- cross-posted to:
- progressivepolitics@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- progressivepolitics@lemmy.world
Time to break free of traditional political ideological labeling and divisions. Time to abandon old, divisive sociopolitical labels like “liberal” and “conservative”.
A new political party based on a vastly, commonly held virtures lends itself to embrace over 66% of Americans, and it clearly embraces progressive principled thinking. In the most ideal American sense of unity, a political party should not be able to be defined or placed as “to the left” or “to the right” of where the Democratic or Republican parties currently are. Just let it exist organically based on present-day principled thinking. The American Progressive Majority.
Originally Posted By u/Atlanticbboy At 2025-03-23 04:38:18 AM | Source
Again, you’re missing the point. I’m not debating the overall end goal. I’m talking about the strategy to achieve it.
Just saying “the Electoral College is bad, so let’s get rid of it” is fine, but it’s not a strategy to make it happen. That’s a goal. What is the strategy to make it happen?
Likewise, just listing off a set of popular policies and saying “let’s make a new party” isn’t a strategy to actually achieving those goals. I’m not saying that voting for a 3rd party is bad because it “steals” votes from a major party. I’m saying it’s bad because it’s an effectual strategy to achieving the goal of enacting the policies in OP’s post.
You’re absolutely right that the 2 party system sucks and that the Democrats are awful. But, again, that’s not a strategy to achieve your goals. Like it or not, but none of us will ever break the 2-party system by forming a new party or complaining about how bad it is.
If you compare, say, the Democratic Party of the 1920s to the Democratic Party of the 1960s, they’re drastically different, almost diametrically opposed to each other on nearly every policy. Likewise if you compare the GOP of the 1950s to the GOP of the 1980s. Or the Democratic Party of the 1970s to the Democratic Party of the 200s. Or the GOP of the 2000s to the GOP today. How did those changes happen?
In every single instance it happened not by a new 3rd party forming or outside agitators pushing the parties. It happened because a fringe element of the party enacted an organized push in the primaries to co-opt the party, won a convincing general election victory, then strongarmed the rest of the party into ideological compliance. That’s how parties change in the US, not by being supplanted by a new party. You want a real, left-wing progressive party? Get behind a massive push to primary key Democratic leadership (I call them the Vichy caucus), win a general election, then strongarm the party into compliance.
I’m not missing your point, we just have different perspectives. I’m just an outsider, I’m not talking about strategies to get there - which I guess is my fault for not noticing what community this was posted in :)
Call me an idealist if you want, but to me the sentence “none of us will ever break the 2-party system by forming a new party” just honestly doesn’t make any sense. How else are you going to do it? It might be “none of you” in the sense of regular Joes, but “fringe elements” have been transforming history since forever. I’m just saying, don’t stop dreaming, start from the future you want, then be realistic and make compromises on the way there. Don’t be fooled into thinking systems are immutable and eternal :)
The system isn’t immutable, it just has protected itself very well from any third party breaking the system as it is. We will get a third party, or more, and end things like first past the post and Citizens United much faster by taking over the Dems than by trying to get a third party to have plurality support. It’s simply unrealistic to keep bashing our heads on a wall that is more likely to continue to cement the system against us, instead of changing the system in an achievable way.
AOC, Bernie, and a great number of the young Dems are ready to take over the party. There is broad support to kick out the appeasement supporters and change the party to start making changes. The harder we try to gain third party support right now, the more entrenched the current establishment gets. We’ve seen this happen for decades. The support for ending the two party system and things like Citizens United is bipartisan, but mostly Democrat voters, meaning Republicans will change more and more rules and make the system more and more unfair. We don’t have the generations it will take to bring third party support to where it would need to be. That’s generations of Republican power subverting the system. We need to change it now.
I don’t think systems are immutable. That’s exactly my point. They are, but you have to have a strategy that can actually accomplish it. Systems aren’t changed by people just dreaming of a better one. They’re changed by motivated people executing a successful strategy.
I think we have the opposite going on here - the conservatives are breaking the system in such a way, that it must change. This is the big chance for a 3rd party to destroy the old guard, simply because the old guard is being incredibly dumb and greedy with their own overhaul.
It is simply a question of who can offer the better future. The wealthy dudes who are going to kill grandma by taking away her medicine and money, or the nice lady who wants granny to live a long and decent life?