Love You Rachel Maddow, But You’re Wrong On This One

Rachel Maddow invited Republican Wyoming State Reps. Sue Wallis and Lisa Shepperson on her show last night after the two elected officials helped defeat two legislative proposals that sought to erode abortion rights.  If passed, doctors performing abortions would have to tell patients of their right to see an ultrasound; doctors would also have to cite questionable scientific evidence alleging fetuses experience pain.

Maddow analyzed the situation in Wyoming as a case of small-c conservative Republicans combating culture war Republicans who propose intrusive government rules that invade an individual’s privacy. With the Wyoming House and Senate home to just 14 Democrats and 76 Republicans, the battle lines drawn over this bill represented two camps within the state GOP. For Maddow, it was impressive that two Republican women would stand up to their own party, corralling supporters to finally defeat the measure in the Senate 15-14. The two legislators concurred with Maddow’s take away, and earlier have madeseparate comments condemning any law that gets in between a patient and a doctor.

It’s easy to point out the theoretical inconsistencies of any political party, particularly in an electoral system such as the one in the U.S. that assures a two party system. When Americans go to the polls, they vote for the candidate they imagine is most likely to win, not the one they’d like to win. It’s called tactical voting, and it’s the result of the first-past-the-post style of deciding popular elections. As a result, parties rule, not the individual candidate, and it’s this reason our two largest parties house members that often have little in common.

And while the Tea Party movement is proving to be a thorn in the side of Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio), it’s not doing it as a different political party; every sitting federally elected politician from that caucus ran on the Republican ticket. If we’d like to see more dissent within the Republican and Democratic parties, dismantling the electoral system that assures their primacy should be a first principle. That seems like a pipedream — not only are both parties well financed, but the special interests that fund them would rather keep their eggs in two competing baskets that contend with a panoply of parties turning Congress into an even more fractious mess.

That might actually lead to be better government, but unless a handful of billionaires singularly defund the current arrangement, we’re stuck with the political structure we have. In the meantime, intra-party dissent shouldn’t be viewed as an aberration; it’s the consequence of many elected officials sitting under two big tents for electability’s sake. That there is squabbling within the ranks is likely an indication members would like to belong to smaller, more ideologically homogenous parties, something a plurality of Americans would like to see, anyway.

Mikhail Zinshteyn is a staff writer for Campus Progress. You can e-mail him at mzinshteyn@googlemail.com.

Related Stories

• INFOGRAPHIC: House Republican Cuts for Kids by the Numbers
• GOP Proposes Cuts In Prevention To Keep Student Loan Interest Rates From Doubling
• During President Obama’s Visit, UNC Students Discuss #DontDoubleMyRate
• REPORT: The Cost of College Will Soar if Interest Rates Allowed to Double
• VIDEO: President Obama Slow Jams #DontDoubleMyRate with Jimmy Fallon