The  very form and structure of two-party politics ensures the  marginalization and exclusion of Independents from the nation’s  mainstream political discourse, allowing Republicans and Democrats to  engage in their well-rehearsed charades. Hypocrisy is just one of the  names for the game.

The  charge of partisan hypocrisy is one of the most common criticisms  Democrats and Republicans level against one another. Essentially, it is  a critique of what we might term political relativism.  Democrats and  Republicans will actively defend a position held by one of their own,  but they will denounce that very same position if it is articulated by  the other side.  The practice is so widespread and well-known it hardly  requires any elaboration.  Many Democrats who were outraged by most aspects  of the Bush administration's foreign policy, and once had no  compunctions about articulating their concerns, are noticeably silent  about the Obama administration's continuation or even escalation of  those very same policies. Republicans who stood idly by as the Bush  administration embarked upon one of the largest expansions of the federal  government in generations, cannot contain their anger at modest extensions of  unemployment benefits under Democratic party rule.

On Sunday, Ross Douthat tackled this theme in his opinion column for the New York Times with an article entitled "The Partisan Mind."  Douthat observes that:

"we tend to reverse-engineer the arguments  required to justify whatever our own side happens to be doing. Our  ideological convictions may be real enough, but our deepest conviction  is often that the other guys can’t be trusted."

Despite his  reservations about such intellectual and political dishonesty, the  conservative commentator ends his article on a positive note.  He states  that, regardless of its drawbacks, this form of partisanship ensures  the existence of political opposition and serves as a check on the  powers that be.  Douthat writes:

"It guarantees that even when there’s  an elite consensus behind whatever the ruling party wants to do (whether  it’s invading Iraq or passing Obamacare), there will always be a  reasonably passionate opposition as well. Given how much authority is  concentrated in Washington, especially in the executive branch, even a  hypocritical and inconsistent opposition is better than no opposition at  all."

There  is, however, a glitch in Douthat’s conclusion which results from his  presupposition that the bipolar form of Democratic-Republican party  politics is constitutive of politics as such.  If a hypocritical and  inconsistent opposition is better than no opposition at all, where are  we to find political opposition when there is a policy consensus between  the Republican and Democratic parties?  This question is not as absurd  as it may sound.  Despite the perennial complaints about rabid  partisanship in Washington D.C., bipartisan consensus does in fact  exist.  One might suggest, perhaps ironically, that there is even a  bipartisan consensus in favor of excessive political partisanship. More  seriously though, such consensus undoubtedly forms the basis of policies  promulgated in the name of the ongoing war on terrorism and the failed  war on drugs, to name but two obvious examples.

It  is a commonly held conceit among the partisans of the major parties,  not to mention their circus ringmasters in the mainstream media, that an  issue is entirely exhausted once a Democrat and Republican have come to  an agreement or disagreement on the matter at hand.  This is virtually  axiomatic in the duopolized political discourse to which we have become  accustomed.  The working assumption in the political media is that there are no other  legitimate positions from which to articulate a political opinion, let  alone elaborate a program, than those of Democrats and Republicans.  If  there is bipartisan agreement between Democrats and Republicans on a  given issue, then there is effectively no political opposition on the  matter, and even if there is opposition to it among the public, it might  simply be disregarded or dismissed.  In other words, the positions of  the millions of Independents and third party advocates in the country,  who account for at least a third of the electorate, are often  marginalized if not completely discounted by the very form and structure  of two-party politics.

If  the Independent movement continues to grow in size and strength, this  state of affairs will become ever more unstable and increasingly  unsustainable.  And it’s already teetering on the brink.