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
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.
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.
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.