Thought Experiment: Is it time for all good Liberals and Progressives to flood into the Green Party?
If it is a stone cold certainty that, in the holy name of bipartisanship, Carper, Coons and (probably) Rochester will all go along with whatever bullshit the right foists on them, isn’t it the political vacuum on the left is what allows that to happen?
Furthermore, while we liberals don’t have any leverage with people like Carper, Coons and Rochester, if we fled the party while signaling that we’d be reliably voting for Dems who were demonstrably left of center, might we gain some leverage? At least more than we have now, which is none.
(Signaling that we’d be voting for Dems is an essential part of the strategy. Otherwise,it would be pointless. The world is already chock-a-block with irrelevant zealots.)
I’m a dyed in the wool dem, so for me this would be a cynical ploy to try and make the party better. To force Coons, Carper and Rochester into taking my vote into consideration when they “represent” me in Congress. Right now my vote is taken for granted. For me, this would be about making liberals a visible part of the Dem coalition. My major gripe with the Greens is that they are prissy snobs who are too good to enter into a Dem coalition. That can be changed from the inside.
Of course, there are downsides. We would not be able to vote in the Dem primaries for example. So we would not have had a say in the Markell/Carney primary race that was really the general. But Coons, Carper (and now) Rochester are never primaried from the left, so what are we really giving up? There are no doubt other downsides to explore, but political vacuum on the left is real, and it is killing this otherwise decent country.
“As the center shifts right, liberals press closer to the center in order (being practical and realistic) to forestall the calamity of finding themselves too far out. As they rush in this direction, the equilibrium of the system necessarily shifts right again–and the cycle repeats…The secret of the whole process is the political vacuum on the left. There is no left opposition in American politics. It is this vacuum which pulls the new Right out of the walls.”
–Hal Draper, “The Ultra Right and the Liberals” (1962)
The Overton Window quote was lifted from Dana Garrett’s FB page.
Sorry Jason. This is the party that brought us Jill Stein. Enough said.
You didn’t even read it, dummy.
We should all move to Florida. Or even Pennsylvania.
I did, but I disagree that it can be fixed from the inside. That is a party that historically has received very small portion of the vote and I don’t think there is a fix to that. It has a stigma. A new party affiliation would be better. However, I’d rather work with the Democratic Party and bring new leadership or place greater reliance on people like Elizabeth Warren.
BTW, you need to stop labeling people because they disagree with a position you take. You are sounding a little Trumpish. I guess I just did the same thing.
I worked my ass off on campaigns this year. I phone-banked, canvassed, ran an office, organized events, donated a ton of money. Perhaps we could all start with actually getting involved. It was an amazing experience. And while all my candidates didn’t win, it made a difference. So instead of trying to send a message that will, as usual, be deliberately misinterpreted (See: ACA) perhaps our efforts would be better spent actually doing something.
“I disagree that it can be fixed from the inside.”
Do you see the difference between that and your first dumb comment? I wasn’t labeling you because I disagree, but because your comment was the comment a dummy would make.
Whether Jason’s idea is good or bad, would depend strictly on numbers. If only a few jump, as happened in Sussex County with IPOD, you lose clout. If half the party jumps, then you change the window…
It is a good theory, but the numbers have to happen for it to work. My personal opinion is that people are now more concerned with keeping their heads down to avoid showing up on radar, than they are with flamboyantly doing a ton of work on a project that may or may not come to fruition.
Join local democratic party groups and make sure the dedicates and super dedicates get the message that we don’t want another corporate sell out democrat or have the fix by the DNC
Thanks Jason for that insightful reply. I stand by my first and second comments. This is the party that brought us Jill Stein. I didn’t add the reasoning because I think it is apparent that it is not the vehicle I would be looking for to run a successful campaign. Again, just because someone disagrees with you, you should not attach a label to them, which is exactly what you did and continue to do. I refuse to engage in your type of helpful dialogue.
If you want to pull the Democratic Party left, make obstructing the Trump presidency an admirable quality in a Democrat. Republicans just spent 8 years getting applauded for not governing and it worked. They didn’t hear a SCOTUS nominee and it worked. The party needs to stop pretending we’re better than them by not doing this because all it does is make us lose.
AA – The reason the Green party brought us Jill Stein is because it’s basically a small, quirky fringe. Jason is arguing to make it more mainstream with bigger numbers so the candidate aren’t crackpots and old hippies. Nothing wrong with old hippies, mind. We can keep them. They usually have the best weed.
I’m getting really tired of explaining basic reading concepts to people.
Thanks DG. You totally missed my point as well. Because the Green party is a small, quirky “fringe” (I would call extreme), it is not the party to build anew. That’s my point. Jill Stein IMO was way too extreme. We are better off fixing the Democratic party than going third party, especially the Green party. I am really getting tired explaining basic reading concepts to people. I am done on this blog today for expressing my opinion, but feel free to pile on.
OK. I see your point. I still disagree. The problem is that the Democratic party apparatus is nasty Mafioso business. We saw this in the strong arm anti Sanders tactics in the primary, with Donna Brazille forwarding debates topics from CNN pre-debate, etc., etc.
In my view it’s far easier to build from a tiny base and exert the authority of bringing millions into the Green Party fold. The Democratic party is entrenched and the Greens are malleable.
I’m done with politics. I consider myself an intellectual dissident now. So party-wise you all do what you feel.
Dorian and Kavips seem to get it. Is making the Green Party better (eg. bigger and more willing to be part of a Dem voting coalition) an avenue for making the Democratic party better? Even if the answer is “yes, it would help” I’m not saying that it is is the only avenue anyone could use the help out a Democratic Party that is woefully lost.
No. Remember Hillary won the popular vote, and even the Rs who won didn’t win by a blowout. In other words, this election didn’t repudiate the Democratic party; it repudiated the establishment. There is plenty of opportunity for up and coming Democrats in red (or newly red) states.
Here’s the lesson my kids learned from this. Never, ever vote for or belong to a third party.
Has anyone heard from our new Congresswoman?
I just want to thank everyone for their comments. This is basically unpractical and not in the least bit feasible. As Kavips noted, ti could work if somehow a great number of Liberals had the same notion at the same time, but that isn’t very likely.
So, we’ll still have the political vacuum on the left and we’ll still loose to ever more ludicrous candidates on the right. Like Sisyphus, we’ll push that boulder up the hill only to see it roll down, time and again, forever.
“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.”
— Audre Lorde, 1984.
We didn’t get the New Deal until we had starved for five years.
The field of dreams scenario works only for social media, movies, and the seven wonders.
The foundation of anything to be built is a shared vision. But the Democratic Party is a coalition of special interest groups, each with their own narrow definition of what constitutes success for themselves. That common interest; that sense of we are all in this together and want the same thing is what is what creates movements and a sense of purpose.
The single most important shared interest is economic, which transcends race, creed, national origin, and gender. Of course, things like free college is indeed economic, but when you ask the question “what’s in it for me?” you find a narrow constituency (KY coal miners don’t go to college and neither do their children). Plug in any other cause (SSM, immigration, police brutality, welfare, women’s right to choose, etc) and the appeal is to a limited set of people. And yes, everyone should care about those causes, but not everyone can identify with them. In fact they are often told they cannot even comprehend those issues. The failure of the left is that they bought into the old white men narrative to the point that they created a common “enemy” which did not exist. Those individual constituencies are primarily concerned with their own causes. The LBGT community is focused on SSM, not BLM.
Maybe a vision of “I’m going to put everyone to work and here’s how I’m going to do it” would have created that shared vision (or will in the future). A chicken in every pot. A rising tide floats all boats. Those are messages that help create a vision that resonates with everyone.
But, the vacuum on the left is not a lack of voice, it is a lack of identity that everyone wants to be a part of.