to earn support from 51% of the overall state electorate. It wouldn't even need a third. The Solidarity Party would just need enough support in a member district or two in order to get its people into the state legislatures. And once the ASP gets people into the state legislatures, it’s in a position to have broader influence, because unlike in current politics, where you really need to get a majority of people from your party in office to get things done, the ASP's ideal of solidarity means that it can play as the tiebreaker in legislature votes. In other words, at least in states where there's a more even playing field between Democrats and Republicans, you might only need a handful, or even just one ASP legislator to influence policy decisions in the direction Solidarians would like.

Take the State of Minnesota for example. Minnesota, like many states, is actually largely conservative in terms of its demographics, but because of the massive population of the liberal Twin Cities, it has been dominated by Democrat politics for years. As it currently stands, there are 67 senate districts in Minnesota with 34 Democrats and 33 Republicans in office. Now suppose that some Solidarians were to come into some historically blue districts, perhaps some more rural/small town blue districts, and pour all their efforts into improving the local political scene and gain strong positive name recognition for the ASP. Let's suppose that this goes on for some time, until it gets to the point where it is actually plausible for an ASP candidate to run and win that district's senatorial election. Assuming the senate is still reasonably balanced as it is today, with the Democrats having a slight majority, you would really only need one state senator representing the ASP to split the senate into 33 Democrat, 33 Republican, and 1 ASP. That means that when it comes to bipartisan votes, the ASP senator can place the tiebreaking vote with whichever side it supports more. So if the Republicans vote on a pro-life bill that is opposed by the Democrats, the Solidarian can cast a vote that gets the bill passed. If the Democrats propose an environmental protection bill that the Republicans oppose, the Solidarian can cast a vote to get that bill passed.

So you can see that in order for Solidarity Party to have a positive impact, it doesn't need to become the most popular kid on the block. It doesn't even need to be the most well-known kid on the block. All it needs to do is gain enough recognition on the local level in a select number of strategic voting districts to get people into local and state office.

The Implications: A Change for America

What all this does is introduce an idea into American politics that theoretically our system of government should be all about but which we really haven't seen at all in recent years, and that is cooperation. As Americans we've had the idea for a long time that competition is good. And competition certainly can be good; we all know that monopolies on power tend to cause stagnation and corruption. But there's such a thing as too much competition as well, and that's definitely where we're at nowadays in America. Our whole country seems to have gone into a schizophrenic breakdown where Left and Right are hellbent on destroying each other and everyone else in the process.

But if we got to the point where we're in a situation like the one described above, then everything changes. Both parties are going to realize that they won't be able to get what they want unless the ASP is on their side. And in order to get the ASP on their side, they're going to have to moderate their policies and make them less extreme in order to be appealing. We're going to see the downfall of bipartisan politics and the rise of coalitions, in which parties have to focus on cooperating with other parties in order to gain support for bills which they couldn't pass on their own.

This is the way things have been working for a long time in Europe, and European politics is much less polarized overall and much more cooperative than American politics. Having only a couple ASP members in power could completely transform state politics overnight. States that are highly polarized could start to come together again and focus on cooperation. Politics would once more become about what's best for the people and not about what's needed to stay in power. Parties would focus more on forming connections with people of other ideologies than demonizing and defeating them. All in all, the main political problems of our day would be solved.

Summary: A Winning Strategy

To sum it all up, here's the strategy that the Solidarity Party needs to take in order to have an impact. First of all, it needs to invest big time into publicity in order to increase support and name recognition, because without that there's no way for it to do anything. At the same time, it needs to be hardcore recruiting members and actively searching for people to run for local office—things like running for school boards, town councils, and mayor. It especially needs to look at the state political scene, see which of the two parties is in power in that state and has dominated that state's politics, and see if there's any congressional districts where support for the dominant party is weak, perhaps only by a slim margin. It needs to focus all its efforts on these more moderate districts in order to try and win them from the dominant party in control. That's going to happen by winning local elections and having a strong public presence in those districts.

At this stage, party members are going to have to work very hard at creating tangible, generally appreciated benefits for their communities. This is important at all stages, but it's particularly important up front that the Party focus on tangible, public benefits that are widely known, rather than things that are good for the community, but less noticeable. This can be done by focusing on issues that the major parties aren't focused on and that haven't become polarized, such as light pollution.

Once a strong presence emerges in these more moderate districts, then it becomes a matter of finding people to run for state office. That will not only require strong ASP name recognition, it's also going to need people who already have good reputations as individuals in their communities. Once that happens, Solidarians will have a shot at getting people into the state legislature, and once people get into state legislatures, the entire game changes. The entire dynamic of state politics will begin to shift to one that's more cooperative (and thus favorable to the Solidarity Party), and once the story begins to change on the state level, there's the possibility that the nation as a whole might be able to change in a better direction.

But national politics isn't going to get better if state politics doesn't get better, and state politics isn't going to get better if local politics doesn't get better.

And that's the reason why supporting the American Solidarity Party isn't a wasted vote.