Red vs Blue: How similar is Malta’s duopoly to the USA?

The American presidential contest was marked by intense polarisation pitting Joe Biden against Donald Trump. But what are the similarities between bipartisan politics in Malta and the USA? asks James Debono

Similarities

1. Both the US and Malta have entrenched two-party systems

Both countries share a long, bipartisan tradition, with small parties largely remaining absent from representative organs. But unlike Malta, the US has a long tradition of cross-party initiatives cutting across partisan lines. In both countries the two big parties have grown into big tent coalitions glued together by the personality of the presidential leader’s charisma, with the party often taking the role of cheerleader.

2. In their respective echo chambers, people are experiencing reality differently

The rise of Trump, his demonisation of adversaries and the threat to democratic norms he represented, has further increasing the dose of vitriol. Similarly in Malta’s 2017 election, both parties demonised each other in a zero-sum game. Within echo chambers in the social media, justified concerns on corruption contributed to wild conspiracy theories on one side and a complete whitewash and absolution on the other.  Yet even before the advent of social media, spurred by the partisan media, thousands had celebrated the ‘partnership’ victory in the EU referendum in 2003.

3. Despite a difference in scale, some demographic divides are similar

The map emerging from the US election not only confirmed regional divides but also a sharp division between urban centres which lean Democrat, and the rural hinterland which leans Republican. This was also matched by an education divide, with college-educated Americans leaning Democrat and those with a lower education leaning Republican. This was not always the case, with the Democrats losing southern states like Texas as they became more socially liberal in the 1970s and the Republicans losing California as they become more conservative in the 1990s. In Malta most regional divisions are rooted in post-war class divisions with working-class districts more oriented towards the PL. But in the past decade Labour has made inroads in rural Malta, with the PN remaining entrenched in more affluent districts where people are also more likely to have a tertiary level of education. Like the US, Malta has its own swing districts like Gozo and localities like St Paul’s Bay, Mosta, Valletta and Siggiewi.

4. Culture wars are more important in the US, but Malta is catching up

In the absence of class politics, culture wars have become crucial in defining political identities, with Republicans increasingly associated with religious conservatism, anti-immigrant sentiment, upholding the constitutional right to bear arms and a roll-back of reproductive rights. On the other hand Democrats are increasingly associated with more liberal values, gun control, reproductive rights and a more inclusive society. In Malta Labour has become more homogeneous on social liberties, losing its conservative wing represented by the likes of Adrian Vassallo in a similar way that the Democrats had shed their racist southern constituencies represented till the 1970s by the likes of George Wallace.

But culture wars still exacerbate the divide between liberals and conservatives in the PN, where MPs like Edwin Vassallo could easily find themselves at home in Trumpland. Calls by civil society to lift abortion restrictions may well exacerbate these tensions.  But while Labour has become more like the US democrats in its socially liberal orientation, it has also been more hawkish on immigration and more supportive of the hunting and developers’ lobbies, which may be the Maltese equivalents of the National Rifle Association in the USA. Coupled with a more bullish leadership style characteristic of Labour leaders, this makes Maltese Labour harder to pigeonhole in a US-style dichotomy.

Differences

1. Malta has enshrined majority rule, the USA has not

In 2016 Trump won the Electoral College without winning the popular vote. He came close to repeating the same feat last week. While the electoral system was always different, in pre-1987 Malta it was the number of seats elected in individual districts which determined the result of elections, with counting often lasting days and results being decided by a handful of votes. But while the Maltese enshrined majority rule following a perverse result in 1981, the USA is more reluctant to correct this anomaly, which is rooted in an elaborate system of checks and balances devised by the founding fathers in the late 18th century to protect state rights and prevent a devolution to monarchy.

US voters also tend to balance the power of the presidency by electing rival majorities in Congress and Senate. So while the electoral college essentially guarantees that the winner takes all the votes from any state won, after being elected the President’s ability to carry out reforms often depends on his ability to negotiate with the other side, something which became more difficult as polarisation increased.

On the other hand it is only under pressure from European institutions, following the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, that Malta is taking steps to curtail the powers of the Prime Minister and limit the winner-takes-all mentality.

2. Malta is more left-leaning than the US

Although Maltese parties are less keen on identifying with class politics, free healthcare and welfare are universally accepted in Maltese politics. On the other hand advocating a health system similar to Malta’s is perceived as radically left-wing in the US.

3. US parties have vocal ‘ideological’ minorities

Traditionally, while Democrats had a conservative ‘blue dog’ wing which voted for Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts in the 1980s, Republicans had a liberal wing led by people like John Mc Cain who supported gun control and immigration reform. But while the Republican Party was transformed in a more conservative direction first by the ‘tea party’ insurgency and than by Trump, the Democratic Party has evolved in to a more formal coalition of liberal democrats represented by the likes of Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and a social democratic wing associated with Bernie Sanders and the “squad” – a group of congress women led by Alexandria Ocasio Cortez which have injected a dose of class politics in US politics. Factional warfare in Maltese political parties-as was recently the case in the PN- tends to revolve around personalities rather than ideologies. But while Labour is more inclined to follow the leader’s line, the Nationalist Party tends to be less deferential to its leaders.

4. Ethnic minorities are less of a factor in Malta

The US is not ethnically homogeneous and includes different minorities, which are more inclined to support the Democrats. In contrast, despite the increase in the number of foreign workers and residents in Malta, most of them lack political representation and are largely ignored by political parties.

What the experts think

Demonisation in the age of social media

Prof. Carmen Sammut – academic specialising in International relations and media studies

Historically, the demise of ideology coincided with a period when parties gathered greater influence over the media through the adoption of elaborate political communication and news management tactics. In Malta, party-owned media and the power of incumbency reinforce this influence. In the US, this influence is partly audience-driven as in the case of the Democrat-leaning CNN and the Republican-leaning Fox.

Social media have become significant agents in the construction of “them” and “us” identities because the two parties are broad churches that comprise several ‘tribes’. In such political cultures, the party brand blends with the persona of popular party leaders and electoral support depends on persuasion. Moreover, the party that presents the best narrative is most likely to win.

Deification and demonisation are strategies that are frequently employed to an extent that the moderate majority may safely presume they are a core part of the political game. Such tactics rally supporters on the basis of psychological shorts that include stereotypes and the character assassination of opponents.

Discerning voters are sometimes sucked into these narratives even when they may keep a level of distrust in political players and when many maintain a healthy scepticism in their reception and interpretation of media content. 

It is becoming increasingly difficult to assess the impact of platform power on our perceptions since platforms like Google, Twitter and Facebook operate at a global level. I am not surprised that even the most media competent individuals may struggle to filter facts from fake news, hoaxes and outright lies.

When it comes to our social media bubbles, it seems that new media are often extensions of old media-politics parallelisms. Members of virtual communities echo each other to the exclusion of diverse opinions even when new technologies provide us with opportunities to engage and network on public affairs. This reality prevails in a political environment where user-friendly technologies permit individuals, including media exponents, to bypass editorial gatekeeping and upset the system through a reconfiguration of agendas and values.

Trump and the rise of anti-politics

Prof. John Baldachino, academic specialising in art, philosophy, politics and education who works and lives in Wisconsin and New York City

We would be mistaken if we simply equate the Republican and Democratic parties as being on the right and the left respectively. These categories tend to be very relative. Just on healthcare, the primaries for the Democratic presidential candidate revealed an array of positions, which show how the Democratic Party amply absorbs the right and the left under one tent. 

With Donald Trump entering into the fray, the notion of a conservative Republican and a liberal-progressive Democratic Party has been debunked. My argument is that with Trump, most of the GOP was pushed into the sphere of anti-politics, which apart from being populist, has a habit of putting political discourse, and, with it, liberal democracy, out of joint. This also means that the old notion of a republican democracy once endorsed by the GOP, not only veered to the right and away from the party of Lincoln, but also has been entirely discarded. Trump’s reactionary stance reinforced the kind of anti-politics that was seeded back in the McCarthy era, and which many have mistakenly thought was dead and buried. 

With Trump enjoying a strong grip on the GOP with 70 million votes in his favour, the situation with American politics is that the left-right game can only be played within the Democratic Party, where liberal and social democrats act as surrogates for mainstream politics. This explains why many Republicans voted for the Biden-Harris ticket, even when they were still inclined to vote in Republican senators and representatives at Federal and State level. 

If we are to compare this to the Maltese context (which is only problematic in that one could still argue that the PL and PN, though tribal, are both orbiting at the centre), we could look at the American context as a warning for the future. This is because in Maltese politics we already sense strong elements of anti-political rhetoric redounding in moments where, for example, PL and PN leaders feel themselves cornered. Good examples are immigration, COVID-19, women’s rights, fertility and parenthood, where Malta is not short of its own “Trumpian” anti-political moments. 

More so, the fact that during the US elections, there has been a bizarrely inordinate sympathy towards Trump (accompanied by a degree of disdain towards Biden) in both the Labour and Nationalist base, is a sign of danger which, unless the PL and PN are not careful, this anti-political narrative could well take over and do them a lot of harm.

The pitfalls of polarisation

Prof. Roderick Pace – academic specialising in European integration and political science

In politics competition is healthy but tribal polarisation is not. It dissipates energy and resources. There is no neat separation between the two spheres. Polarisation is most evident when mutual trust among competing forces falls to the lowest levels. Polarisation has become a visible phenomenon in most democracies and it is difficult to nail it down to one cause.

The social media are in my opinion a facilitator not the cause of polarization. Some political leaders remain the main cause of polarisation because of their tendency to spit out words casually on the social media without much care about their truth and consequences. The worse among them sow unwarranted divisions, impute bad motives on their opponents and obstruct calm debate.

The media have a tendency to report and multiply their divisive words. Some social media are beginning to censor politicians when they lie. The cure for polarisation is trust. Leaders need to promote that which unites and mutual respect for these is the only pathways to healthy societies. Constitutions, laws and sturdy democratic institutions with embedded checks and balances are important to keep rogue politicians in check.

Institutions need to be imbued with what is called the “Ulysses Constraints”, namely those mechanisms which as much as possible prevent politicians from making corrupt choices even when they are hell bent on making them. The other safeguard is a return to true republican values, which means more than just replacing the queen by a president.

Which brings me to the last firewall against polarisation: ordinary citizens who want to be free individuals, able to think for themselves and not allow the party to think for them. It is perhaps when they become the bigger part of society that polarization can be laid to rest.