Would A New Political Party Help The U.S. Survive Iraq?

Exploring a new political party, is this idea even viable?
Senator Hagel wrote in his new book “America: the next chapter” that he felt there was a need for a new party and he suggested that Iraq might be remembered as one of the five biggest blunders in history.

In Hagel’s view, a way to correct the problems we’ve had is through independent leadership or a bipartisan unity ticket that is very appealing to the American people.   While Senator Hagel has to  use words like “one of the five biggest…” to retain his Republican tag for the time being, it’s not debatable, in my view, where the Iraq War stands.  The Iraq invasion was easily the biggest blunder in American history.  I’d even go a step further and argue that it wasn’t a blunder at all, unless you count the numerous Senators that were swayed by the propaganda and failed to escape the heat that “un-American” or “un-Patriotic” put on them.  No, Iraq was planned, it was highly calculated and although some politicians had higher hopes for the outcome, the invasion was destined for great failure.

To Hagel’s credit, he has raised the issue of moving past Political bickering before.  A few years ago he gave a speech on how detrimental the “cut and run” rhetoric is to our country and urged Senators to stop falling prey to partisanship and start putting the needs of our country first.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=bbXfhNeX0fY[/youtube]

Would a new party cure our political woes?

As an independent thinker, Hagel’s words appeal to me but I can’t help but be skeptical about the idea of introducing yet another party that will be destined to come up short.  The only party with even a remote chance of  being respectable in American politics is the Libertarian party and even then, it has its collection of loons who fail to understand American history, government and the political system that restrains us all.  Beyond that, there are a good handful of racists and bigots that use the party as a shield to promote policy that would further their hate-driven political agenda.

In finding a way out of this vicious cycle of partisan attacks, where the pendulum swings left and right and left again, it would be naive to think that establishing a new “unity ticket” would solve the problems.  If you form a unity ticket, the question of course becomes ‘who would lead, and who would retain the insignificant role of vice president?’  The current administration is running this country into the ground because it operates as a chicken-with-its-head-cut-off would.  We have no brain at the top of our pecking order and for this we suffer greatly.

What happens when you try forming a “unity” ticket that Hagel claims appeals to the masses?

How would you form a Unity ticket and satisfy ideological differences within the party? My first thought on the issue is a unity ticket might work temporarily to benefit a guy like Chuck Hagel or maybe even John McCain.   Yet the truest maverick of our time is probably Ron Paul, but he is trapped by his Libertarian ideology that makes it difficult for him to gain anything beyond a cult following in the U.S.  Don’t get me wrong, I actually love Ron Paul from a personal and political standpoint, he has brains and I love that about him.  The chicken I mentioned above would not be struggling for lack of a head, it would be a multi-headed chicken and the problems that would come about are obvious.

Could you imagine an America with three stubborn parties pulling in different directions? 

The only way to ‘achieve’ anything in this country is by securing a majority in the House, Senate and winning the executive.  It is only when a party or mindset gains all of these political vehicles that this country can be driven in any particular direction and we saw how dangerous it could be in the hands of the wrong people (e.g. neo-conservative leadership of the Republican party).

It’s clear that Senator Hagel has good intentions, but that is never enough.  I’ve heard the “new party” thing in various circles and always read about the latest messiah that thinks he can make it a reality but the truth is that our system of governance, constitution and history are working against the rise of a third party.  In order for any viable third party to emerge, several highly improbable events would have to be triggered.

1. A platform must be developed that would be kind to various forms of leadership and philosophy
2. An event so catostrophic must occur to unite a new party against the harm that our two-party system has done
3. History over the next one-hundred years would have to somehow counter the previous two-hundred years of two-party rule

Only the 9/11 attack - Iraq invasion could be possibly classified as catostrophic enough to motivate a young third party but here’s where the biggest obstacle comes into play.  In order to achieve a new platform that works for independent thinkers, you’d need a genius at work and we all know that our elected public officials are anything but.  You’d also need to control history as it unfolds so that every possible political victory happens at the hands of bipartisan or independent thinkers and that simply isn’t realistic.   Most of all, the real test of survivability of any new parties would be a change in mindset of not only our political leaders but American citizens.

Hagel’s Unrealistic Dream

Can any politician truly say (Iraq War aside) that they’ve been able to successfully consider and vote for items on both the Republican and Democratic side of the spectrum?  If so, how many politicians of this sort exist and are Americans interested enough to reprogram their minds to achieve independent thought?  Americans would never go for a new party without the aid of a highly reputable and popular icon like perhaps Barack Obama.  Chuck Hagel is a wise man in my book, but he’s just Senator Chuck Hagel and until the cameras point at him with higher frequency and he becomes a highly recognized American icon, his words will simply go on deaf ears.

Then again, there’s an even bigger reason to be cynical about the rise of a new party.  The books on topic are released during times of political turmoil, which happens to be the best time to turn a profit.  Furthermore, all political indicators suggest that we’ll not only have a Democrat in the White House, but that our president will enjoy a Democratic majority in the House and Senate.  If that turns out to be the case, the GOP may be out of business for a quarter century in any significant capacity and they’ll have George W. Bush and their own selfish actions to thank for it.

Fred Soto is an Attorney and Entrepreneur from the Silicon Valley.
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