I think this is the same shift for Republicans post-Obama. Every Republican started saying, “I’m an independent.” and the Tea Party started. Back then, Trump’s claim to fame was the birther movement, which eventually became MAGA & the presidential run.
Nowadays, I have very little respect or identification with Democrats. It feels like a failed party. I think they’ll either transform more left (see Bernie & AOC’s shifts & populism) or die out to something else. I like the Working Families Party because it focuses on the economic disparities rather than identity politics.
I’m glad we found more freedom for more people, but I think the Left has lost cohesion in doing so. We don’t need to all be the same, but the message used to be “Working class vs. Rich” and the Right manipulated that into its current populism. Now there’s the “Liberal Elites” that are out of touch, and recent events make it feel that way, not just propaganda any longer.
Nowadays, I have very little respect or identification with Democrats. It feels like a failed party
Yeah, but lots of us reached that point decades earlier…
08 Obama was the lone bright point going back forty years of the party.
Hell, at Carter’s time he faced a fractured party because he was moving to far right. So really it’s more like 50 years.
Dems have lost the plot for longer than most of us have been alive, and I’m all about reducing the strength of the party as an organization.
But we still need a DNC and state parties if only to facilitate primaries, that’s a very important function.
What would it take to get a primary system up and running for Independents (or more accurately I guess it would have to be a proper party for a primary to make sense)?
I assume it’s some combo of setting up the event hosting ($$$) and somehow coming up with the rules for deciding on how to operate the primary (schedule, thresholds for qualification, voting system, etc). And unfortunately I have no idea how to accomplish either.
What would it take to get a primary system up and running for Independents (or more accurately I guess it would have to be a proper party for a primary to make sense)?
A lot, because you’d need a national and one for each state…
But the time to talk about this was anytime in the last fifty years up till a month ago when we got a DNC chair who will let a fair primary happen…
You’re trying to fix a problem we literally just fixed, and in doing so likely hand control back to neoliberals.
You want to know why it took mainstream media up until the last month to start talking shit about Dems?
It’s because the neoliberals just lost power
Now is the time to rally around the new Dem party, not make a new one
It’s not just having the money and national organizing capacity to run a primary in every state. Each state-level organization has to get, at a minimum, enough non-contestable signatures for the Secretary of State to even put the party on the ballots. And then they need to win enough of a percentage of the popular vote in that one next election to retain ballot access without having to get all those signatures again next time. The Green Party doesn’t even actively operate in 10 states. That’s why people like me insist that the only way to effectively shift left is to flood the Democratic Primaries with progressive candidates and voters, -or- (if your state allows it) get a direct voter ballot initiative to adopt some kind of ranked choice voting.
I’m just a bit worried about any potential schism among the Democrats because the electoral system in the US is still incredibly broken and will always gravitate towards a 2-party state.
To me, it seems easier for the Democrats to rebrand as more left-leaning than they currently are and try to remain a united front, rather than splinter into several competing parties.
If anything is to supplant the Democratic party, it would need to be one party supplanting the whole of the Democrats, or else Republicans will remain a plurality and retain control of the US government until the electoral process changes or their numbers diminish.
Well, I suppose one way to look at it is that we needed the unified front against Trump, but didn’t get it. So for now, and especially for the midterms, maybe now’s the time to get an alternative party started?
And then they can choose to run a presidential candidate in 2028 or not, depending on the momentum they get?
I dunno. Mostly thinking out loud here.
At this point the Democratic brand is so tarnished that it might be best to abandon it. More people now approve of Tesla than Democrats.
Republicans started their takeover by running a ton of local candidates. And in a lot of places having a D next to your name is an automatic defeat.
If republican voters agree with progressive goals - as many claim - then the best way to actually get things done is to run as a progressive independent in these local races.
Everyone is terrified of the word socialism, God damn
I think most state parties are ok, and the DNC just got it’s furtherest left chair in 30 years…
But the idea behind this, that politicians are loyal to voters over party is a lot better than where party comes first. Because helping voters is hard, and if it’s not the priority it doesn’t get done.
When we help voters when able, we have the numbers for majorities.
Here in the Netherlands our house of representatives has 150 seats and they’re filled by 15 parties, the biggest of whom has 37 seats, the second 25. People sometimes suggest that political fragmentation makes things more complicated, because usually at least 3 or 4 parties are needed to form a coalition. I don’t really think it matters because I look at it this way: there are different views on things in society and compromises need to be found one way or another, it’s where this takes place that’s different. In one case it’s on the conference of 1 or 2 big parties, in the other case it happens in parlement/government where the many small parties meet. The benefit of a many-party system is that people actually got a choice, if you’re on the left and don’t like what a particular party is doing, you can pick another leftwing party. You don’t have that option in a 2-party system, you’ll probably stick with your party despite everything you don’t like about it. Here, if a party really fucks up, they’re done for, a party can get 20% one election and 1% the next one. The system is more dynamic. At the same time, the actual governments usually have an overlap, like there will be different coalitions, but our center-right party has been in the coalition for over a decade now. There may be a certain charm to knowing that every other election a completely new set of people forms the government, but that also has many downsides I think. There’ll be little continuity, republicans undo everything democrats have done and in 4 years we’ll see the reverse. Haven’t heard any really convincing arguments against political fragmentations. It’s just the path towards it that may be difficult if you’re in a 2 party system, because as soon as you go third party, you’re hurting your side of the spectrum. What would be helpfull is if it would happen on both sides simultaneously. Can’t you setup a structure where people from both sides would together commit to voting third-party?
Let’s remember the role givesomefucks played getting Donald Trump elected, and how much the folks like him talk shit about the New York Times because “billionaires” when it suits them.
Watch the video! It’s why what Bernie (who I absolutely love as a senator) said won’t work.
We can’t do SHIT until we fix our voting system.
Well, then we’re not doing shit. That’s not going to happen at this point unless the system collapses completely, which you really don’t want to happen.
Hell, run as Republicans and infiltrate.
worked the opposite way for fetterman
I think he may have actually been progressive before the strokes.
Fuck yeah, there it is. Let’s go. New party. This one’s dead. November was the DNC’s last chance. Time for a new party. DNC leadership and political consultants aren’t allowed anywhere near this one.
I love it but it’s real risky
Can it get any worse?
The decision needs to be made right now, because there are always going to be those that encourage voting 3rd party like 3 months before the election even though none of the groundwork has been done for the previous 4 years.
If the work is started now it’s a lot better then 3 months before the election where it really just syphons votes away from at least preventing Republicans from winning.
