If you do. I think it’s a great idea.
But don’t fall into the “green party” loophole of just sabotaging neo-liberal democrats and helping literal facists get elected.
Start local. Run for seats you can win. Priosritise states with open primary systems.
We need a grassroots movement.
Right now is actually the perfect time to create a third party. You have effectively two years to get people excited about an actual progressive party and if the DNC come knocking saying you're going to split the vote, tell them that they are splitting the vote and they should fold into you.
I'm fucking tired of the Democrats learning the wrong lessons from lost elections. They'd rather lose than give up power.
Or hijack the democratic platforms like how magats hijacked republican party.
There is a reason why it worked for the Republicans and won't work for the Democrats: the bases are vastly different.
Republicans, by in large, will vote for a Republican even if they don't like the candidate. I saw this a lot when I was a poll worker. They don't even care about their platform. So long as they have an R at the end of their name, they get a vote from Republicans.
While Democrats vote Democrat, they'll only come out to vote if they are energized. They won't come out to vote if they don't feel like you've earned it. We saw this in 2016 and 2024.
Simply put, Republicans are more reliable voters.
The Democrat tent is very large with often conflicting values. A lot of single-issue voters will simply stay home than to vote for a Democrat. Because of this, it is rare when a candidate will arise that will galvanize and coalesce the base.
The last time it happened was Obama.
Doesn’t even have to be progressive per se, just an “Eat The Elites” party would probably do well as the one and only platform at this point.
Since you seem interested, start one. Don't ask someone to do it for you, or for their approval. Do what you truly believe, not what others support.
Seeking approval is kinda what politics is. That'd be the poll in politics.
Until we have a voting system where 3rd parties are viable (for example. Ranked Choice Voting, Star Voting, Approval Voting, etc.), we absolutely do not benefit in any way for the existence of more parties.
Whether intentional or not, America today is a two-party system by design. If you want more choices beyond the Democrats and Republicans, you need to help us enact voting system reforms which are necessary to allow 3rd parties to exist legitimately. We aren't joking when we say that voting 3rd party is throwing your vote away; it very much is.
Yes, with a caveat.
Create a single-issue party for something like free healthcare, with your sole goal to be to drain votes from Democrats. Gain enough traction, and that party will welcome you into the fold with open arms, and will actually fucking listen to your issue as their primary platform.
This is essentially what happened with ukip and Brexit in the UK. It took a while for the movement to gain traction but it did eventually start to put pressure on the government at the time.
The only issue is if that you'll no doubt need rich backers to gain influence... But that might be a bit of an issue if your entire platform is to shit on the same people who you need.
Will they though? Biden was pitching a public option to compete with the other MFA candidates in 2020. He hasn't uttered a single word about it since he was nominated.
Need to fix the broken FPTP voting system first. Otherwise any left leaning political party will just take votes away from the dems and hand the election to the republicans.
And Republicans know this by the way, any left leaning fringe party will get financial donations from the Republican Party,
Y'all need an actual left of center, worker based party to undo this late stage capitalist nightmare that's happening now
First past the post is what you're tangling with.
Https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo
It makes it so third parties only hurt their closest friend and lose to their least favorite party. Taking that energy into the democratic party itself is probably the best bet. Not good, but best.
In ranked choice, yes a new party would probably be best.
No, because "caring about commoners" and "shitting on the rich" are not actually the same objective. People are happy about it because it feels good to get revenge or for people who treat others unfairly to be punished, but sating popular bloodthirst isn't necessarily aligned with actually making society a better place. "Kill the bad people and the problems will be fixed" is historically very much a famous last words kind of sentiment.
No. Socialists of the past have never won any political victories by saying "rich bad," the victory comes from presenting alternative solutions like public ownership and central planning. What you are describing is adventurism, not a genuine revolutionary movement.
I suggest you read my intro to Marxism list.
I mean the French revolution would like a word with you.
Also rich bad. It's demonstrably true that rich people are completely disconnected from reality and will step on anyone to maintain their wealth.
It is not all of them, but it is most of them. History has always seen class warfare and this time is not different .
The French Revolution was a bourgeois revolution. It deposed the monarchy, but unlike what the Paris Commune tried to achieve, the Bourgeoisie became the new owners of the State. Proletarian Revolution needs organization and unity.
I didn't actually say socialism though, did I? I mean, I'm a socialist, but I think we have to just focus on shitting on the rich, because it's easy and people will be able to join in.
I'm also not ruling out throwing actual shit at the rich.
If your only platform is uniting on hatred, and have no actual plans in place for improvement, you just become terrorists, rather than revolutionaries. Something being "easy" doesn't mean it is effective. Lenin actually wrote about such a group, the Socialist Revolutionaries, in the article Revolutionary Adventurism. The SRs had taken to advocating assassination as it "transfers power from the elites to the masses" (something historically false) and declared that theory was bad, because it can get in the way of unity. Such directionless action ultimately doesn't change anything.
Hating the Capitalists is well and good, but without a unified plan to replace them, the hate becomes the goal and nothing gets better. That's why we can celebrate the death of this bozo while recognizing nothing will change because of it unless the workers get organized.
Shitting on the rich has most definitely worked in MANY situations.
Only when combined with actual practical plans in place beforehand.
Isn't that what this is?
No. This platform is "rich bad." It doesn't present an alternative, it preserves existing systems that give rise to wealth disparity without tackling them and presenting an alternative.
Don't Start With President! Running for president as a party that doesn't have any senators or governors is a massive waste of money on an ego trip that normally hurts the side that people voting for them support.
Start with safe democratic states, like New York and California. Run for safe democratic mayor-ships and house seats. Once you get a couple of wins, momentum, and a bench of candidates: then try for governor or senator. Once you get more than 3 of them THEN you choose the most popular among the group and run them for president.
We don't need a party devoted to shitting on any specific other group. We need one that is devoted to building up regular, every day people instead of the already obscenely wealthy. Like, actually devoted to that and not simply giving lip service to it while working against it (like Conservatives tend to do), or doing as little as they can to get "good guy points" while still sucking a big, fat corporate dick (like the Democrats tend to do).
Depose party
We need a new system. Not a new party to add to the shitty system.
No shit, but how are we going to do that? What would we need to do to effect that change?
Unfortunately, the only real path out of this at this point is violent revolution. We tried everything else. For decades. Pleaded with them to listen. They arrested and murdered us. Brainwashed the average person using sophisticated psychological conditioning. Captured every branch of government and agency.
Tell me another way. I am begging you. But I've been looking for years and I have hit a wall. We are out of time.
They chose this.
I don't think we're going to gain any traction until we override Citizens United and make bribing public officials illegal again. That would allow us to take back the legislative process and begin passing bills that the super rich are not going to like.
To everyone bringing up FPTP, other countries manage to not have it, it can be done, so stop fighting so hard against efforts to doing away with it.
Could look into the working families party. I like their policies, and they're building power from the ground up in local elections rather than trying to run a presidential candidate.
We need electoral reform that implements a system where more than two parties becomes viable. Imagine splitting left-leaning voters even more than they are now. It’s guaranteed wins for Republicans.
First Past the Post must be done away with and there should instead be a coalition of voters that refuse to support ANY candidate that doesn’t make it their primary campaign policy. Once that’s done, smaller parties will organically be created and incorporated into the system.
Support organizations listed here, specifically FairVote.
But without rich people, who's going to fund it?
With enough momentum, we can start a grassroots movement.
They just arrested the only one of us with enough guts to do anything tangible about the fucked up system. If we stop now, he'll go down, shit will stay the same. We need to be outraged. We need to be out there, shitting on billionaire CEOs of insurance companies. We need to make sure that nobody forgets who holds the actual power. It's not them, the wealthy few, it's us, the masses.
Our grandparents parents pulled off more difficult shit with less than what we had, we cannot let these fuckers take back what was fought so hard for.
Well, good on you man. I'm skeptical this event can be pivoted into actual positive change for the average American, but if you have enough resolve to make a go of it, you're a better man than I.
Yes because the Dems are basically suckups to the rich, just less fascist.
We should not. This idea of starting a new party to do something has been exhaustively understood for a long time. All it is capable of doing is hurting the major party your new party is closest to. Best explained here.
It is exciting to create something new you have total control over, and that excitement can help you get off the ground and feel like you’re going somewhere, but this is an illusion, an eventually that momentum slams into a wall as you realize you’ve only shifted de facto political reality in the United States in the opposite direction you wanted to (again: because all third parties can do is steal votes from their most closely aligned major party).
Bernie Sanders has had this figured out for a long time. He shits on the rich morning and night. He’s also a grownup and knows that his only viable course is to try to shift one of the major parties themselves. He thinks he has better odds with the Democrats, and he’s probably right, though maybe “less bad odds” is a better characterization.
Entering into a major party is not fun and exciting and you don’t have a lot of control and quick momentum. But it is the only way. Small progress, long game. A flash in the pan 3rd party will only burn you.
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