We really should be calling the "centrist" ones "Republicrats."
this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2025
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Neoliberals are Fascist enablers.
Sanders and AOC can come.
How would any other party get any time on a national platform to campaign, the way Democrats and Republicans do? I mean, we do have more than those two parties; but they're never included in big debates or really given any attention at all. I'm surprised I don't hear idiots saying shit like "Dude, I voted today and there was like 6 motherfuckers on the ballot instead of just two!"
It's my understanding another party needs 5% of the vote in an election to get federal money and news coverage.
"Have you tried rebranding?"
Brilliant.
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 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.
I like the Working Families Party because it focuses on the economic disparities rather than identity politics.
The WFP is awesome, but this is definitely not their politics. And they're awesome precisely because they don't act that way.
It’s not focused on the economics?
Not "rather than identity politics". What about that makes you think they're not about social justice? They're dedicated progressives, not class reductionists.
A multi-racial party doesn't mean you downplay racism, it means the party has solidarity across races. That's what solidarity is.
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.
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.
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
I'm not super informed here. Why do you think the new DNC chair will change how the Dem primaries will be operated?
I tried googling around myself, but couldn't really find anything meaningful. But that's probably more a reflection of how tired my brain is than anything (work's been hell).
If you have anything readily available you could share, I'd love to feel some positivity about the Democrat party.
But we still need a DNC and state parties if only to facilitate primaries, that’s a very important function. a month ago when we got a DNC chair who will let a fair primary happen… Now is the time to rally around the new Dem party, not make a new one
Totally agree here with emphasis on the new part. Surge the turnout in the primaries. Without ballot access in every state it's just not realistic to expect a 3rd party can rise up and replace the Democratic party in 2026 or 2028. Except in states with direct ballot initiatives to switch to ranked choice voting, but even that is only a solution for at best the election after getting that voted into existence.
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.
After how 40 years of operation, the Green Party still isn't on the ballot in 10 states. Less than 1% of the legislative offices around the country (state and federal) are held by 3rd party or independents. You need to either make ranked choice voting the state-wide method in your state first, or put that energy into taking over your state's Democratic party via the primaries and the internal leadership elections.
The green party doesn't realistically try though
Ballotpedia makes it even more bleak than I thought: "Three minor parties were recognized in more than 10 states as of January 2025"
https://ballotpedia.org/List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_States
I thought the Libertarians were on the ballot in all 50 states. Just crazy when you consider Perot had just shy of 20% of the popular vote in 1992 (and still received zero electoral votes).
3rd party for anything beyond county level just isn't happening without ranked choice.
So long as they don't sit on their hands doing nothing and then decide to run one candidate in 2028. You don't lead by taking the top seat, you lead by building a base that wants you to lead.
Everyone is terrified of the word socialism, God damn
corporations and the wealthy love it. been enjoyers since time popped into existence.
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.
Our two parties are engrained at this point, for better or worse, and will not change until we change our First Past the Post voting system. Everyone that's disenfranchised with the Democratic party in this thread right now represents the owl voters in this video - watch it please, it's very clear at explaining why what you are suggesting will absolutely NOT WORK and will allow the GOP to win in perpetuity.
I’ve seen that video. Everyone’s seen that video.
And if my only option is to keep voting for the party that has failed so completely a fascist is in office then we are well and truly fucked.
Well, if you truly understood that video, then you would know that by voting independent you're fracturing the vote away from the one-of-two major parties, which means victory for the bad guys. It explains this.
Look, I 100% agree with you that what we have is absolute shit. You're preaching to the choir. But the bad guys aren't going to fracture their vote. They're just not.
The system is the issue, and what we have to work with is by design. If you vote for anything but one of the two parties in power, you're just giving the worst of the two the actual win.
The ONLY way to fix this is to fix the system. Period. End of discussion. That's the cold hard truth.
Why do you think so many Russian trolls tried to push Bernie so hard back in 2016? Because they actually understand that video - you can't do SHIT as an independent running in the system unless EVERYONE does it.
You're incredibly passionate about our plight - so am I. Even if we don't agree on everything, we're in a small subset of people that are INVOLVED and INFORMED. The general populace is fairly dumb as shit. Their knowledge goes about an inch deep. Unless you can guarantee that EVERYONE is going to switch from Dem to independent, your suggestion is literally doomed to fail.
Nope, still disagree. Don’t have time or inclination to explain why, though.
Goodbye.
Dude should be saying we need our own tea party movement where we take over the Democrat party. Not that we need to fracture ourselves even more.
That said, I think there is an argument for independent runs in purely local politics in areas that only have Republicans run for things and have a hatred for Democrats they can't seem to move past.
Regardless. Bernie should know how our system works by now, he should know that fracturing has and will always be a stupid idea that only removes power from the leftists and progressives in the country and then gives it to the Republicans. Which then makes the Democrats move right because the progressives have left the building. This is just fucking stupid on a non local politics scale and Bernie should know better.
Bernie should know how our system works by now,
Yes, and he's saying run as independents despite very much knowing how the system works.
So then he's saying "Split your votes and make sure no one you support ever gets into power anywhere above the local level because the democrats suck and the system is broken"?
I think he is saying in the nicest way possible, the the democratic party no longer represents us and we should be using our vote so we can have representation that does.
Which is fair to say. I just think he should be talking about primarying the establishment Dems as opposed to just not running as Democrats.
Maga had to do that to capture the rnc...
We just pried the DNC out of the hands of neoliberals...
Which is why mainstream media is suddenly ok with criticizing the DNC.
Dude should be saying we need our own tea party movement where we take over the Democrat party. Not that we need to fracture ourselves even more.
He already started it in 2016.
That said, I think there is an argument for independent runs in purely local politics in areas that only have Republicans run for things and have a hatred for Democrats they can’t seem to move past.
Yes. Or even run in the Republican primary (might be easier to get on the primary ballot than to get on the general election ballot).
Started a Tea Party like movement? Or started saying we need one? Because he did not start one at all. If he had we would have Democrat voters coming out in primaries more, and kicking out establishment Dems more if they don't adhere to the parties core beliefs. He may have wanted to start one back then, but it was a false start because people lost a lot of steam when he wasn't the candidate. Sure there were a lot of progressives elected in the next midterm, but that should have been a continuing trend, instead of something that plateaus. The Left has lost steam with their movement because they don't keep their eye on the ball, we get distracted with infighting and splitting our votes with third parties instead of relentlessly pursuing our goal of remaking the party, something the Tea Party movement did extremely well at.
Dunno if running in the Republican primary would be worth anything because Republican primaries are very MAGA and if you aren't that then you won't get the nom at all.
Started a Tea Party like movement? Or started saying we need one? Because he did not start one at all.
The Republican Tea party movement started with Ron Paul running in the 2008 Republican primaries, and that having an impact on the kinds of Republicans who won the 2010 primaries and became part of the House flipping that year. Bernie started a progressive movement for the Democratic party by .. running in the 2016 Democratic party. And that had an impact of more progressives running in the 2018 primaries (hello Squad) and helping flip the House that year.
If he had we would have Democrat voters coming out in primaries more, and kicking out establishment Dems more if they don’t adhere to the parties core beliefs. He may have wanted to start one back then, but it was a false start because people lost a lot of steam when he wasn’t the candidate. Sure there were a lot of progressives elected in the next midterm, but that should have been a continuing trend, instead of something that plateaus.
Well maybe progressive voters should have kept at it, then. It's a long road to change an organization that big. I would actually put the moment as being in the 2020 primaries when a bunch of the moderates dropped out to coalesce for Biden before super Tuesday when it looked like FPTP was helping Bernie. But that just again speaks to the fact that not enough progressives were coming out to vote.
The Left has lost steam with their movement because they don’t keep their eye on the ball, we get distracted with infighting and splitting our votes with third parties instead of relentlessly pursuing our goal of remaking the party, something the Tea Party movement did extremely well at.
Ok we're on the same page mostly. The Tea Parties continued momentum was, in no insignificant part, thanks to the billionaire Koch brothers co-opting it by funding a bazillion primary challenges to win over state legislatures towards their goal of calling a Constitutional Convention to rewrite it in their anarcho-capitalist ideals. They weren't quite as interested in the US Congress or the presidency.
So, I still maintain that Bernie already started the movement in much the same way that Ron Paul started theirs. Just by running in the primary and inspiring both voters and candidates to go out to the primaries.
Dunno if running in the Republican primary would be worth anything because Republican primaries are very MAGA and if you aren’t that then you won’t get the nom at all.
Sometimes just getting a platform to speak your ideas is enough to get things going. Progressive ballot measures did well in 2024. Conservative voters can change their minds when confronted with first hand experience. Bernie convinced a Fox News studio audience to like Medicare for all. And even losing the primary after that, the exposure could very well help you get the signatures to appear on the general ballot as an independent.
Okay I see what you're saying now. Yeah I think we are on the same page. It's really all about persistence and progressives voting consistently. I was thinking more about how the movement he started didn't continue on its pace, not necessarily that nothing he did mattered.
I also think the 2020 primaries is complicated in just that the moderates that dropped out weren't polling super well anyway so them dropping out didn't give Biden as much of a boost as much as just him being Biden. That said, Bernie should have been the candidate but not enough people voted for him in the primary to get that to happen. He also still faced the "He's not a democrat" accusation which was a problem for him in both primaries he ran in. Again, if more progressives had come out to vote for Bernie, he would have won.
It's all about voting in the primaries.
also think the 2020 primaries is complicated in just that the moderates that dropped out weren’t polling super well anyway so them dropping out didn’t give Biden as much of a boost as much as just him being Biden.
It's an interesting event to think about. Because if it did solidify numbers that weren't they with all the candidates still in, then that means a ranked choice system still should have put Biden as the winner. And if it didn't really provide Biden extra numbers he needed to win, then it was coordinated messaging against the rising movement, and it worked but also turned away voters they needed to hold onto in the long run.
I mean the thing that signaled Biden had any chance in 2020 was him winning South Carolina pretty big and that showed the establishment moderates that there was someone to back who could win against Bernie. Since Bernie had a plurality not a majority it was a tough race to win outright. Super Tuesday solidified his lead but then Covid happened less than 2 weeks later and made it so Bernie couldn't have made up for his losses on Super Tuesday. Basically guaranteeing that Biden would win. The people that dropped out before ST were Buttigieg, Klobochar, and O'Rourke had kinda already crashed and burned. But Pete was the more left leaning out of those people so even with him dropping out it would make sense for much of those voters to go to Bernie. So realistically a Bidens bump started with South Carolina and the moderates then realized he was their only chance. Again, Bernie could have, and likely would have over come this without COVID. But he didn't. If voters in South Carolina had picked Bernie Biden wouldn't have gotten any bump and Bernie would have continued his way to a plurality of votes. Biden also eventually got a majority of voters to his side while Bernie has never had a majority of voters. Mind you, neither did Obama. But Obama was...Obama. Being a young charasmatic person who can inspire in your speeches helps a whole lot.
Bernie was doing well but couldn't overcome that Biden was viewed as a strong candidate by moderates overall, that covid happened, and also that he just wasn't a Democrat. People had the same thought process for Bloomberg because he was a Republican. They wanted a democrat at the head.
This is also why it will be easier for someone who has always been a Democrat to win the presidential primary as a progressive. Bernie also has the trouble with being a guy with great ideas but still being an old dude and going on tangents that aren't necessary to make his point. He is also not the best at inspiring in his speeches, not that they can't be inspiring. Just that he's not as Charismatic as Obama was. Someone like AOC though has the charisma down, has the ideas down, has the ability to talk like a normal person down, is young, and is able to use things like social media and be just as normal as anyone else.
I get what he's saying, but the history of third parties in the US says this is futile. Then again, the last thing the Democrats need right now is extensive party in-fighting when they should be united.
Most people united after Hilary was made the candidate; and they lost. People united after Harris was the candidate; they still lost.
Best thing to do is start from scratch, away from this bullshit democratic party. As it stands, they will never agree to what the people want. Free healthcare is one example.
Starting from scratch won't work until we fix our First Past the Post voting system. See this video for a crystal clear explanation -https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo
We can't fix it; only elected officials can. So vote for people who actually support ending FPTP. They know. Everybody knows. It's been crystal clear since the 2000 election. If they're not against FPTP by now, then it's on purpose, and they've been bought.
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.
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.