View Full Version : The Invisible Third Party
catherine
1-30-20, 12:44pm
Imagine you have 4 kids. You love and support all but one. The 4th kid you hide in the closet. You don't feed them. You want them to disappear while you go on grooming and praising the other 3.
Bernie is the 4th child of the Democratic Party.
He wears the badge of "Democrat" but his "parents" want to send him off to a foster home or worse.
Recently the Methodist church recognized that they need to create a schism because they can't reconcile the side of their membership that honors sexual and gender diversity vs those that don't.
I think the Democrats need to recognize a similar "irreconcilable difference." What do you think? Frankly, this Bernie Blackout and Bernie Besmirching on the part of the media and the DNC makes me all the more zealous about supporting him. Just on principle. The Dems are NOT LISTENING to their constituents.
I think Bernie and his supporters need their own party.
ApatheticNoMore
1-30-20, 1:01pm
There can be no viable 3rd party in the U.S., it's a ridiculous idea. Now if one of the existing parties becomes completely non-viable (and let's face it they are both close to it, however orange man party does have some 40% committed no matter what orange man devotees). Then maybe.
There can be no viable 3rd party in the U.S., it's a ridiculous idea.
Why is that?
ApatheticNoMore
1-30-20, 1:21pm
Because it's always just splitting the vote, maybe if we had ranked choice voting for President. I don't see that happening.
Because it's always just splitting the vote, ....
Splitting the vote.
That has many assumptions embedded. For instance, that "the vote" is necessarily belonging to one of two parties, and anyone else participating is somehow going against the very structure of nature.
I see nothing in the Constitution that requires we hand over our government to two private political organizations.
iris lilies
1-30-20, 5:49pm
Because it's always just splitting the vote, maybe if we had ranked choice voting for President. I don't see that happening.
It most definitely will not happen if we don’t do anything to make it happen.
But then once “it” has happened, am I supposed to go with the Bernieites? I dont think so.
so maybe you are right!
If I remember civics class correctly, if there was a strong third party and nobody got 270 votes in the electoral college, then the House elects the President and the Senate the VP. Wouldn’t that be a ratings boost for CSPAN?
Bernie is the 4th child of the Democratic Party.
He wears the badge of "Democrat" but his "parents" want to send him off to a foster home or worse.
That's because he's not a Democrat, he's usurped their brand while maintaining his official status as an Independent because his true affiliation as a Socialist hurts his election prospects. Rather than being a 4th child of the Democratic Party, he's actually a neighbor's offspring hanging out in the popular kids house and fighting for a portion of their inheritance.
That's because he's not a Democrat, he's usurped their brand while maintaining his official status as an Independent because his true affiliation as a Socialist hurts his election prospects. Rather than being a 4th child of the Democratic Party, he's actually a neighbor's offspring hanging out in the popular kids house and fighting for a portion of their inheritance.
Clever analogy, but I think the DNC is like the parents who give up on learning how to use the remote and sing the praises of days gone by. According to this article, most Democrats lean toward a more leftist stance, but the "parents" refuse to acknowledge it. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018/08/14/democrats-prefer-socialism-capitalism-gallup-poll/988558002/
Bernie is leading in NH and I heard an NPR piece today interviewing NH voters, but they didn't interview anyone supporting Bernie. Andrew Yang won a youth poll in Iowa, but all the media focus there is on Biden, Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg and Klobuchar.
US political parties have died and new ones been born in the past. One can hope. There is a Massachusetts ballot initiative this year to introduce ranked choice voting. It will be interesting to see how much the Democratic machine, which largely controls the state, fights it. This got on the ballot by bypassing the politicians through a voter signature drive.
I think Joe Crowley would be surprised to learn that USA Today had reassigned his party affiliation to the GOP.
I think Joe Crowley would be surprised to learn that USA Today had reassigned his party affiliation to the GOP.
Oops.
My skepticism of the motives of the DNC is the reason I became an Independent 30-some years ago.
My skepticism of the motives of the DNC is the reason I became an Independent 30-some years ago.
The only reason I affiliated with the Dems instead of going independent was so I could vote in the primaries, but it looks like Vermont has open primaries.
I'm thrilled I'm now a VT registered voter, because now I can vote on SuperTuesday instead of voting in NJ on the LAST primary date other than the Virgin Islands. It's ridiculous. So many states are absolutely unable to vote for the candidate of their choice unless their candidate is one of the 1 or 2 last candidates standing.
That's because he's not a Democrat, he's usurped their brand while maintaining his official status as an Independent because his true affiliation as a Socialist hurts his election prospects. Rather than being a 4th child of the Democratic Party, he's actually a neighbor's offspring hanging out in the popular kids house and fighting for a portion of their inheritance.
The Dems were happy to have him caucus with them all these years. Not a neighbor's offspring but Cinderella shunned by her step-sisters.
I'm just reading an op-ed in the NY Times: bluntly headlined: Bernie Sanders Can't Win. Now that the Times has endorsed Klobuchar/Warren, they are going to do their darnedest to throw Bernie under the bus. The op-ed piece sounds like it was written by any one of the misinformed Red-scare Fox News commentators.
It's frustrating to see how committed the Democrats are to the idea that a milk toast candidate can rise to the occasion to beat Trump--that their candidate doesn't have to project passion and change--that "never Trump" will be enough. It won't be enough.
It will be an interesting to see this roll out.
ApatheticNoMore
1-31-20, 7:12pm
Noone knows for certain who can win. Although if their case was Sanders can't win because he will be undermined at every point, including by the Dems, they may have a bit of a point.
If I give the benefit of the doubt to the certainty some seem to have that someone not centrist enough can't win (well the NYT are probably just lackeys, but they aren't the only ones sure about who can and can't win), I think it's based on politics from 50-55 years ago, neither McGovern (on the left) nor Goldwater (on the right) won, in fact they lost in a landslide.
The problem is most of the potential electorate wasn't even alive much less political then!
And look who is in office now, someone who by every possible account COULD NOT EVER WIN (and of course should not have, but that's another matter).
The Dems were happy to have him caucus with them all these years. Not a neighbor's offspring but Cinderella shunned by her step-sisters.
He’s a sort of common-law Democrat.
I was just listening to an interview with Ezra Klein, who recently published "Why We're Polarized". The book sounds like a worthwhile read. The basic premise of it being that the 50s/60s/70s, which many of us consider normal, were actually quite abnormal because the two parties were neither "conservative" or "liberal" for however one defines those terms. There were conservative dems, who were mostly in the south and had mostly become democrats because of what Lincoln did to the south, and there were liberal republicans in places like New England. Today the parties are much more distinct from each other than they were back then. Tying back to this thread, it seems unlikely that a centrist will do especially well nationally, regardless of which party they come from. They will just lose the enthusiasm of the party's base without attracting terribly many people from the other party.
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