No, a third party is non viable. But the right move would have been exactly what the crazy right wingers have done with the Republicans. Get organized and primary the fuck out of the people blocking things.
The “tea party” gave us the blueprint, but we’ve been too dumb and lazy to follow it. When they didn’t give us the public option with Obamacare, every primary since then should have been about cleaning house of the corporatist, establishment Democrats and replacing them with real progressives. But since we’re too lazy and dumb to vote in primaries in mass numbers, their establishment people keep sailing to victory.
That system is only for Presidential Primaries. There’s a primary for most positions all the way down to dog catcher. Getting a partisan seat gives you a voice in the state party and possibly the national if your seat is high enough. Get enough Congressional seats and you control the special delegate swing in Presidential Primaries. Might they change that system as a progressive movement gets more seats? Sure, and they can have another riot outside their national convention too.
The very thing you call rigging is vulnerable to a tea party style primary challenge.
Primaries are only rigged in that yes, the rules and the entire framework is built to benefit those currently in power, but that is less rigged than the general is against a third party, which is to say, totally, absolutely, and unassailably rigged. Proclaiming it impossible because it’s rigged is silly when you’re advocating for instead competing in one that is far, far more rigged and has far more structure to prevent any upsets.
We have never actually won a primary and had them ignore it. They use their structural advantages as much as they can, but if we push hard enough to overcome those advantages, they don’t just nullify the election and go with their candidate. We do get people like Ocasio-Cortez in there from time to time, when people actually show up to the primaries enough to flip it to the more progressive candidate. If we got enough candidates like her in, not just in congress but state houses and such too, we’d actually start getting places.
Now the bribes and money on the corporate side, nothing we can do about that - we have to overcome it so that we can get officials in place that will do something about it.
Now lemme put it this way. I live in bumfuck Ohio where there’s no chance of a progressive candidate being elected. But I still vote in every primary. People who live in places where there is more of a chance of doing something need to be as diligent as I am, if not more, damnit.
Correct. This is why there is essentially zero chance at political reform in this country without large scale violence. Granted, that violence will almost certainly be misdirected, but I think given the actual state of the system it truly is a forgone conclusion that we will see mass civil unrest within the next (~20) years.
Decades ago, a group calling itself The New Party tried to eliminate the spoiler effect of third parties through the practice of electoral fusion, that is, allowing the same candidate to run and appear on the ballot under more than one political party. That way, they’d know where their support came from. But the Democratic Farm Labor Party (Minnesota’s Democratic Party organization) went to court to shut it down, offering the specious argument that it would confuse voters.
Would the corporatist, establishment Democrats allow an upstart progressive movement into its primaries?
No, a third party is non viable. But the right move would have been exactly what the crazy right wingers have done with the Republicans. Get organized and primary the fuck out of the people blocking things.
The “tea party” gave us the blueprint, but we’ve been too dumb and lazy to follow it. When they didn’t give us the public option with Obamacare, every primary since then should have been about cleaning house of the corporatist, establishment Democrats and replacing them with real progressives. But since we’re too lazy and dumb to vote in primaries in mass numbers, their establishment people keep sailing to victory.
You’re ignoring primaries are rigged, the party can just ignore the results, and pro-corpo candidates take in an insane amount of bribes.
That system is only for Presidential Primaries. There’s a primary for most positions all the way down to dog catcher. Getting a partisan seat gives you a voice in the state party and possibly the national if your seat is high enough. Get enough Congressional seats and you control the special delegate swing in Presidential Primaries. Might they change that system as a progressive movement gets more seats? Sure, and they can have another riot outside their national convention too.
The very thing you call rigging is vulnerable to a tea party style primary challenge.
Primaries are only rigged in that yes, the rules and the entire framework is built to benefit those currently in power, but that is less rigged than the general is against a third party, which is to say, totally, absolutely, and unassailably rigged. Proclaiming it impossible because it’s rigged is silly when you’re advocating for instead competing in one that is far, far more rigged and has far more structure to prevent any upsets.
We have never actually won a primary and had them ignore it. They use their structural advantages as much as they can, but if we push hard enough to overcome those advantages, they don’t just nullify the election and go with their candidate. We do get people like Ocasio-Cortez in there from time to time, when people actually show up to the primaries enough to flip it to the more progressive candidate. If we got enough candidates like her in, not just in congress but state houses and such too, we’d actually start getting places.
Now the bribes and money on the corporate side, nothing we can do about that - we have to overcome it so that we can get officials in place that will do something about it.
Now lemme put it this way. I live in bumfuck Ohio where there’s no chance of a progressive candidate being elected. But I still vote in every primary. People who live in places where there is more of a chance of doing something need to be as diligent as I am, if not more, damnit.
Correct. This is why there is essentially zero chance at political reform in this country without large scale violence. Granted, that violence will almost certainly be misdirected, but I think given the actual state of the system it truly is a forgone conclusion that we will see mass civil unrest within the next (~20) years.
Decades ago, a group calling itself The New Party tried to eliminate the spoiler effect of third parties through the practice of electoral fusion, that is, allowing the same candidate to run and appear on the ballot under more than one political party. That way, they’d know where their support came from. But the Democratic Farm Labor Party (Minnesota’s Democratic Party organization) went to court to shut it down, offering the specious argument that it would confuse voters.
Would the corporatist, establishment Democrats allow an upstart progressive movement into its primaries?
The closer they hold primaries, the worse their voter turn out gets. It’s a double edged sword.