#Third Political Party

[indigerizz]

help me guys

okay so I know this is random but someone pleaseeee help me with my civics project 😭 I have to create a third party and write about it. I have no ideas what to name it but can someone help me come up with a name? It has to make sense too and I have to be able to explain why I named it that. also I’m sorry just ignore the ship tags I’m desperate for an answer so I’m using whatever I can 💀

[haggishlyhagging]

The summer after the [1988] election, the National Organization for Women met in Cincinnati, just three weeks after the Supreme Court's famous Webster decision restricting women's right to an abortion, and just as the Bush administration was applauding the court's historic retreat from reproductive choice. Some NOW delegates, weary of what they saw as an endless round of betrayals of women by both political parties, proposed the convention talk about forming a third party, one that would, among other causes, champion women's equality. The motion passed unanimously.

The press, which generally ignored NOW conventions, exploded with outrage, anger, and derision. "Not NOW—It's Time for Consensus, not Conflict," ordered the Washington Post's Outlook editor Jodie Allen in an opinion piece. "Somebody has to say it, Molly Yard [NOW president], shut up." As for the rest of the NOW leadership, the editor ordered, "[R]ework your act or bow off the stage." The dozens of other editorial temper tantrums were little different. Some sample headlines: "NOW Puts Her Worst Foot Forward," "NOW's Fantasy," and "NOW's Flirtation With Suicide." Newsweek warned that "the shrill voices of NOW" could destroy the pro-choice movement and quoted an anonymous attendee of the conference, who supposedly said, "I wish we could take out a contract on Molly Yard." (Given that the conference gave unanimous support to the third-party proposal, this dissenter's identity is something of a mystery.)

In its overheated response to the proposal, the press managed to get the story all wrong. They accused NOW president Molly Vard of foisting the third-party idea on the convention delegates, but grass-roots delegates came up with the proposal in a workshop, proposed it, and passed it—while a startled NOW leadership stood and watched. The leaders, in fact, had proposed a much more modest work-inside-the-party plan; Yard had only suggested calling for gender balance on the two parties' slates. And these delegates were hardly the "rabid radicals" that the media conjured: because it wasn't an election year for NOW's leadership, many longtime activists and members from the more liberal East and West coasts had stayed home. The delegates dominating this conference were midwestern, middle American women; in fact, an unusually large proportion of them had joined NOW for the first time that year. Further, their resolution didn't even call for a new party—only for "an exploratory commission" to consider the possibility of having one. And the party the delegates wished to consider wasn't even, as the press had dubbed it, a "woman's party"; the delegates defined it broadly as a human-rights party that would confront racial inequality, poverty, pollution, and militarism, too.

The phobic response from the press corps and members of the political establishment—who, from the president to the Democratic National Committee chairman to the governors of Maine and Michigan, provided a bountiful supply of condemnatory quotes—was even more ludicrously out of proportion when one recalls that half of the last forty-nine presidential elections have all been three-party elections, seemingly without damage to the American political process. No editorial writers proposed taking a contract out on John Anderson or Barry Commoner when they made their third-party bids just eight years earlier. (It might also be pointed out that the Republican party itself began life as a third party and elected Lincoln in a four-party race.) That an almost timidly worded proposal could generate such fury stunned NOW leaders. "I mean, normally we have to really work for the press to pay even the slightest attention!" a baffled Eleanor Smeal, former NOW president, says. "For the president of the United States of America to mention the NOW resolution [in a TV interview] is unfathomable, incredible! . . . The only thing I can conclude is that many of the powers-that-be are worried."

The hail of disdain poured on NOW's third-party proposal achieved its aim: extinguishing the spark of an idea before it had a chance to spread. Leaders of one women's rights organization after another rushed to the public podium no prove their personal distaste for the women's party—often in ladylike language. Kate Michelman, executive director of the National Abortion Rights Action League, even called reporters while she was on vacation to say that she opposed the third-party plan, because she didn't want the many "friends" of women in the GOP and Democratic parties "to feel like we're going to abandon them." This was a far different response from 1980, when feminist leaders used the third-party card to force the Democratic party to support a full women's rights agenda: they threatened then to endorse independent candidate John Anderson if the Democratic party didn't put the ERA, abortion rights, and child care on its agenda.

The intense mockery that the third-party idea provoked should have tipped off women in politics to the equally intense insecurity such taunts concealed. Smeal was probably right; the powers-that-be were worried. The political establishment had to deride NOW's proposal as "cockeyed" and "silly" because it was in fact neither— it was credible and threatening. After all, of all the battles that Bush faced in the '88 race, it was the candidate's successful combat against the gender gap that his advisers singled out as the "major accomplishment" of his campaign. "Is it all over for white males?" asked veteran newsman David Brinkley, floating the question nervously on the air as he anchored NBC's television coverage of the 1988 Democratic national convention. Political commentator George Will returned a gaze of equal consternation and replied, yes, it did seem they were witnessing "the eclipse of the white male." Behind them, a Democratic podium was awash in a sea of white male faces—but that hardly mattered to the two male pundits.

By the close of the decade, it didn't require an overactive imagination to sense the anger and alienation of the majority of American women—first cheated by the Reagan administration, then shut out of the 1988 presidential campaign and finally demoralized by the Webster decision restricting abortion. Women's anger was, in fact, surfacing in spectacular ways in the national polls. A 1989 Yankelovich Clancy Shulman survey found that a majority of women believed both the Democratic and Republican parties were "out of touch with the average American woman." And who did they believe was "in touch"? A majority of women cited the following three groups: NOW, the leaders of the women's rights movement, and feminists. When analyzed by age, the Yankelovich survey results painted a grim picture indeed for the future status of the Democratic and Republican parties: younger women in the poll identified the least of any age group with the traditional parties—and the most with feminist groups and leaders. Among women twenty-two to twenty-nine years old, only 36 percent believed Republicans were in touch with the average woman; on the other hand, 73 percent of these young women said NOW was in touch with their needs. The youngest women, sixteen to twenty-one, weighed in with the most overwhelming figures—83 percent of them believed NOW spoke for them.

By the close of the decade, women could have constituted an immensely powerful voting bloc—if only women's-rights and other progressive leaders had mobilized their vast numbers. But in the 1980s, the backlash in the Capitol kept this historic political opportunity for women in check—with a steady strafing of ostracism, hostility, and ridicule. The women most discouraged by this bombardment, understandably, were the ones in closest range. And so, just as the middle American women at NOW's midwestern convention were ready to take action, many of their female leaders in Washington were running for cover.

-Susan Faludi, Backlash: the Undeclared War Against American Women

[peoplespartymd]

Peoples Party Platform

An Economy That Works for Everyone

An Economic Bill of Rights

Strong Unions and Workplace Democracy

Modernizing our Infrastructure

A Fair Tax Code and Modernizing Small Business

Rein-in Wall Street and Create Public Banks

Fair Trade

Defend and Uphold Democracy

Abolish Corruption and Restore Democracy

Secure and Transparent Election

Defend Civil Liberties

Respect Human Rights, Health and  Human Potential

Medicare for All

Free Public College and Quality Education

Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Respecting Disability Rights

Protect the Environment and Defend Biodiversity

Clean Energy and Environment Protection

Animal Welfare

Sustainable Agriculture

Stand for Equality and Justice 

Restorative Justice

Racial Justice

Equal Rights for Women

LGBTQIA Equality

Honor Indigenous Rights

Create a Peaceful Global Community Benefiting from Technology

A Collaborative and Peaceful Global Community

Promise and Peril of Accelerating Technology

Take Care of Veterans

Secure and Transparent Election

Defend Civil Liberties

[charlesoberonn]

"The demise of the Republican party is bad because it'll mean there's only gonna be one viewpoint in America"

Absolutely false. There're already plenty of viewpoints under the Democratic Party right now but they're all forced under one label because it's a two-party system and the other party has been taken over by fascists.

In the absence of the Republican party, the Democrats can easily split into two or more ideologically distinct parties. In fact, it'd be significantly better.

Joe Biden should be the most right-wing candidate in American politics.

[tomorrowusa]

Don't risk a rerun of the 2000 election.

In the first presidential election of the 21st century many deluded progressives voted for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.

Their foolishness gave us eight years of George W. Bush who plagued the country with two recessions (including the Great Recession) and two wars (one totally unnecessary and one which could have been avoided if he heeded an intelligence brief 5 weeks before 9/11).

Oh yeah, Dubya also appointed one conservative and one batshit crazy reactionary to the US Supreme Court. Roberts and Alito are still there.

Paul Waldman of the Washington Post offers some thoughts.

Why leftists should work their hearts out for Biden in 2024

Ask a Democrat with a long memory what the numbers 97,488 and 537 represent, and their face will twist into a grimace. The first is the number of votes Ralph Nader received in Florida in 2000 as the nominee of the Green Party; the second is the margin by which George W. Bush was eventually certified the winner of the state, handing him the White House. Now, with President Biden gearing up for reelection, talk of a spoiler candidate from the left is again in the air. That’s unfortunate, because here’s the truth: The past 2½ years under Biden have been a triumph for progressivism, even if it’s not in most people’s interest to admit it. This was not what most people expected from Biden, who ran as a relative moderate in the 2020 Democratic primary. His nomination was a victory for pragmatism with its eyes directed toward the center. But today, no one can honestly deny that Biden is the most progressive president since at least Lyndon B. Johnson. His judicial appointments are more diverse than those of any of his predecessors. He has directed more resources to combating climate change than any other president. Notwithstanding the opposition from the Supreme Court, his administration has moved aggressively to forgive and restructure student loans.

Three years ago the economy was in horrible shape because of Trump's mishandling of the pandemic. Now unemployment is steadily below 4%, job creation continues to exceed expectations, and wages are rising as unions gain strength. The post-pandemic, post-Afghan War inflation rate has receded to near normal levels; people in the 1970s would have sold their souls for a 3.2% (and dropping) inflation rate. And many of the effects of "Bidenomics" have yet to kick in.

And in a story that is criminally underappreciated, his administration’s policy reaction to the covid-induced recession of 2020 was revolutionary in precisely the ways any good leftist should favor. It embraced massive government intervention to stave off the worst economic impacts, including handing millions of families monthly checks (by expanding the child tax credit), giving all kids in public schools free meals, boosting unemployment insurance and extending health coverage to millions.

It worked. While inflation rose (as it did worldwide), the economy’s recovery has been blisteringly fast. It took more than six years for employment rates to return to what they were before the Great Recession hit in 2008, but we surpassed January 2020 jobs levels by the spring of 2022 — and have kept adding jobs ever since. To the idealistic leftist, that might feel like both old news and a partial victory at best. What about everything supporters of Bernie Sanders have found so thrilling about the Vermont senator’s vision of the future, from universal health care to free college? It’s true Biden was never going to deliver that, but to be honest, neither would Sanders had he been elected president. And that brings me to the heart of how people on the left ought to think about Biden and his reelection.

Biden has gotten things done. The US economy is doing better than those of almost every other advanced industrialized country.

Our rivals China and Russia are both worse off than they were three years ago. And NATO is not just united, it's growing.

Sadly, we still need to deal with a far right MAGA cult at home who would wreck the country just to get its own way.

Biden may be elderly and unexciting, but that is one of the reasons he won in 2020. Many people just wanted an end to the daily drama of Trump's capricious and incompetent rule by tweet. And a good portion of those people live in places that count greatly in elections – suburbs and exurbs.

Superhero films seem to be slipping in popularity. Hopefully that's a sign that voters are less likely to embrace self-appointed political messiahs to save them from themselves.

Good governance is a steady process – not a collection of magic tricks. Experienced and competent individuals who are not too far removed from the lives of the people they represent are the best people to have in government.

Paul Waldman concludes his column speaking from the heart as a liberal...

I’ve been in and around politics for many years, and even among liberals, I’ve almost always been one of the most liberal people in the room. Yet only since Biden’s election have I realized that I will probably never see a president as liberal as I’d like. It’s not an easy idea to make peace with. But it suggests a different way of thinking about elections — as one necessary step in a long, difficult process. The further you are to the left, the more important Biden’s reelection ought to be to you. It might require emotional (and policy) compromise, but for now, it’s also the most important tool you have to achieve progressive ends.

Exactly. Rightwingers take the long view. It took them 49 years but they eventually got Roe v. Wade overturned. To succeed, we need to look upon politics as an extended marathon rather as one short sprint.

Republicans may currently be bickering, but they will most likely unite behind whichever anti-abortion extremist they nominate.

It's necessary to get the word out now that the only way to defeat climate-denying, abortion-restricting, assault weapon-loving, race-baiting, homophobic Republicans is to vote Democratic.

[originalleftist]

The thing about "protest votes" that makes them, in this of all elections, so mind-bogglingly intellectually and morally bankrupt, is that the potential consequences now are NOT A HYPOTHETICAL.

We don't need to speculate on what could happen if a bunch of people decide to stay home or vote third party, because they did that in 2016 against THIS EXACT REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE, and we all enjoyed four years of hell culminating in an attempted coup as a consequence. And three years and counting of the aftermath since, including the destruction of abortion rights across much of the country. To say nothing of the ones who didn't make it through, like the migrants who died in detention, or the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of preventable Covid deaths.

And now fuckers are saying, "Well, we better do it again just to make sure we get every last bit of the world we haven't burned down yet".

How many real, actual, living people are you prepared to throw under the bus for your "protest vote"?

[gentil-minou]

"This is more about your ego and pride than Palestine" No its about putting pressure on a party that is supporting genocide

It's about logic

Biden and the DNC would rather cause dissent and dissatisfaction within their own party rather than call for a ceasefire

They know they can get away with it because they're a better option than Trump, because they know they could murder babies in front of you and you'll still vote for them.

So why would they call for a ceasefire when they don't need to?

That's why putting the pressure on them, saying they won't get our vote or saying we are looking for other options is so important.

Because that's the only way they will change.

By saying "Vote Blue No Matter Who", you give him and the DNC permission to permit genocide despite the vast majority of public opinion. You say they can do whatever they want because you will vote for them anyways.

You tell them they don't need to do anything else. That in fact they can do whatever they want. You've shown them you are so terrified of your own government that you would rather lie down and let it walk all over you than put any pressure on them at all

They have a year to make a change. Biden could end this all tomorrow, but why would he when he has you doing his dirty work?

[post-futurism]

Tired of seeing North American election politics on my dash and the only thing I'll say about it is that it was a seriously bad move to not have compulsory voting for all citizens. Part of being an adult is making hard decisions and getting to opt out of that by legally not voting is not the gotcha that a lot of people think it is.

[luthwhore]

whenever people call lex a republican i know immediately that don't actually read comics that feature him bc his actual canonical political beliefs are so much weirder than that.

like. when he ran for president -- which was, for reference, during the bush era! -- he was anti-fossil fuels and pro-green energy, except all of his proposals for green energy inevitably involve kryptonite. in justice league: unlimited he funded a massive low-income housing + affordable energy project but ONLY because he knew superman would get suspicious and put a stop to it, thereby making superman look like an ass.

he is vocally an atheist who holds most religions in contempt and a staunch believer in science (even if a lot of the science he's up to is unethical). unless the state of the republican party is very different in the DCU than it is irl, he is not a republican.

frankly, on paper, he is something between a neo-lib centrist and a weird libertarian, which i personally think is way funnier.

[fionatheicicle]

I hate that this needs to be said, i also hate that i’m saying this. I do not support biden at all. He is a despicable excuse for a human being. However the truth is: a third party candidate CANNOT WIN THE ELECTION. If we do not vote for biden then PROJECT 2025 WILL HAPPEN, the conservatives will genocide every single individual who doesn’t believe what they do. It will be WORSE than the handmade tale. They will make the Spanish Inquisition seem like a pleasure cruise. Iran will look positively tame. It will usher in another dark age. Please do not let your attitude at biden allow trump to win. Vote blue.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

When parties fail, movements step up

This Saturday (19 Aug), I'm appearing at the San Diego Union-Tribune Festival of Books. I'm on a 2:30PM panel called "Return From Retirement," followed by a signing:

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/festivalofbooks

Does anyone like the American two party system? The parties are opaque, private organizations, weak institutions that are prone to capture and corruption, and gerrymandering's "safe seats" means that the real election often takes place in the party's smoke-filled rooms, when a sure-thing candidate is selected:

https://doctorow.medium.com/weak-institutions-a26a20927b27

But there doesn't seem to be any way to fix it. For one thing, the two parties are in charge of any reform, and they're in no hurry to put themselves out of business. It's effectively impossible for a third party to gain any serious power in the USA, and that's by design. After the leftist Populists party came within a spitting distance of power in the 1890s, the Dems and Repubs got together and cooked the system, banning fusion voting and erecting other structural barriers.

The Nader and Perot campaigns were doomed from the outset, in other words. Either candidate could have been far more popular than the D and R on the ballot, and they still would have lost. It's how the deck is stacked, and to unstack it, reformers would need to take charge of at least one – and probably both – of the parties.

But that's not cause for surrender – it's a call to action. In an interview with Seymour Hersh, Thomas Frank (Listen, Liberal) sets out another locus of power, one with the potential to deliver control over the party to its base: social movements:

https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/ordinary-people-by-the-millions

It's been done before. The parties are routinely transformed by power-shifts within their internal coalitions: since 1970, corporate Dems have consistently pushed the party to the right, making it the power of white-collar professionals and relying on working people showing up and marking their ballots with a D because they have "nowhere else to go."

Bill Clinton was the most successful of these corporate raiders, delivering the parts of the Reagan Revolution that Reagan himself could never have managed: dismantling tariffs and bank regulations, passing the crime bill and welfare "reform." He came within a whisper of (partially) privatizing Social Security.

This set in motion the forces that made Trumpism possible: when Dems told deindustrialized workers to "learn to code" and blamed them for the destruction of their communities, it opened a space for Make America Great Again, the (empty) workerist rhetoric of the GOP. The Dems' plan of putting "really smart people" in charge and letting them run things was a (predictable) disaster. "Really smart" isn't the same as "infallible" and really smart people can be spooked or bulled into doing the wrong thing – like Obama "foaming the runways" for the banks with the houses of mortgage holders, and leaving the bankers responsible for the Great Financial Crisis unscathed:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/15/mon-dieu-les-guillotines/#ceci-nes-pas-une-bailout

"Really smart people" can't get us out of this mess. Instead, we need the kind of muscular political action – the "whirlwind" – that characterized FDR's New Deal: "complete reformation of the banking industry.. just about every other industry as well. Regulation. Social Security. Public works. Antitrust. Soil conservation."

FDR got there by alienating his former classmates and refusing the go-slow entreaties of his cronies. He got there because there was a mass social movement that made him do it ("I want to do it, now make me do it"):

https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/i-agree-with-you-i-want-to-do-it-now-make-me-do-it/

Every time in US history where one of the political party duopoly listened to its base, it was because of a mass social movement: the farmers' movement (1890s), labor (1930s), civil rights and antiwar (1960s). As Frank says:

Social movements succeed. They build and they change the intellectual climate and then, when the crisis comes, they make possible things like agrarian reform or the New Deal or the Civil Rights acts of the 1960s.

Today, we see the seeds of those social movements: the new union movement. Black Lives Matter. Neobrandeisians with their "hipster antitrust." These are the movements that are creating "ideas lying around": ideas that, in time of crisis, can move from the fringe to the center in an eyeblink:

https://doctorow.medium.com/ideas-lying-around-33a28901a7ae

They are setting in motion another transformation of the Democratic Party, from its top-down, "really smart people" model to a bottom-up, people-powered one, kept in check by movements, not party bosses. As Frank says, "They require the mass participation of ordinary people. Without that, I am afraid that nothing is possible."

I'm kickstarting the audiobook for "The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation," a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and make a new, good internet to succeed the old, good internet. It's a DRM-free book, which means Audible won't carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/17/popular-front-of-judea/#speaking-frankly

[specialagentartemis]

doing my part to defeat Trump in November by signing a petition supporting putting RFK on the ballot as an Independent. He’s a conservative dipshit, but he’s a respectable, establishment conservative dipshit, and he’ll give dyed-in-the-wool Republicans who maybe don’t like Trump very much but will never ever vote for Biden someone to sigh in relief and vote for. Splitting the conservative vote. I’m positive that that was a factor that led to Biden’s win in 2020 let’s do it again

[peoplespartymd]

Check out the Peoples Party

Tired of the two-party system controlled by corporations? Look at the @peoplesparty.  We seek self-governance; free of corporate influence; a living wage; healthcare for all; an end to forever wars; the protection of the Bill of Rights; a liveable planet for all; & more.

[houseofpurplestars]

[Image id: a picture of Jasmine Sherman, a beautiful Black non-binary person. They wear multi-colored beaded braids, glasses, and a septum piercing. They look confident and capable. /end id]

If you pass up this opportunity to vote for a disabled Black femme enby, I won't listen to anything you have to say ever again.

[decolonize-the-left]

"Politicians are wonderful ideas but what you need is change. You don't need some icon. You need someone that is going to make sure you can feed your family, educate your children, spend time with them." - Jasmine Sherman

Debate starts at 2:05:25

A good watch for most people who wanna know if 3rd parties know what they're talking about, watch them debate, or learn about other candidates!

[originalleftist]

Some people may be confused by the argument that a third party vote, or not voting, is helping Trump. Why is it helping him more than Biden? Why is it not a neutral action? The answer is, simply, that opponents of Trumpian fascism are the majority. There are, therefore, only two ways that Trump can plausibly win: by cheating (which gets harder the stronger the turnout against him is), or by dividing the anti-Trump vote. A combination of these methods is how he won in 2016, and it's how he aims to win again in 2024. Thus, anything which divides the anti-Trump/anti-fascist vote helps him.