Political science is the study of how we delegate power. That’s it. It’s just a way of figuring out the systems and tools we human beings have designed and used in order to decide who gets to have power and who does not.

First things first- what is power? Power in less complex (meaning less specialized, less stratified, more egalitarian and usually pastoral) societies is generally a matter of respect given to a Big Man (or Big Woman) known to be wise and just. This is the person who recommends how to divide up food stores to insure against famine and settles disputes between neighbors. They do not have coercive power, meaning they cannot enforce or police their suggestions. But their decisions are usually followed anyways.

In a more stratified society, power means coercive authority. It is who we decide has the ability to tell us what to do and to punish us when we don’t do it. This is why politics is a big fucking deal. It’s almost like choosing your parents, but you don’t get to move out when you’re 18 if they are douchebags.

There are different types of power structures, straight up democracies, republics, monarchies, dictatorships, oligarchies, etc. The major difference in these is how the elites are chosen. Are they elected? Do they rule through divine right? Through military force? (A note on elections, just because it has elections does not actually make it a democracy or a republic, more on that later). Legitimacy, or the the belief the people have in the rulers right to rule, is a key part of this process. If you are in a country that has been traditionally ruled by a monarch with divine right, it will take a revolutionary act to get people to believe that they could choose their own leaders instead of letting god and dna do it for them. A leader who takes power without legitimacy is going to have a boatload of trouble keeping it. This is why secret police exist. Or George Bush’s Free Speech Zones.

For a system to be considered democratic (or republican, the more complex sibling of direct democracy) requires several things: free and fair elections, a choice of more than one party, and wikipedia says equal access to power. Than last one is a load of shit though. I mean we’ve been a democratic country for how many centuries now and no one that looks at the members of our government would think there is equal access to power for anyone who isn’t a white dude. You can be in a country that looks like a democracy, what with the voting and all, but if you only have one party to choose from or if your are going to get beaten to a pulp for not voting the right way or if you cannot be sure that your vote will be counted or that the ballot box has been stuffed, then you’re not living in a democracy.

So what does this have to do with our little red, white and blue republic? Let’s go back to legitimacy. We have exactly one option for exerting coercive force back on our little band of elites, voting. That’s it. Sure you can write letters, give money, throw public tantrums on the internet that may influence power, but the elites are not required by law to follow any of that. They are only required to abide by who the voters say gets to be there (or who the Supreme Court says gets to be there).

Nowhere in the constitution does it say anything about 2 parties. Nothing in the idea of democracy says there has to be only 2 parties, and as a matter of fact, most democracies have 3 or more. The only reason we have only 2 major parties comes from legitimacy. We do not give other parties legitimacy because we refuse to vote for them. Period. Third parties don’t win because we don’t vote for them. And that won’t change until we start to vote for them.

(you should at this point be able to see the circular logic we employ en masse on that- third parties don’t win so I won’t vote for one so third parties don’t win ad nauseum)

But we’re supposed to have 2 parties that represent the two polar views on governance and government happens somewhere in the middle of those two sides? Right? Uhm no.

The elites have one pretty fucking handy trick that gets overlooked. The elites decide what the topics of government are going to be. We don’t have a national referendum or initiative system. The only power we have is in who we choose to vote for . I can’t say this enough times. The only power we have is who we choose to vote for. We don’t get to decide what the most pressing issues are. We have no say in what bills get brought to congressional vote. We have no say in what orders the president signs or vetos. The only power we have is in choosing someone who will (we hope) bring up issues that mean something to us.

Political parties are not like sports teams. There is very little luck involved, first off, and when your party is having a crap year continuing to support them actually makes the problem worse. The only thing that changes political parties is who is voting for them. Political parties get to decide what the conversation is going to be, but we get to decide if they even get to talk in the first place.

Lemme give you a pretty concrete example of how parties (and their extensions) get to set the conversation. Blue Lyon got her blogger blog shut down during the primaries because she wasn’t full of unity pony sparkle. (Somewhere there is still a backup word press blog for this one should I ever get booted). Most of the contributers at Corrente have been kicked off the big access blogs at one point or another for questioning the Dems seemingly drastic shift in platform to a much more conservative track. And these are Dems. They didn’t vote for McCain. Never had the intention of voting for a Republican. But because they aren’t sticking to the dominant theme of “If the Dems do it, it’s for a a good reason but look over there, there’s a rethuglikan sex scandal” Anyone not sticking to the dominant political themes gets silenced. Not by police, but by other citizens.

If you love the Democratic party, but are disturbed by the rightward route it is taking, there is only one action you can take to change that. One. Don’t vote for the party until it moves in a direction to your liking.

Look, I’ve said about a gazillion times that the elites never do anything against their own self interest. Progressive action is against their own interest. It cuts directly into their pocketbooks (for both the corporate thieves and their underlings, politicians). The Democratic party will not act progressive unless it is threatened with a serious power loss. They have to be scared of another party taking their place. For generations, Dems have been able to rely on women and minorities to vote for them without hesitation because the only other viable option is so much worse for them. Because we are such reliable voting blocks, the party has no interest and no reason to cater to us. Period. We have been there and have always been there and will always be there because, what are we going to vote for a Republican? (How many times have we heard that tired refrain? Cause I’ve gotten it more than a dozen times in the last week).

But Republican is not the only option.

What I am, what you need to be if you are really committed to progress, is willing to lose in the short term for long term gain. Yes, that means we may end up with more rethuglikans in office until the dems come back to progress or until a third party (like say the Green party) becomes powerful enough to win.

But neither of those things are going to happen if we keep voting for dems as they are. And political infrastructures do not spring up overnight, but are grown through the blood, sweat and tears and most importantly VOTES of its members. If you want a more progressive political state, you have to vote for one.

You can’t wait for a legacy party to change. It’s not in their interest to do so as long as you are still willing to vote for them. They got what they want from you, and it didn’t cost them a damn thing. Obama (quoting Ghandi) said “Be the change you want to see in the world”. So be the change. Go vote your conscious. Vote your values. Vote in your own best interest. And chances are that your conscious, values, and best interest don’t lie with either the Republicans or the Democrats, but somewhere else.