Democrat?, Republican?, or a new American system?

I wrote this paper prior to the 2006 midterm elections. I believe the message that the book presents as well as my editorial on it are even more salient today in light of the current political seperation of average Americans and our country's current debacle which we call a foreign policy. This is my opinion. What do you think?


The Radical Center is a fantastic book. I encourage you all to read it.


In their book, The Radical Center, Ted Halsted and Michael Lind put forth the idea that 21st century America presents new challenges that our current political system, the dominant political parties, and their “archaic” policies are unable to resolve. They believe that “America needs a compelling vision of national renewal and a concrete program of national reform, capable of guiding the way forward while unifying the American people.” The authors also feel that the Democratic and Republican parties have become increasingly controlled by their more extreme constituents, causing their policies to move further away from what average voters would like. Therefore, in order for the new radical center to emerge one or both of the political parties will need to adapt their policies to meet the desires of American voters or a new comprehensive political party which reflects the needs of 21st century America will need to be born. According to the authors, the purpose of this book is to “propose the policies of the next generation”, which will hopefully see the development of centrist political movement within the next ten to twenty five years.


There are several ideas put forward in this book that I found particularly attractive. First of all, I agree with the authors’ proposal to establish a mandatory private healthcare system for all Americans. It is unbelievable to me that we are the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the world yet we cannot figure out a way to ensure the every American has access to high-quality health care. I believe the authors’ hit the nail on the head concerning this issue. We need to “sever the traditional link between employers and the provision of benefits”. America’s poor continually suffer in this system because the jobs that they are employed in, if they are at all, do not provide them with health insurance to pay their medical expenses. I feel that creating a private health care system would alleviate this problem. Secondly, I agree with the authors’ diagnosis of the problems with the Social Security system. We need to initiate mandatory retirement savings for all workers in order to ease the burden that will be faced by younger generations in caring for the nations elderly. I am not sure exactly how this could be achieved, but I feel that “progressive privatization”, which to me means gradually instituting a new retirement savings policy, would help begin the process without cutting Social Security benefits to those people who are receiving them now. Finally, I feel that it is a great idea to try to support the creation of universal capitalism in this country. I agree with the authors’ that this could be done fairly easily by “endowing every American child with individual financial assets from birth.” This is actually an idea that I have endorsed before reading this book. I still think that this is a very good idea and that it has the potential to give every child a solid financial backdrop from which to begin their lives.


I am actually skeptical of the authors’ proposal to completely eliminate state sales taxes altogether, and replace them with a progressive national consumption tax. I feel that many of our institutions and tax policies are so firmly grounded in this system that it would be a very difficult process to actually eradicate them all together. I feel we would be better off leaving the issue of sales tax alone to the system that currently is in place. Instead we should focus our attention on creating a progressive federal income tax. I feel that this would be more beneficial for the nation as a whole. We need to tax the wealthy much more heavily than we currently do, and try to ease the tax burden that is felt by the nations poor.


Halsted and Lind have a very good point that a lot of the popular resentment towards our government stems from the lack of true electoral choices. I agree with the authors’ that it is time to revamp the structure of our democracy. I feel that we need to get rid of the Electoral College system. I believe that this is a relic of the past that is no longer necessary. People are educated enough today that we no longer need the safety net of an Electoral College. Instead we should elect the President by direct popular vote. More importantly I feel that we need to establish a proportional representation system in the house and senate. This would allow people to truly vote for the candidate of their choice rather than picking the lesser of two evils. It would also break the chains of the two party system that we are currently shackled by and allow candidates to be elected from alternative third parties. This would have the ultimate effect of giving American voters more say in who is making policy, and what policies are most important to them.