Now all he needs is the black suit, hat, sunglasses, and a soul.

Tom DeLay is on a Mission from God. Apparently, God talked to Tom. Surprisingly, it wasn't about the massive misuses of his (former) power, the rampant corruption charges, the criminal indictment he's under, being a Mean Person, acting like evil personified, or selling his soul to the devil. No, it seems that God is not concerned about those things. Instead, he's chosen DeLay to spearhead a new conservative movement:

"God has spoken to me," DeLay said. "I listen to God, and what I've heard is that I'm supposed to devote myself to rebuilding the conservative base of the Republican party, and I think we shouldn't be underestimated."

Other conservatives are not happy with DeLay or his track record, and are talking about rebuilding the conservative movement in ways of their own. Many conservatives have clearly grown dissatisfied with both the Bush administration and the old DeLay and Gingrich Congressional leadership, seeing both as being too willing to jettison core values to maintain a majority. I suspect that after the Democratic Leadership's unconscionably (yet predictably) inept handling of the recent war funding legislation there are a fair number of Democrats who feel the same way about their party. Certainly, groups like Moveon.org are not happy, and are more than willing to express their unhappiness.

Personally, I'm glad that so many people are unhappy with the leadership of both major parties. The two party system in the United States has existed for a long time. It's been remarkably successful in providing us with a stable, functional government for most of that time. Unfortunately, the two party system fails - spectacularly - in one very critical area. The two party system does not - can not - provide many Americans with good Congressional representation for their beliefs.

There are simply too many important philosophical areas where people disagree. In some areas, many people find their beliefs to be more closely aligned with "their" party; in other areas, they may find that the "opposition" actually has views that more closely match their own. Come election day, those people find themselves without a candidate that they really like. Instead, they - we - get to pick the candidate that we disagree with less.

And people wonder why voter turnout is so routinely low.

There are many reasons for the current problem, but one of the biggest is certainly the strong Congressional whip. The Republicans are usually better at this than the Democrats, but the Democrats don't do to badly, either. Members of Congress are usually expected to vote with their party, and can be sanctioned in various ways if they do not. That's one of the reasons that so many votes are split very closely down party lines, instead of having both truly bipartisan support and bipartisan opposition. Another issue is the amount of power that the party in control of Congress has over legislation. Under the last Republican leadership, a bill would only get an opportunity to be voted on if the majority of the Republican caucus was in favor of the legislation. Now that they are in charge, Democrats can do just that unto the Republicans. (I hope they won't, but I hold out little hope.)

The net result of this is that many people find themselves without true representation, or even a hope for true representation, of their beliefs in Congress. Notice, please, that I say "many people" and not "the center." "The center" is a term that is often thrown around to describe people who aren't diehard allies of either party, but it's a beast that's every bit as mythical as hobbits, dragons, and unicorns. People who are considered to be part of "the center" are often very strongly in favor of parts of the platform of one or both parties. They are not undecided on everything, or neutral about most things.

I know plenty of religious people - mostly Catholics - who are vehemently opposed to both abortion and the death penalty. There are some who are against gay marriage, but who have views about social welfare programs that are quite progressive. There are libertarians who are strongly against many social welfare programs, but strongly supportive of gay marriage, separation of church and state, and free speech rights. As long as the two parties maintain a stranglehold on the legislative process, all of these people - and many more - will find themselves with absolutely no way to effectively advance parts of their agenda.

It's good that conservatives are getting mad at the Republican party. It's good that progressives are getting mad at the Democratic party. As long as the two parties are too concerned with power and too afraid of losing any to relinquish strict control over the legislative process, people on both sides should be mad.

The next question, of course, is whether any of this anger can be turned into something productive.

(via Dispatches)