On Revolution.

These are incredible times in Egypt.

President Hosni Mubarek has found himself the center of attention over the past few days. For almost 30 years, the country has been under the slowly-tightening grip of Mubarek's power-drunk regime, unable to hold elections without major fraud and manipulation yet seeing the gap between poor and rich grow insurmountable. But now, thousands of Egyptians have taken to the street in Cairo and several other large cities, with the chief demand of Mubarek's resignation.

Mubarek has yet to step down, though he has committed to dismantling his government and replacing them with more of his top allies.

Inspired by the Tunisian populace's success in getting their strongman president to flee the country, the Egyptian people have not let down in more than 6 days of demonstrations. And, with an inept, hothead police system, and an army that is at best neutral in the conflict, Mubarek has little to defend himself, save his international allies.

WHY DO WE CARE?

If Mubarek is driven out, a power vacuum will quickly take his place, with several factions struggling to get a foothold at the top. Several of these are secular, as the protests have been, and thus could indeed be a great step forward for Egypt if they can get enough attention leading up to the elections. There is at least one faction, though, with the religious fervor and fundamentalist rhetoric that could actually win an election: the Muslim Brotherhood.

When power vacuums spring up, they are usually filled by the most rabid candidate, the one who can get his base the most riled up. We saw this in the U.S. with the leaderless Republican Party from 2009-2010, where the Tea Party used its easily-quoted hard-right viewpoints to win dozens of elections.

In Egypt, most parties have little rhetoric, and fractured bases. The Muslim Brotherhood, however, has a readily-stated party line (Anti-Israel, Anti-Western meddling), a structure based on the religion of 90% of the people, and the advantage of being able to promote a drastic shift from the secular policies of the past.

Luckily for its opponents, the Muslim Brotherhood currently has the support of only a tiny fraction of the Egyptian electorate. But, as we saw in the U.S., a tiny sliver of support can quickly grow to a winning advantage if given the opportunity.

President Obama has toed the line on this issue thus far, never going so far as to call for the ousting of Mubarek, but also never going so far as to say that the people should cease their protests. Caught between a rock and a hard place, the administration's best hope is for a quick and peaceful transition to a new government that somehow maintains the foreign policies of the past while incorporating revolutionary domestic policies that satisfy the majority of the Egyptian people.

On the 2-party system.

In my opinion, the American political process is broken.  For many years, the “right” and “left” wings have been drifting, leaving more and more people disenfranchised, with no one in office who truly represents their views.  This became obvious to me in the 2004 election between George W. Bush and John Kerry, which many people (including myself) saw as a vote for the “lesser of two evils,” and was highlighted in the 2008 election between Obama and McCain, whom many vocal Republicans saw as too liberal.

WHAT’S GOING ON?

OnTuesday, a Pennsylvania senator switched sides.  Arlen Specter, a Republican for the last 29 years, transferred his allegiance to the Democratic party, saying that his old party had drifted too far to the right, and that his personal views no longer aligned with those of his fellow Republicans.

Specter, one of only three Republicans to approve President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package, has always differed from the party lines on several issues, including abortion rights and embryonic stem-cell research, but now those “party lines” differ from him on quite a bit more.  He saw no more room for moderates in the Republican Party.

Specter said that he would not be an automatic Democratic vote, however, and certainly has not been in the past, backing conservative Supreme Court nominees, the war in Iraq, and many other traditionally Republican policies.

Specter’s detractors say his switch was simply an act of “political self-preservation,” as he was trailing in the polls leading up to the Pennsylvania Republican Primary to Patrick J. Toomey, a fiscal conservative who has sponsored challenges against Republicans who have strayed from conservative principles.

WHY DO WE CARE?

I see this as the dawn of a new era.  The Republican party is narrowing their base toward the extreme right of the political spectrum, for all intents and purposes forcing Moderates out of the party.  (In Specter’s case, they took advantage of the Primary system – Toomey leads in the Republican primary, where only the most outspoken Republicans vote, causing Specter, whose views  don’t align with the extreme right, to be eliminated before the actual election, where moderate Democrats might vote for him.)  With more and more Democrats in the Capitol – they’re on the verge of a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the Senate – there is a wider and wider expanse of Democratic viewpoints.

Specter says he will not necessarily vote along party lines.  Will others follow suit?  Will the Democratic Party become the new Independent Party?  Will Obama be forced into following through on his campaign promises, and have to suggest policy that makes sense not only for Democrats?  Will Republicans get more and more polarized, or will they start to reach out, realizing that their huge losses in 2008 may have been due to their ever-contracting base of support?

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE FUTURE?

Arlen Specter is, I suspect, one of many moderate Democrats.  Often, these senators only vote along party lines as a symbol of solidarity, to show off their strong Democratic status in their next Democratic Primary.  It seems like a prime time for a new, Centrist party to break out, led by Specter, Independent Senator Joseph Lieberman, and many others.

The United States was founded as a system of several parties, after all.  George Washington had no party at all, John Adams was a Federalist.  Our third through sixth presidents were actually from the “Democratic Republican” party.

Why can’t we abolish parties altogether, and pick a candidate from a wide range of policies, not from one of two mandatory viewpoints?  Why can’t we elect politicians based on their positions, not their label?

Or, at the very least, why can’t we simply abolish Party primaries and just have one big primary for all the candidates for a certain race? We’d narrow it down to two for the final election – the two who have the most support from the entire population, not just one party’s extremes or the other’s.  Why vote for just red or blue, when we can vote for all the shades of purple in between?