On Tuesday afternoon, eight Republicans — one moderate, one establishment, and six hardline — joined with 208 Democrats to remove Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as Speaker of the House. This leaves, effectively, 210 Republicans in support of McCarthy, 208 Democrats in favor of House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), eight dissident Republicans, and seven non-voting persons.
There are a million and one problems with the two-party system, most of which you’ve probably already heard. However, one particular effect of the two-party system has largely gone unnoticed: its camouflaging effect.
In order to get a majority in a legislature, political leaders must gain support from a variety of ideological sectors. Republicans need to corral fiscal conservatives, nationalist hawks, and anti-establishment populists in the same room. On the other side of the aisle, Democrats need to corral business-backed liberals, union socialists, and environmentalists in the same room. Kevin McCarthy, to be elected Speaker, couldn’t rely on every Republican’s support automatically. Some had to be convinced to fall in line.
Now that he’s out, this dynamic deserves more consideration. In the United States, our terms are messy: dividing Republicans into “moderate” and “hardline” groups doesn’t fully explain what just happened (at least one moderate supported the ouster), and it’s often unclear what distinguishes one group versus another.
In favor of McCarthy sits Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), sponsor of bipartisan gun control legislation, alongside Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who is famous for her call to dissolve the Union. Against McCarthy sits Nancy Mace (R-SC), who voted to oust him for failing to protect women’s rights and has co-sponsored Democrats’ LGBTQ rights legislation, alongside Bob Good (R-VA), who ran for office on the very premise of opposing same-sex marriage. Clearly two very ideologically diverse groupings.
In other countries the partisan language is easier; in fact, other than the United States, only one other country with a population over one million (Jamaica) has a consistent two-party system. They have more than two groups in their legislature. Sometimes one party wins a majority, and sometimes two or more have to come together to form a majority. So a conservative party may win a plurality, but a progressive-moderate coalition could keep them out of power; or a conservative-moderate coalition could replace a conservative-hardline coalition.
What’s interesting is that the mechanics of a multi-party system aren’t all that different from what’s happening right now in Congress. McCarthy’s bloc — the “conservative party,” if you will — just allied with the Democrats — the “liberal party” — to prevent a government shutdown. The hard-right of the Republican Party — the “hardline party” — opposed this move and dropped their support for McCarthy. He now lacks enough support to be Speaker; he has, in a sense, lost in a “no-confidence vote,” or a vote to show that the House has no confidence in him.
Theorizing about language is all well and good, but there’s something tangible here too. The politicians of other countries know that when negotiations with one party fail, you can always turn to another party. If an ultraconservative party drops their support for a government, then the mainstream conservatives can turn to moderates instead. Or if the moderates are too reluctant to support reforms, then the mainstream progressives can turn to socialists instead. There’s a lot more flexibility in determining which groups can form coalitions with one another.
In the United States, however, our “two-party system” isn’t a two-party system at all: it’s a bunch of smaller “parties” masquerading in two big coats, which determine what coalitions they can form: a Democratic coalition and a Republican coalition. This is part of why our parties’ internal organizations are some of the weakest in the world and why other actors, like super PACs and special interest groups, have so much power. These sub-parties even have official formations in Congress, which are called “caucuses.” There’s a Congressional Progressive Caucus (left), the Problem Solvers Caucus (moderate), and the House Freedom Caucus (hard-right).
McCarthy, when elected, sought the support of the various “parties” of the Republican coalition, and the difficulty he encountered was in large part the result of many House Freedom Caucus members being reluctant to support him. So what happens next? In another country, he could seek the support of a moderate party (such as the Problem Solvers Caucus). Hakeem Jeffries could do the same thing. There would be flexibility; the coalitions wouldn’t have to be just between Republican parties or between Democratic parties, but could be between some Republican and some Democratic parties instead.
This may in fact happen. Now that the Republican coalition seems unable to come to an agreement, it may be necessary for moderate Republicans to support Hakeem Jeffries as the new Speaker. This would effectively set up a coalition between some Republican and some Democratic parties, breaking the two-party system. This has already occurred, at least in the context of averting a government shutdown.
This very possibility shows that our current system is better modeled using multi-party terms instead of two-party terms, and that we would be better served if we allow the coalitions to change each election rather than forcing the many parties in line with just the Democratic and Republican coalitions. These are separate points, but the second one requires us to understand the first.
All of this is poignant now. Nobody knows who’s going to elect the next Speaker of the House. Instead of continuing to play a pretend game about two coherent parties seeking to win majorities, we ought to change our language and start considering that there may be better ways of forming coalitions than seeking to appease moderates and hardliners who are a million miles apart. Let’s start acknowledging the reality that, at least in Congress, we already have a multi-party system.
Doing so may be the first step to fixing the broken morass that is our government.
