Bernie and AOC have a national platform, an energized base, and the infrastructure to gather small donations. Now they need winnable policies to back. It seems impossible in the MAGA-controlled government — unless they turn to state ballot initiatives.
Its time for a serious effort at a third party. The DNC as an institution isn’t a serious political party in that they aren’t willing to do what it takes to win elections, can’t be relied upon when it matters to do the right thing, and are fundamentally tied to a billionaire donor system that in no way supports winning elections. The primary purpose of the DNC infrastructure is the enrichment of an entrenched professional managerial class whose goal has always been the continuance of BAU politics, even if the marketing is “hope and change”.
Its not just the deep cynicism and lack of seriousness with which the Democrats as a party structure approach politics: its also that they are bad at the game. They are not effective at winning elections; they are not effective at stopping the expansion of fascist ideology: and there was no reason to ever have lost this much ground in either domain. Its a direct consequence of a misalignment between the managers of the DNC and the voters they need to rely upon to get into office. 2026 is a lost election if you intend to approach it relying upon the DNC for the strategies and tactics necessary to win. Likewise with 2028. As an election, 2024 showed that the DNC is neither interested in, or committed to doing what it takes to beat fascism. If it interrupts the apple cart of billionaires controlling the strings of the parties politics, they’ll take the L on your behalf.
2024 isn’t even the most telling example of this. We never needed to be on our heels regarding fascism. The rat fucking of the progressive movement from 2016; the refusal to address or even acknowledge the real pain and criticisms people have of the modern state of American democracy: the failure to do so is why the grievance politics of fascism were able to take hold. Creating an alternative pathway for this energy vacuums out the heat which is empowering the current steam rolling towards fascism. The DNC supercharged the energy going into fascism with their continuous refusal to respond to the real pain caused by an out of control illiberal state. If the DNC would have embraced the progressive movement instead of continuously trying to sabotage it, fascism would never have been able to gather the steam necessary to take control because their grievance narrative. The DNC’s refusal to internalize and support progressives within the party played directly into Russia’s goal of converting the US into a fascist state.
A third party doesn’t even need to necessarily be able to win a national election; it can be sufficient if it forces the DNC into having to adopt more popular, more socialist, more democratic policies.
This will never happen. You cannot -force- the DNC with pressure from the outside. And third parties will never win. The only way to succeed here is to grassroots take over the DNC from the bottom up by primarying and winning all local and state offices and working your way up to the top.
The only problem is you have to fight against the moneyed interests and win.
This is demonstrably false. The DNC has responded to outside pressure, and even when it isn’t being advocated for. For example, their rightwing pivots on trans rights and the border, not because anyone inside the party was advocating for it, but because of advocacy from the right and from the RNC.
The progressive movement was quite litterally and attempt at a party takeover form within: and it failed. It failed because, and we have a supreme court judgement handed down on the matter, the DNC is a private club and they have no obligation follow a democratic process, or even their own rules for that matter. An almost 10 years attempt was made to get the DNC to change from within. It failed. It’s time to move on.
A third party forces the Democrats into a leveraged position, even if it only holds 5-10% of the votes. It doesn’t even need a candidate on the ballot, because it forces the other candidates to become responsive to the third parties platform. This helps Democrats because it can move them from unviable, unelectable positions, like the ones they took in 2024, towards viable, electable, popular positions like the ones Bernie and AOC are advocating for.
There is no winning the fight within the DNC as they’ve shown they’re more than willing to self sabotage and lose elections rather than give over control of the party.
The longer we wait to begin, the longer the spiral out of control goes for.
If they’re willing to lose elections to avoid changes from pressure within, what makes you think pressure from the outside will change them?
Your claim that they have bowed to outside pressure is unconvincing and you haven’t provided any evidence to support it.
The only thing that has effectively changed the policies of the DNC or the GOP is money from billionaires.
All I’m hearing from you is a kind of worthless cynicism that results in the action of “more of the same”.
Maybe you should just keep it to yourself.
Or maybe you should run for office as a Democrat if you want to see your ideals realized.
The Democratic party has proven itself to be a waste of effort and time, and not just once. I’ve put more time, money, dials, postcards, door knocks, and far more into Democratic campaigns than I care to acknowledge. I’ve done mapping, data science, IT for campaigns. As a veteran, I’ve done direct out reach to campaigns soliciting endorsements from the organizations I’ve been associated with, and given them a platform to appeal to other veterans who are part of a coordinated volunteer network whose goal it is to get progressive policies into place. I’ve been on stage with names you would know and recognize, and advocated on their behalf to solicit both donations and votes.
Over, and over, and over again, its proven itself to be a party of spineless cynics (see above). There are some good candidates, but the party itself is a waste of time. As a project, the Democratic party is a failure.
Its time to put that effort elsewhere. The opinion of a worthless cynic is only worth responding to as a foil to demonstrate the inadequacy of that perspective.
From my perspective, the worthless cynic here is you. You’ve given up on changing the only party that will actually hold any power because changing it is “too hard”. But fair enough, you have different experiences and perhaps give up easier than others.
Ah yes. The “I know you are but what am I” defense.
The only point in engaging with you is to put your cynicism and intellectual dishonesty on display, so I thank you for making it all the more apparent. You claim a cause, but effectively, are arguing for a BAU/ stay the course approach to change. I hope for all of our sake, yours keeps their opinions to themselves for the rest of time, as I advocated for previously.
We’ve had third parties for decades and this hasn’t happened yet. How do you propose succeeding at it this time? Bernie ran in the Democratic Primary in his first run for Senate. He won it. He turned it down and ran as an independent but he already had the voters on his side from the Democratic primary. AOC, and other Squad members, ran in the Democratic primary because of Bernie’s run in the Democratic primary in 2016.
I disagree with your conclusion here. I believe this pivot was because more right wing voters consistently turn up to the polls to vote on these issues than do left wing voters. They see the voters who advocate for trans rights and immigrant rights skipping the primary and declaring that they’re not going to vote, so the party targets the voters who say they will come out to vote.
There hasn’t been a single Electoral College vote for a 3rd party presidential candidate since 1968. Even when Perot received 19% of the national popular vote. Third party and independent legislators hold under 1% of the seats at the state and federal level. In 2024 only 3 third parties were on the ballot in more than 10 states, and none were on the ballot in all 50. You’re better off putting that effort into overtaking your local and state Democratic party, because of ballot access That means both with better candidates running in the primaries and voters showing up to secure them the nomination, but also actually joining the party and voting in the internal leadership elections.
Only 21 states allow direct legislation by voter-led ballot initiatives. How are you going to overcome first-past-the-post spoiling the vote in favor of Republicans at the national level facing these odds?