- 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
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Clearly people aren’t voting the same way they’re answering surveys. I don’t see how forming a new party will make that happen.
Yeah, I observe the same thing here in The Netherlands. In theory, democracy should work best for the working class majority. In practice, people somehow tend to vote for something not in their own self interest.
Wonderful example is the area where I live, our town shares a border with a Belgian town. Most people do groceries on one side of the border, go to the bar on the other side. In essence, we operate as one town that happens to be in two countries. Ask anyone in the street if they are open to a “Nexit” from the EU, most will say a hard: “No”.
Then look at the election results, the party in favor of a Nexit became the largest party, also in the town I live. It’s wild that people vote different to what they believe in. If you then ask them: why did you vote for this party, because it contrasts your earlier answer. People will say: “Yeah, but it won’t come to that”. Then I look at Brexit and it’s exactly how that cluster fuck happened.
My brain simply cannot process this idiocracy.
it’s wild that only 55% of you guys want a fairer health care system
It’s because the phrase “Medicare for all” has been propagandized. If you instead asked if people wanted “affordable medical treatment and preventative care for themselves and others”, I’m sure that number would be much higher.
A lot of women, LGBT also don’t trust Medicare to provide healthcare coverage. They already do not cover a lot of their politicized medical care, and are cutting more. There wouldn’t be an alternative either if no private market.
Things like HRT, surgery, abortion, birth control, surrogacy, IVF, vaccinations, prophylactics, etc could be excluded depending on the politics of who is in charge.
The idea is Medicare for all as baseline, and private market on top of that. Every country with single payer health care also has private market clinics. The idea that private markets would be outlawed is a misunderstanding, and when pushed by those who would make less money under a single baseline payer system, is misinformation.
Interesting I did not know that. Would MFA lead to increased private insurance premiums over what they are now? Would less subscribers lead to many providers not being in network?
Still not an ideal situation if women and LGBT were forced onto even more expensive private plans for coverage.
At any rate I think most people want universal coverage it’s just our politics and system is so complicated that there is a lack of trust leading to concerns and confusion. Plus I knew people who died being denied coverage by Medicare, so the name itself is tainted for many. It probably should be called something like Healthcare for All.
About 70% of Americans are overweight or obese, why should healthy people be penalized more because of them?
You already are.
That’s how insurance works.
That’s not how it always works though, people who smoke have higher premiums for example.
People who choose to skydive are not eligible for life insurance.
People who crash their cars yearly pay more than safe drivers.
People who don’t claim absolutely do subsidise people who do. Where do you think the money goes?
People who smoke pay more in taxes, because cigarettes are heavily taxed. Similar story for people who drink a lot of alcohol and the like.
And why apply this mentality to healthcare and not other things? Assuming you’re a high earner, you’ll pay for roads that other don’t, for education, for the military, police, fire brigade, etc. Should all of this stuff only be accessible to people if they pay for it directly? How would that even work?
You completely disregarded my point where most insurances price premiums depending on risk; which Medicare does not, besides maybe cigarets.
Education, police and firefighters should be accessible for all; and obviously abusers should be punished, as in people who burn their house on purpose.
There’s a strain on healthcare resources that is avoidable if people would just eat a bit healthier and exercise a bit more.
You completely disregarded my point where most insurances price premiums depending on risk; which Medicare does not, besides maybe cigarets.
No I didn’t.
Risk is already somewhat baked into tax-funded healthcare by way of harmful things being taxed more. Like I said.
Education, police and firefighters should be accessible for all
Maybe I’m just too NHS-brained, but I think it’s insane that you don’t think the same should be true for healthcare. Like I genuinely cannot get my head around believing healthcare should not be a right, and that some people should suffer. I’m not trying to be a dick when I say that, it’s just truly mind-breaking to me.
and obviously abusers should be punished, as in people who burn their house on purpose.
They are. As stated, the “punishment” for people who do things like smoke or drink themselves into poor health is paying more into the system via taxes, just like with insurance premiums being higher in the US.
There’s a strain on healthcare resources that is avoidable if people would just eat a bit healthier and exercise a bit more.
Obviously. But there’s a strain on that regardless of being private or public healthcare.
Again, if you are young and healthy, your insurance contributions pay for others. That money doesn’t go to you, it goes disproportionately to people with unhealthy lifestyles and the elderly. You are already paying for people that make poor health choices.
I don’t think unhealthy food is taxed more than healthy food in the US.
With a universal publicly funded healthcare system, it’s only fair to reward people who are healthy and entice people who are not to make healthier choices.
Maybe if you don’t need to spend so much in healthcare you can spend a little more in better food.
Subsidizing healthier food options and encouraging people to exercise can be a start.
Penalized… how? Do you think overweight people getting healthcare harms you somehow?
deleted by creator
How is Medicare funded? Healthcare costs are a lot higher for obese and overweight people.
You’ve heard of an ouroboros?
What about it?
There are a lot of special-interest items on the list, and for those things people aren’t going to feel any risk to themselves by saying sure let’s fix this or that. But for healthcare, which directly affects them, they could be more like, “I’m surviving the way it is, don’t monkey with it.”
The current two party system doesn’t represent what the majority wants. Both parties work for the super wealthy. Until we get rid of the Democratic and Republican parties nothing good will happen.
70% couldn’t ve bothered voting knowing it meant democracy’s end
Good intentions are important Americans, but you cannot make the world a better place just by having good intentions and navel gazing
Ok but now is not a good time to disarm
The working class must never disarm. Post jan 6th and George floydd and people still have yet to learn that no one will protect us but ourselves. How delusional of me to think anything will ever drive this point home in people’s frightened minds.
It would be nice to have some reforms, but that’s not what anti gun people want. They want everything. We could pass reforms and somebody will shoot up some gun free zone and people will be back to take more. It’s a never ending circle that only stops at fully stripping the right to own a firearm completely. Some aren’t even ashamed to admit it.
My body, my choice in how to protect it. Prisons are gun free, prisoners have very few rights. Yet rape / violence in prisons are a running joke everyone enjoys repeating. I will not be a prisoner.
Good luck to OP with their party but I want no part of it. Plus they aren’t in favor of legalizing all drugs so you support the police state’s right to continue to ruin lives and shoot people for fun with no repercussions. Not to mention the lives lost from tainted unregulated drugs of a unknown potency. Oh and nothing on replacing First-past-the-post voting so we can have more then two parties? Super hard pass. We’d only be 3-4 generations before the capitalist class captures this political party as well. If not less.
If only we could join a commune that best reflects each of our values. OP could be completely unarmed in their commune and mine would have nukes cause humans are psychotic hairless apes that only respect one thing. Overwhelming violence.
So much this. I support nearly everything on this proposed new party’s list except the gun control items. I seriously doubt only 27% of Americans own a gun. I know more than a few Democrats who own not just one, but multiple firearms. Including aSsAuLt rifles. And the 90% support for tougher gun laws? There has to be a very serious conversation about what that looks like.
As for a ceasefire for the war in Gaza… It’s terrible so many innocent civilians are being killed, but Hamas started this most recent war. They are also well known to use civilians as human shields. Finally, they will never stop their attacks until Israel no longer exists. Even during the most recent ceasefire, Hamas was focused on building more weapons so they could continue their attacks: https://english.aawsat.com/features/5123487-what-are-hamas-military-options-gaza-war-resumes
According to the sources, Hamas’ military wing had hoped the ceasefire would last longer, allowing it to resume producing rockets, explosive devices, and other weaponry. However, efforts were severely limited due to a shortage of raw materials.
The only way to truly “free Palestine” is to rid them of Hamas, or at least shift their focus to supporting their own people and governing Gaza instead of waging jihad.
I think I misunderstood your comment. I was thinking it wasn’t time to figuratively disarm the Democratic party…
If not now when? When is a revolution ever at a good time. The Democrats have been “waiting” for 20 plus years …
A revolution without guns?
When we can guarantee that never again will Nazis rule over us. When their ideas are universally reviled by every living soul. When every last Nazis is dead dead dead.
Then get rid of the guns.
I’m not sold on this 3rd party idea. I think that’s what it’s going to take, but I dunno.
I just want a universal basic income, medicare for all, an end to trickle down economics, and everyone gets a free puppy or kitten. I don’t think any 3rd party that supports of that would get traction because everyone who lacks empathy will make sure that doesn’t happen.
Our entire US system is set up to make it so that it is essentially (literally) impossible for a third party to win. This article gives a decent basic overview of why: https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4947662-why-a-third-party-presidential-candidate-can-never-win/
I am glad my state somewhat backs is claim of being independent by keeping RCV. Still voted for trump though, but at least that’s something besides laying down for the party that tells us we are to stupid for ranked choice
How we vote is controlled at the state level. We don’t need federal reform to change how we count votes to make 3rd parties able to participate without a spoiler effect.
Alaska has passed these reforms, so can your state. Unless of course your state representatives don’t support democracy.
Electoral Reform Videos
First Past The Post voting (What most states use now)
Videos on alternative electoral systems
Alaska is better than the rest of the country in that regard for sure. Not sure it is good enough to fix the problem entirely but definitely definitely better than how the rest of the country does it and certainly worth watching to see how it impacts things. Article did not mention more 3rd party representation but even just the racial/ gender balancing is a big improvement
It’s set up so that three parties can’t be viable simultaneously, but which two are viable does change periodically.
Not really. Looking at the presidential races, we have (percentages indicate the net popular vote that went to the listed parties):
- 1788-1792: George Washington
- 1796-1816: Democratic-Republican v Federalist. Other than the 1796 election, a Democratic-Republican won every presidency.
- 1820-1824: Democratic-Republican v Democratic-Republican - Monroe ran away with 80% popular vote and 218/232 electors in 1820. In 1824, the Democratic-Republican splintered into 4 factions netting a total 97% of the popular vote.
- 1828-1832: Democratic v National Republican. Notably, this is really a splintering of the Democratic-Republican party.
- 1836 - 1852: Democratic v Whig - I’ll give you this one. After a 40 year run, the Federalists were replaced by the Whigs
- 1856 - Present: Democratic v Republican - And 20 years after that, the Whigs were replaced by the Democratic party
There has been a couple of strong showings by third parties since then, but for the most part, US politics has been Democrats vs Republicans since 1856.
Congress followed a very simmilar tragectory.
In short, of today’s current 2 political parties, one of them goes all the way back to Washington stepping down, and the other one showed up in the first 70 years. Both parties survived the Civil War.
During the time since 1856, there has been several massive political realignments, but the two parties remain dominant.
I mean, last time there was a a President or control of a house of Congress from a different party was in the 1850’s so I wouldn’t say periodically. It has happened but it is very rare and hasn’t happened in a very very long time. At this point those people saying that primaries of the current two parties are the only real way to invoke change are correct. It is far far far more effective to try to take over a primary and get a Republican or Democrat that are RINO or DINO than it is to get enough support for a third party candidate. For that to work you basically have to find someone that is more appealing to conservatives than a Republican, more appealing to Democrats than a democrat AND you have to overcome the massive funding/ name recognition/ trust (this part is getting way easier lately) in the old two.
Yeah fair points, it’s possible but unlikely. Totally agree that primarying the corpos is the more realistic thing to think might actually work.
Only a little more than half support Medicare for all? Is this a terminology issue, or are 45% of Americans that terrible?
Sadly there’s this idea that Americans are being taxed to death, when in reality not so much.
People don’t understand that while we’d pay maybe hundreds more in taxes to fund Single Payer, we’d pay THOUSANDS less in healthcare costs, so we still come out ahead
But I’m not sick or injured right now, so it won’t benefit me at this exact second in time, so why would I want this?
Plus my unstable career, where I’m treated as a number rather than a human, is currently paying for my health insurance. So I don’t need any government handouts thankyou very much.
Yeah, checkmate commie.
They also don’t understand the “they” part. People who don’t support, or at least those I’ve met, don’t understand that “they” doesn’t mean the government per se. It means you. The individual. You pay more in health care because of defaults on payments. Because of so many other things. The cost of that gets passed on to you. The individual.
People get stuck in the “I got mine” mentality. They don’t see the bigger picture. “Why should I pay for someone else’s health care!” is what I commonly hear. My dude, you already do. When you point this out. When you give the stats. They usually shut down and it’s"
10 “Why should I pay for someone else’s health care!”
20 goto 10
People just can’t seem to grasp the wider picture. I’m not sure they want to. Any issue that requires a wider picture sees the same response. Default to previous operation. Repeat operation.
“Oh no! She’s stuck in an infinite loop and he’s too stupid to realize it.” - Professor F
“Why should I pay for someone else’s healthcare.”
WEll someone hasn’t heard to “Ask not what their country can do for you…” Stupidity breeds selfishness which breeds stupidity
Not to mention which taxpayers the funding would come from, if someone who would actually implement M4A got into power. We likely wouldn’t be paying any more at all.
TL;DR people are not good with money. There is no point is arguing finances with people that do not know basic math.
So what the conversation devolves to is “stable” vs “experimental” and very few people will choose to be experimental with their health.
The best way to shift favor would be for it to be required to show the cost of insurance on every check (it is currently a hidden fee). This way, when “hooman see big number” removed from gross pay they may reconsider.
I look forward to being taxed less when we kill off private insurance.
This is a better platform than the Dems provided in 2024. Upvoted and cross-posted.
Then fucking vote like it
Yup. Vote for a turd taco or a shit sandwich. That’s all we get the choice for anymore.
I think you need to somehow get money out of politics or these majorities will continue to be divided.
I think you need to somehow get money out of politics
How do broke people have the time or resources to organize at the national level?
Which will never happen unless at least 1 of the 2 major parties is co-opted and taken over by people who specifically want to eliminate Citizen’s United, put a strong, enforceable cap on private political donations, and block corporations from donating to campaigns.
A 3rd party is never going to be successful enough to accomplish any, let alone all of that. Republicans will never get money out of politics because it benefits them too much. It hurts the Democratic Party overall, but it directly benefits the Vichy wing of collaborationists leading the party, so they won’t back campaign finance reform unless the Democratic Party is wholly overtaken.
I think we should be making the dems fear us too.
Shooting ceos and burning tesla seems to be the only way to get heard now. I don’t want to advocate for violence, but when I see dems being friendly with Republicans it fills me with dispare and hopelessness, they are the most well equipped people to do something and they treat it like another day in the office. I was so mad when Harris shook trump’s hand like ‘to bad about the peasants, but good game!’
I am not stupid enough to think both sides are the same, but they are not really different either.
Edit: and so people don’t think I am signaling out Harris, I was pissed off when Walz said he could friends with Vance. Of course that fat cancerous blob of shit could be friends with the neo monarchist.
Singling*
Not fixing it. She doesn’t deserve the effort.
This is pretty much the Green Party platform. Problem is Americans are too brainwashed to vote for a third party. “You’ll just be wasting your vote.”
Then why didn’t they fucking vote for it?
Because people don’t vote on policy, they vote on personality and vibes. It’s how it’s always been. This list of policies is (mostly) just a copypasta of the Democratic platform. But people have never voted that way. The Democrats put forth the crypt keeper, then replaced him with one of the most boring public speakers to come out of the Democratic Party in a generation. And they were running against someone who is a horrific fascist, yes, but also has stage presences and charisma and knows how to play to an audience. As much as he’s one of the worst people on the planet, Trump knows how to make himself entertaining to watch.
That’s what drives votes for politically disengaged people who don’t pay attention to politics until the middle of October every 4 years. They listen to who is more entertaining and pretend like that candidate is telling them what they want to hear, regardless of whether or not he is.
This list of policies is (mostly) just a copypasta of the Democratic platform.
Not in this universe
Either this poll is wrong or people just didn’t vote hard enough. I hope it’s the latter
The data in the poll is correct, but people don’t vote on policy. The problem is that OP is framing voters as hyper rational people who sit down to form a long list of their policy preferences, then examine each candidate and select the one that best aligns with themself.
Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, votes like that, and they never have. They look at the candidates and pick the one that’s more entertaining/has better vibes, then justify their support by either changing or disregarding their personal policy preferences, or (more often) convincing themself that the candidate supports whatever they support, regardless of the candidate’s stated positions.
Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, votes like that, and they never have.
Lol I do. Every time I vote I look up each candidate to see what they’re about.
You think you do… And it probably contributes heavily to your decision making, but you’re still human, and your subconscious does influence you on the other factors.
Imma press ‘x’ to doubt…
Because none of this was an option. Genocide Joe didn’t do shit about any of this and kamalacaust promised the exact same thing.
So instead the better choice was to vote for or tacitly support by not voting against, the enthusiastic genocide proponent?
If you live in a first past the post system it makes sense to vote for harm reduction.
If you are fortunate enough to live in a proportional representation system there is no reason to compromise.
But they didn’t vote for either of the enthusiastic genocide proponents
Imagine genuinely thinking like this and not being able to see the difference here.
It’s like being an edgy 14 year old. Either too young to feel the difference between such policies or too privileged to notice the difference.
I appreciate and agree with the sentiment, but I think a call to form an entirely new political party demonstrates a naivety with regards to how the American political system works. It’s just not going to happen. A third party will NEVER displace one of the two major parties without massive changes to the electoral system that would likely require a Constitutional Amendment.
Our system and political culture is just not structured to allow for 3rd parties. What’s more, the 2 major parties have ingrained themselves into the system so much that they have MASSIVE institutional advantages over a 3rd party.
This will never be a successful effort. I think a better goal would be to co-opt and take over the Democratic Party, booting out all the Vichy collaborationists like Schumer, Jefferies, Newsom, Adams, Pelosi, etc, and remaking the party.
With a new 3rd party, best case scenario is it has 0 impact. If it does get any votes, it’ll just divide the anti-fascist vote with the Democrats (and any other 3rd parties) making it even more difficult to win.
“Democracy will just never work, the king won’t allow it”
That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying play the game to win. Don’t start with a losing strategy.
What I’m saying is that you shouldn’t lose sight of the big things that need to change in order to work with compromises. Take gerrymandering for example, or better yet the whole Electoral College concept. That is one of those things that will require massive changes including to the constitution. So what? Everyone know it’s an obsolete oppressive fucked up system, and that it has no reason to exist today except for the fact that it benefits those who have the power to change it. Isn’t proper representation in government a big part of American identity? Are you going to fight for it, and be the beacon of freedom for the rest of the world you always want to be?
The voting for any third party is bad because it “steals” votes from the “real” parties argument just ensures that this two-party system never changes. As long as every American keeps repeating this, it will be true.
Time has passed since 1789. The world is slightly different from then. The Constitution has already changed to keep up with it - and there’s no reason it shouldn’t again.
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?
I would argue it isn’t a losing strategy at all though.
If people start campaigning and supporting a third-party right now, there’s actually a shot to win some house seats and local elections next year. That would also be the best time to try, since Repubs have majority of every branch anyways.
After winning local, then they can think senate. Remember that capitalism was only controlled in the 1950s because it feared communism. If you do not pose any threat (even if it is an empty one), they simply will not listen.
If people start campaigning and supporting a third-party right now, there’s actually a shot to win some house seats and local elections next year.
No, there isn’t. We’re heading into a midterm where a lot of the typically disengaged public will be afraid and in strong opposition to the incumbent party. That’s going to draw a lot of people towards the Democrats, and there will be a strong “Blue no matter who” push to convince people to vote strategically. The Democratic establishment will be fighting even harder against any third parties they might see as spoilers than they will be against the GOP.
You’re right that the upcoming midterms present a great opportunity, but it’s not in a third party. It’s in a primary push. Rather than talking about a 3rd party that has almost no chance at materializing and even less chance at winning, all our effort should be put towards convincing people they need to show up in the primaries and vote for the most anti-establishment, most left-wing Democratic primary candidates they can.
That’s where the real opportunity lies. Primaries get such an incredibly small voter turnout that a relative handful of voters can swing primaries. Then, once a real leftist progressive wins the primary, the whole force of anti-fascist electoral politics will be behind them in the general. It’ll be easy to paint any Republican as a fascist, which will make it easy to frame any Democrat as a rational choice, regardless how far left they may be. When that progressive is the ONLY alternative to GOP fascists on the ballot, they’ll have a much easier time of winning.
Get people who don’t normally vote and who hate Democratic leadership/establishment to vote in the primaries. Run progressives in the primaries. Take over the party. That’s the only way this could work.
I think this is a “walk and chew gum” situation. We can do both.
For the sake of transparency, I am not a Dem. But I do find it beyond criminal that Dems (even if it’s grassroots) has not whipped up an organization to both threaten a third-party AND primary Dems.
This also gives Dems diversification in strategy. The opposition will now have to counter two potential threats while protecting home-court. It really makes too much sense.
But unfortunately Dems are allergic to winning. This is not even to shit on you (you are probably not a Dem whip), but just an observation I’ve had. It’s always 0 or 100, and highly telegraphed strategy. No precision, no timing, no urgency - just losers.
I think trying to both primary Vichy Democrats and run a 3rd party bid at the same time would be enormously counter-productive.
I mean, this but unironically. What happens when your elected representatives are stripped of their political authority? What point is there in going through the motions of a vote when an appointee or a lifetime judge can overrule it? How much power do democracies have in a society that’s been privatized and commodities to the Nth degree?
Yep. If you try to play by the rules, you’ll end up finding out you can do nothing at all.
It’s difficult, not impossible.
I actually did an in-depth analysis of this over here in lemmy.world/c/progressivepolitics.
TL;DR version:
It would take roughly 1.1 million signatures to get on the ballot in every single state. That’s just .05% of registered voters.
It would require building a local infrastructure to support state ballot access, but it’s doable. There’s a void in state and local politics that progressive candidates can fill, and if there’s a unified party organization backing them, there’s a real opportunity to take the ground the the democrats have surrendered.
Is it naïveté, anymore, if we keep having to reiterate this fundamental facet of our political structure going on 3 decades, now?
Naïveté or willful ignorance. Either way, a new 3rd party won’t accomplish anything useful.
Entirely agreed.
