You’d think midterms would be a great time to get your name out there and run high profile candidates to win House districts led by charlatans…
Bernie is okay, though. I’m sure you hear less about all US candidates in general during midterms, especially when the average congressional district is unlikely to have one running every other election.
Bernie does it the right way. Build a base of support to influence people who will then influence the politicians.
Most politicians are going to make platforms based on polling numbers and a general sense about what the voters want. Kinda how things are supposed to work in a representative democracy. The politicians are supposed to represent the people when passing laws and setting policy.
As nice as it sounds in theory to be able to check a box beside the name of a person that agrees with you already, it’s just not feasible because everyone has different ideas and different priorities. So you gotta check a box beside the person that’s most likely to be sympathetic to your ideas and priorities (and actually has a shot of actually being a representative) and then make some noise to convince them they should do something about the issues you care about.
I didn’t really catch the distinction between what Bernie does and what any other politician is doing. In both cases you check a box for who you think represents you the most. Bernie just has to try a little harder to stay on the ballot.
Bernie just has to try a little harder to stay on the ballet.
He does a good job staying on his toes.
This is my point though. It should be a higher priority for running a candidate in every congressional district and running local ads for them.
The hard part is getting people to run for office, getting funding for the campaign, organizing events and groups and managing staff to accomplish the goal of getting on the ballot and even then having a chance of winning is a bit of a long shot.
And worst of all, if you’re less moderate than the adjacent party then you’re going to split the vote of that party’s constituents and lead to the opponent’s party winning.
chances are, they probably are, but corporate media is never going to give them any airtime so you never hear about it
In my state if a Democrat doesn’t run for a seat. Chances are a Republican is running uncontested. I leave large parts of the state ballot blank because Republicans run uncontested ON EVERY BALLOT. Even presidential years. And while I rarely vote FOR anyone. I always vote AGAINST Republicans. Well them and Rand loving economic liberals pretending to be libertarians. Which is basically the same thing.
If we had god-damn Approval Voting you could literally just vote for everyone but the evil candidate and that would actually help everyone else and hurt them. “Anybody but Dr. Evil” would be a legit PAC interest group.
Yeah, Libertarians and Republicans are so alike: both want drug legalization, massive military cuts, removal of a lot of tariffs and immigration restrictions, and having 38 year-old gay men running for President—2 peas in a pod.
If that’s so, then why would most of those “Libertarians” vote for Republicans over Democrats who better align with those goals? Every time I’ve ever asked a Libertarian when there wasn’t a Libertarian candidate running who they were going to vote for. Or read about such a situation. It’s always been the republican.
Liberals larping as libertarians say so much contradictory bullshit. Take so many actions against their own stated goals. They say they want those things. Yet they won’t take the very basic goals to achieve them against the actual people responsible for it. Wealthy business owners. They want wealthy business owners to be their rulers. The problem with government isn’t that it exists. It’s that it’s been captured by wealthy business owners. Why do we have so much military around the world? To protect the interest of wealthy business owners. Why do we have so many tariffs in place? To protect the interest of wealthy business owners. Why do we have so many restrictions on immigration in place? To protect the work Supply and low wage Workforce for wealthy business owners. Why do we have so many drugs made illegal. Because it suits the wealthy and powerful.
And yet these so-called Libertarians would do nothing against those people. The man that coined the phrase Libertarian and defined what Libertarianism is showed what needs to be done. And these so called Libertarians rejected Libertarianism and it’s creator.
The “get your name out there” idea is the problem.
For a third party to be successful they’d need to first build a massive grassroots movement behind it. That takes a lot of effort and may not be successful.
And what happens if you build that grassroots movement but the Democrats say “hey people seem to care a lot about this issue so lets put it on the platform.” Then what if the Dems actually deal with that issue? Well then that grassroots movement was a success! Except the leaders of the movement may not “get their name out there” as their name isn’t on a ballot that everyone sees.
Basically US third parties are mostly about giving name recognition to a few individuals (who may or may not have brain worms) so they can get on TV and have some notoriety. People voting third party feel like they’re sticking it to someone… when really the people they’re sticking it to don’t have enough votes to do much and the people they’re voting for just want to be on TV.
Pretty much the entire operating philosophy and goal of third parties is wrong.
Like you’ve said “Getting your name out there” has been a complete failure. I think it’s safe to say at this point that it doesn’t work. If Democrats or Republicans had used it as a strategy, they’d be rightfully dragged.
The “do well enough to get national funding” goal hasn’t worked either. Ross Perot got 8% with the Reform party, but no ones even heard of that party.
This is why I consider third parties to just be grifts and scams. Either that, or they’re truly stupid.
I mean tbf I’ve seen the libertarians and greens run those races too, it’s just that being a third party under fptp bites those candidates just as hard as their presidential candidates.
Also having such a hopeless position means they’re not actually accountable to their supporters, meaning refusing to actually try to build a movement doesn’t actually hurt them.
Greens / libertarians are just slightly different flavors of liberalism. There’s still only one ideology allowed.
You’ve inadvertently highlighted the problem. There’s a third party, Party for Socialism and Liberation, that certainly isn’t liberal. But you’ve never even heard of them from the sounds of it. They’d do much better if instead of running an expensive presidential campaign, they put up candidates in your districts and ran ads for them.
wp:Category:Communist parties in the United States
wp:Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
The Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (also known as RCP, The Revcoms, or Revcom) is a new communist party in the United States founded in 1975 and led by its chairman, Bob Avakian. The party organizes for a revolution to overthrow the system of capitalism and replace it with a socialist state, with the final aim of world communism.[1] The RCP is frequently described as a cult around Avakian.[2][3][4]
wp:Party for Socialism and Liberation
The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) is a communist party in the United States. PSL was established in 2004, when its members split from the Workers World Party. The group believes that a socialist revolution is necessary to overthrow capitalism and establish socialism.[7] The organization works toward this end by organizing and participating in local protests, running candidates in elections, and political education favoring a revolutionary socialist vanguard party.
Notable members include Gloria La Riva, Michael Prysner, Eugene Puryear, Jodi Dean and Claudia de la Cruz. In 2022, PSL said it had members in “over 100 cities”.[9] PSL does not release membership numbers.[10]
The Workers World Party (WWP) is a Marxist–Leninist communist party founded in 1959 by a group led by Sam Marcy.[3][better source needed] WWP members are sometimes called Marcyites. Marcy and his followers split from the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in 1958 over a series of long-standing differences, among them their support for Henry A. Wallace’s Progressive Party in 1948, their view of People’s Republic of China as a workers’ state, and their defense of the 1956 Soviet intervention in Hungary, some of which the SWP opposed.[4][5][6]
wp:New Afrikan Black Panther Party
The New Afrikan Black Panther Party (NABPP) is a Black Power Marxist–Leninist–Maoist[1] organization in the United States, largely based out of the Red Onion State Prison in Wise County, Virginia[2] and referred to as the New Afrikan Black Panther Party – Prison Chapter (NABPP-PC).
wp:Category:Political parties in the United States
The Working Families Party of New York was first organized in 1998 by a coalition of labor unions, community organizations, members of the now-inactive national New Party, and a variety of advocacy groups such as Citizen Action of New York and ACORN: the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.[10] The party is primarily concerned with healthcare reform, raising the minimum wage, universal paid sick days, addressing student debt, progressive taxation, public education, and energy and environmental reform. It has usually cross-endorsed progressive Democratic and some Republican[11] candidates through fusion voting but occasionally runs its own candidates.
