cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/22940159
Bernie Sanders caused a stir last week, when the independent senator from Vermont and two-time contender for the Democratic presidential nomination sent a post-election email to his progressive supporters across the country. In it, he argued that the Democrats suffered politically in 2024 at least in part because they ran a campaign that focused on “protecting the status quo and tinkering around the edges.”
In contrast, said Sanders, “Trump and the Republicans campaigned on change and on smashing the existing order.” Yes, he explained, “the ‘change’ that Republicans will bring about will make a bad situation worse, and a society of gross inequality even more unequal, more unjust and more bigoted.”
Despite that the reality of the threat they posed, Trump and the Republicans still won a narrow popular-vote victory for the presidency, along with control of the US House. That result has inspired an intense debate over the future direction not just of the Democratic Party but of the country. And the senator from Vermont is in the thick of it.
In his email, Sanders, a member of the Senate Democratic Caucus who campaigned in states across the country this fall for Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic ticket, asked a blunt question: “Will the Democratic leadership learn the lessons of their defeat and create a party that stands with the working class and is prepared to take on the enormously powerful special interests that dominate our economy, our media and our political life?”
His answer: “Highly unlikely. They are much too wedded to the billionaires and corporate interests that fund their campaigns.”
Good. The Democrats screwed Sanders over twice, and both times, he took it graciously and stood with them against Trump. Now that they have proved completely and utterly incapable of fighting the rise of fascism, there’s no need to pull punches or play nice. There’s no point in supporting the lesser of two evils if it is completely incapable of opposing the greater evil.
The Democratic Party is the political equivalent of a bloated whale carcass festering in the hot sun. Maybe if we stripped away all its old, rotting fat, we might find some use for its bones, but otherwise, it serves no purpose. Anyone telling you how it’s going to swim again is either delusional or lying.
And now we sit back and watch everyone in this thread who shat on 3rd party for “wasting votes” throwing around stupid takes like:
- Erm RCV will prevent this from being viable, we should just try to fix the Democrat party instead
- Working class people don’t have the time and money to make a grassroots movement. Clearly we need PAC money to win because that worked so well for Kamala and Clinton
- PAC money is superior to actual constituents and voters
- 4 years isn’t enough for a new party to work, we need to vote Democrat first to kick the Republicans out before we do anything else
- 3rd party would only affect the Democrats and split them up
Also the most common one lately
- There’s not going to be a 2028 election so why bother doing anything
The senator says in this exclusive interview that challengers to status quo politics can run in Democratic primaries or as independents.
Terminally online leftists: “BERNIE IS SAYING NEVER VOTE FOR OR COOPERATE WITH THE DEMS LIKE WE’VE BEEN SAYING, VINDICATION”
Bernie’s right, naturally. Change comes from the bottom up, from people volunteering to make a difference.
Sounds a bit too much like “both sides”.
I mean, one side is much much much more likely to endorse you as a working class if you try to run for election, but yeah the post removes as much context from his speech as possible.
The problem with getting working class candidates is they are too busy working.
Even if they had the time (it’s not like there are people in the world with job schedules that allow for personal development) would that person really want to do it?
Call me naive but no normal person wants to rule above others or tell people what to do.
I mean we have examples with mods and DMV employees a d whatnot abusing the little power they have for sadistic pleasure
It’s getting to the point where a third party push seems logical.
People just want to move past NH having their primary delegates stolen, but that shit really happened. I don’t see anything from the DNC that would indicate significant change. They have a candidate and that’s who the candidate is going to be.
It’s no effective at winning elections, but the do it’s would rather have a republican than a progressive.
We need to demand the 2028 has strict campaign finance regulations. I can understand the argument we can’t not do it in the general, but the primary is just Dem vs Dem. Keep the billionaires out of it and let voters pick who they’re most likely to vote for in the general.
I don’t think that’s quite the strategy we need.
What we really need is a genuine grassroots movement with significant movement, like the Tea Party but not astroturfed, today gets more progressive in the Democratic party.
BUT
We need them locally, not on the federal level, because locally is where voting rules are established. The Progressives can then push for Rank Choice Voting. City by city, county by county, State by State, we get RCV implemented everywhere possible. This in turn breaks the Two Party System by allowing voters to pick third party candidates without fear of their vote being wasted.
The only problem is that the best time for this strategy was fifteen years ago, and not enough people cared back then to do it. The second best time is now, of course, but…
Just a few more decades of fruitlessly pursuing a pipe dream that we’ve set up as a prerequisite and then we’ll consider not moving to the right.
I think if we work towards ending electoral college then other things will fall into place just because people will be more incentivized to vote.
I heard 15million between NY and CA alone decide not to note at all because their vote doesn’t make a difference.
Think of all the down-ballot voting would happen with all those voters.
The problem I have with this point of view is that it describes the DNC as an enormous entity, when in reality they are a small organisation that mostly gets its financing from individual campaigns (especially the presidential campaign).
The issue the progressives face is not the DNC but systemic issues with politics in the US. A big issue is the reliance on campaign contributions by the rich. Another issue is the media environment. The DNC is just a tiny cog in a much larger machine.
when in reality they are a small organisation that mostly gets its financing from individual campaigns (especially the presidential campaign).
Since 2015 when Hillary literally made backroom deals to fund the DNC on the condition that her campaign was allowed final review on any action the DNC was going to take…
Ignoring that the reason it was bankrupt in 2015 was it worked against Obama in 08, and refused to help him in 2012.
Like, we are not at the point yet where “it is what is”. These incredibly damaging changes are very very recent.
And that’s not even getting I to the “victory fund” nonsense that allows people to donate to the chosen candidate via maximum state donations, drastically underfunding any state party who doesn’t tie the DNC’s line. Or that in the most recent election the DNC ordered a state to violate their state election laws and when they refused, their primary delegates were removed.
This shit is not how it always was.
We can not ignore modern party leaders destroying our party just because Republicans are destroying our country.
If we do that then it might really not matter what letter is by a future president’s name.
Even if you think the wealthy haven’t bought both parties already, with both parties continuingly pulling shadier and shadier “campaign finance reform”. Eventually some wealthy person will realize it takes a billion to buy a general, but only like 10 million to buy a primary if the DNC handpicks the first 10 states and calls it before 40 have had their primary.
And that’s the rub. Even if you don’t think it’s happened, it’s really hard to argue that any random billionaire couldn’t do it if they wanted.
Which makes this a perfect time to mention trump donated so much money to the Clintons in support of them pulling the Dem party right. That Bill and Hillary went to his wedding.
trump is literally the type of people who have been paying for neoliberal primary campaigns, and others like him are still cutting checks to Dems.
Idk. I think building a third party seems like a distraction when its pretty easy to just become an “Independent”, case-in-point, Bernie Sanders. Find good, compelling candidates and run them. Small donor donations only.
Nah, the republican is gonna win again because the democratic party is beyond repair.
Progressives should take over the Green Party and threaten to run unless they get concessions from Democrats.
Of course, this requires Democrats to care about winning and not just shutting out progressives.
requires Democrats to care about winning
Their goal is not winning or defeating Republicans, but to prevent leftist candidates, movements or organizations from obtaining any power. They are gatekeepers for fascism.
Last 3rd party push resulted in Bush and 2 wars. Instead of Gore the environmentalist. Voting 3rd party for progressivism is the biggest self own in history.
The Supreme Court is not a third party.
Gore lost because Gore was a shit candidate. 15% of Dems that voted for Clinton then voted for Bush had a larger impact on 2000 than the 3% that voted 3rd party. Gore couldn’t even win his home state, if he had, he could have lost Florida and won the election.
Where would we be on the environment with Gore being president? Yeah a fuck load further than we are with Bush timeline.
Plus Obama saw that environmentalism cost Gore the election and steered clear of it. Thanks 3rd party protest voters!
The protest vote is a vote against something, like Democrats voting against trump. We would be exactly where we are right now with climate change regardless if Gore won or not. Government will never impact the profits of corporations that are polluting the environment. And it isnt the President that drafts law, including environmental law, that’s Congress. The Congress that won in 2000 did nothing for the environment.
People voted for Nader in protest that the Dems were not progressive enough. And that’s what got us Bush.
Gore is the environmentalist. If you think that Gore wouldn’t have implemented environmental policy then frankly you are far gone. And reading the rest of your reply lines up with that, so I’m out. Yes it’s congress, if you have all 3 then the president pushes for what they want to do, and common parlance is to talk about the president.
Numbers are hard, but the 3% that voted for Nader is less than the 15% of Democrats that voted for Bush.
Since you don’t know, Nader is directly responsible for a HUGE part of our environmental laws. Gore talked about it, Nader advocated and pushed for legislation that helped create stronger laws.
Still asking for democrats to throw away their votes on a 3rd party because you think both sides are the same eh?
That’s how Trump got elected a 2nd term. But that’s probably why you’re still pushing that narrative.
Not every single person who disagrees with you is a paid shill. I voted for kamala and did so happily, and I’m very worried about the democratic party’s ability to change in the way they need to also. At some point, we do need to upend the 2 party system, it has yielded only bad things.
I don’t know the right way to do that. I don’t know how we can do that with the least possible compromise, giving conservatives an advantage by splitting the progressive vote while using a voting system that favors two entrenched parties over outside candidates. AND ALSO the two party system is a problem this country desperately needs to solve.
The two parties are absolutely not the same, but that doesn’t mean the democratic party is doing a great job of representing people’s actual interests, it just means they aren’t literal fascists. I dunno about you, but I’d really hope my political representation can be better than “literal fascists, or, people who kinda sorta sometimes care about issues that represent you, except all the times when they don’t”
The only party that has a chance of beating the republicans is the Democratic Party. There is no other party.
As long as we are sowing apathy towards the Democratic Party we won’t have a chance of beating the fascist republicans that show up to vote no matter what.
So you can call it disagreeing or call it being worried or call it constructive criticism. It doesn’t matter what you call it as long as it sows apathy it will increase the fascist republicans chances of winning.
People like OP are reposting the same posts and commenting in each one systematically with comments to sow apathy. It has been obvious to more than just me for a while now.
Yes. There isn’t another party. Democratic voters didnt turn out, and lots of people feel that is a reflection of the Democratic party’s strategy, and it’s ability to connect with people and motivate them.
For those who see it that way, there are two options, the reform and improvement of the democratic party, or a replacement that can better motivate people by offering more significant change. And many folks in the camp that are frustrated, and feel the democratic party isn’t reflecting their interests, or doing enough to connect with amercians, also don’t feel like the democractic party can change.
People want to act on what they think will solve the problem. I understand you think their idea of a solution is counter-productive, the case I’m trying to make is that going around assuming everyone you don’t agree with is acting in bad faith in service of a secret agenda is AT LEAST as counter productive, if not substantially more so.
Theres an entirely legitimate good faith reason for someone to post this kind of thing- they think it will build momentum towards what they see as the solution to the problems they care about.
If we can’t even have productive conversations about what the problem is and why we think it should be solved a certain way, we’re fucking doomed. Democracy is fundamentally about collaborative governance, even in an unhealthy democracy like ours. These problems are fundamentally bigger than any of us can solve alone, and the solutions we pick, and how many people will throw themselves behind them, are BOTH materially improved by seeking to understand those you disagree with, rather than insinuating that they’re up to some plot to get a fascist elected, here on one of the most progressive platforms on the entire internet.
Your frustration is understandable. We’re all fucking angry and trying to find the best way to resolve what we see as the source of our anger.
It’s getting to the point where a third party push seems logical.
OP is suggesting we throw away our votes on a 3rd party. That has always been a bad faith argument in a first past the polls system. It is statistically impossible to win that way which is why it is a bad faith argument.
I’m not claiming it’s bad faith as an emotional response. I’m pointing out that when someone suggests the option that guarantees failure, they are not acting in good faith.
Firstly saying it’s logical to push for a third party doesn’t actually mean “let’s just piss away our votes”
It can mean pushing for voting reform along with a new party. And the change has gotta start somewhere if you want it to happen, and if you think it has to happen then picking a place, even one that you feel is impossible, doesn’t make it a bad faith argument. Its not like there’s any easy route to overturning the two party system, so if that’s what you think has to happen, you don’t exactly have any options that will be a cakewalk.
And furthermore, I’m not aware of statistics that say that (though I wouldn’t be surprised) but you’re essentially saying that because your (I assume) informed opinion is that it can’t be done, anyone who suggests it must be suggesting it with an ulterior motive. You reached for malice as an explanation where, if you’re right, ignorance would be a much more suitable explanation. Its an issue I care about, and if we actually have data to suggest its impossible then I would be ignorant too
It’d be far more productive to say “I really don’t think that’s possible, here’s why: xyz. I think if you want to make that kind of change happen I think you’ll have to find a different approach”
Do you have research or data on the topic? Or are you being hyperbolic in order to make your point that you think it’s unrealistic? (Honest question, I think both would be fair, though if it’s just a personal perspective that its unrealistic I do think that even further weakens the argument that its bad faith on OP’s part)
[The most successful third-party candidacy came in 1912, when Theodore Roosevelt finished second and got around 27 percent of the popular vote. Of course, he was a former president of the United States who hadn’t been renominated by his party and formed his own party. In recent times, H. Ross Perot’s third-party candidacy in 1992 got 19 percent of the popular vote, the second most in US history—but he got zero electoral votes. With the electoral college system, it’s highly, highly unlikely a third-party candidate could win an election.
Polls put the two biggest parties, the Green Party and the Libertarian Party, at around one percent of the popular vote, whereas in 2016, they got around four to five percent of the vote.](https://www.bu.edu/articles/2024/is-voting-third-party-a-wasted-vote/)
[Third parties that have been established were either short lived or, like the Libertarian and Green Parties, have had little impact on federal and state elections other than bringing more attention to issues for voters or siphoning votes from major-party candidates, sometimes serving a spoiler role in elections.
However, as has been the case for prior third-party candidates, Kennedy’s initially higher levels of support eventually faded. Kennedy also struggled to gain ballot access in many states, with his efforts landing him on the ballot in 21 states, and 13 additional states pending before he suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump.](https://news.gallup.com/poll/651278/support-third-political-party-dips.aspx)
I’m not claiming it’s bad faith as an emotional response.
Yeah. You’re claiming it as a Pavlovian reflex to people disagreeing with Democrats’ failed strategy of moving to the right.
Throwing away your vote against fascism and thus allowing fascism to take power is not “disagreeing with democrats”.
The only party that has a chance of beating the republicans is the Democratic Party. There is no other party.
And they just shat the bed because they can’t resist moving to the right and ordering people to love it.
Democrats aren’t interested in beating Republicans. They’re only interested in beating progressives.
They didn’t lose because they weren’t progressive enough. They lost because Biden inherited a pandemic that caused inflation and weak economy that required increasing interest rates.
Oh, now the economy at the time of the election was weak. Last month it was roaring and everyone who noticed that they couldn’t afford groceries was a Russian shill.
Democrats supported genocide, ran anti-trans bigotry in their own ads, and reveled in getting the endorsement of Dick Cheney. They moved to the right and lost. Quit defending their shitty behavior.
Oh, now the economy at the time of the election was weak. Last month it was roaring and everyone who noticed that they couldn’t afford groceries was a Russian shill.
Not sure what you are babbling about here. Republican ads during the election were all focused on the high inflation.
Democrats supported genocide, ran anti-trans bigotry in their own ads, and reveled in getting the endorsement of Dick Cheney. They moved to the right and lost. Quit defending their shitty behavior.
The US military supports Israel to prevent Iran from getting stronger in the region because Iran has teamed up with China, Russia and North Korea and are actively supply drones and other weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine.
Netanyahu is responsible for the genocide. He is the only one who can stop it.
Cheney had absolutely nothing to do with Harris losing. Absolutely nothing in the polls or anecdotal evidence supports that claim but it is heavily pushed as a taking point here on lemmy from lemmy.ml so that fact should speak to how disingenuous it is.
throw away their votes on a 3rd party…That’s how Trump got elected a 2nd term
While that didn’t help, I don’t think it was the cause. Last I checked, if you gave Harris the 3rd party votes, Trump would still win. Republicans had increased voter turnout, while Democrats decreased…and overall turnout decreased. So it was apathy and lack of votes that won.
But I’m busy, going off memory, and didn’t check latest stats. So please, feel free to correct me.
Ref: https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_by_popular_vote_margin
Obviously it wasn’t just one thing that caused Trump to win but a culmination of things that tipped the scales.
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Change that to take over the Democratic party and you got a good idea.
I mean, running as a progressive within the Democratic Party already means you have to fight both parties. You have to fight the Democratic Party during the primaries, and you have to fight Republicans if Democrats somehow fail to keep you from winning the primaries. If you do win the primaries, you cannot count on the support of the Democratic Party in the general, as they prefer the Republican to beat you so they can run a centrist next time.
Then people need to abandon the DNC and form another option. Reform from within is fantasy, the current power structure will never allow anything that’s a threat to their existence
“you can’t blame the voter! The DNC is at fault for not changing”
– literally any 3rd party lemming after the election
“Then people need to abandon the DNC and form another option.”
– literally any 3rd party lemming after the election
so which is it? can we blame the voters or can’t we?
If the voters are too apathetic to what the DNC is offering, the thought of abandoning them for something that is much more popular isn’t a contradictory prospect. Having an enthusiasm problem so big that trump was able to be elected twice kinda points to the fact that people want something else.
Only if it helps to the narrative, if not, no
Dan Osborne ran competitively in a neglected Nebraska Senate race. It’s very common for Dems to entirely neglect seats, even whole states, and let winnable races languish.
Sanders candidates can (and did) win races like this in 2018 and 2020. The problem is that once a seat is “winnable”, lobbyists state money bombing primaries. Then you get shitty corporate Dems pushing leftists out and promptly losing those seats again.
I’m all for it but the problem is that working class people are too busy working. Maybe they can set up a PAC that gives scholarships to would-be politicians so they can challenge these douchebags and still pay their bills.
I think that is a great idea - I would donate to a PAC that promoted the election of progressive candidates. I’m sure many on Lemmy would do the same.
We need to pay politicians MORE money. Everyone is like, no they should be paid $3.50/year cause they don’t do shit, but if you have to support yourself, own a second house in the capital city, and pay a bunch of people to do the initial campaigning (signature gathering to get on the ballot, set up the first rounds of fundraising); WHO can do that? Only rich people. Working-Class people cannot afford to become candidates.
I feel like we should absolutely be providing congressional dormitories, at a minimum.
Barracks.
Finally someone daring to say what everyone on Lemmy hates
We need working class candidates working outside of the right wing oligarchy. As a party Republicans and Democrats need to die off.
Unfortunately the only way to get enough signatures to get your name on a ballot can only be achieved via rich donors and mass advertising.
We would literally have an easier time killing the big pary canidates than working within the system.
This is just plain false, and also, like, aggressively defeatist. It feels to me, whenever someone says something like this, the intention is to kill off any hope in the people who aren’t terminally fatalistic about the prospect of any working class representation within the American politcal system, which makes you less optimistic than a Russian Serf in 1860, and the Wobblies and other trade unionists who were literally murdered and jailed.
Like, not to pick on you, because there are a lot of other people in this thread expressing the same opinion, but to whatever degree what you’re saying is true, it is only as true as the sentiment you are expressing is prevalent.
In my city there are hundreds of canidates that run for every position every election.
There are 2 names on the ballots when people go to vote
Call it what you want, but unless you get the R or D support or manage to get your own rich donor you will never get the signatures you need for your name to appear on the ballot next to their canidates, and the names on the ballot are who people actually vote for.
Acknowledging reality is not defeatist
We can’t do that since the rich have bought how democracy works. This is the same shit that’s always happened though. They’ll keep us just happy enough to keep their heads.
Did Left wing Democrats launch their own party or “tea party movement” inside the Democratic party? No, they didn’t. Sanders keeps getting elected as an independent, why did he never launch an actual alternative with candidates all over the country?
They can say whatever they want, they don’t mind the status quo. Hell, Sanders is an independent that just happens to show up at all of the Democrats events? Give me a fucking break.
Did Left wing Democrats launch their own party or “tea party movement” inside the Democratic party? No, they didn’t. Sanders keeps getting elected as an independent, why did he never launch an actual alternative with candidates all over the country?
Probably because the tea party was funded by billionaires and there are no billionaires funding any left-wing movements.
Where does Sanders gets his money from? Regular folks who believe in his message.
That pales in comparison to the vast wealth of billionaires which is needed to fund an entire movement and not just one person. It’s easier to have one or a small handful of billionaires coordinate their wealth than to get millions of individuals to pool their money together to fund a cohesive movement.
40% of Harris’ funds came from small donors, that’s 400m, and I don’t believe for a sec that there wouldn’t be major donors for an actual progressive movement.
Harris was handpicked by the party to be the presidential candidate, making her a conduit for such funds. That’s not going to happen with a progressive candidate because, as we’ve seen multiple times in the past, the party will work hard to stop any progressive candidate from actually getting the presidential nomination. Additionally, funding continues in the form of lobbying. Money is funneled through lobbyists to influence legislation and to my knowledge, there isn’t much in the way of small donors for lobbying efforts.
You just ignored what I said…
I’m talking about the big progressive names in the Democratic party up and leaving to form their own party OR launching their version of the Tea Party to move the whole party left, I’m not talking about them trying to put Sanders at the top of the Democratic party.
I interpreted what you said with the tea party as meaning to change the party from within by funding candidates to push the party in a specific direction and to run against candidates who stand in your way. That’s why I talked about the presidential candidate, because that will be the highest concentration of funding from regular people. A movement like the tea party only works when you have one or a handful of very wealthy people able to direct money in well-coordinated and specific fashion. That cohesion is important to actually move things in the direction that you want.
When you require the cooperation of millions of individual donors, it’s like herding cats. Not only do you have to have all those people agree enough with all your agenda to donate, they also need to actually be aware of where to make their donations for it to count (which takes even more money to advertise). Good luck convincing all those people to consistently donate where you want them to.
As for starting another party, that’s a complete non-starter. It’s been tried multiple times in the past and results in nothing but a few votes peeled off one of the two dominant parties and tons of screaming from which of the two big parties loses that election, so people feel discouraged from trying. While you’re trying to build your alternate party, the part of the duopoly that most aligns with you (even if they still differ greatly in values) will be losing voters so you’ll lose even more power as the other party packs courts and fills all positions of power with their own candidates.
