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Dems Reportedly Angry That Progressives Are Pushing Them to Act Like an Opposition Party.
(www.commondreams.org)
this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2025
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Maybe progressives should simply start their own party instead of trying to hijack a current one.
America doesn't work like that. Due to the way the electoral system is set up only two parties can be viable at any given time. The only time you can create a new party is in a realignment, eg. When Lincoln formed the republican party as an explicitly anti slavery northern party and the democrats became the pro slavery southern party. Prior to that it was the whigs and the democrats, which were aligned around issues other than slavery.
So unless the progressives can force a realignment along some new issue and subsume a major party, creating another party would just be handing a lot of elections over to the Republicans.
This is why lemmy was so vehemently against Jill stein and the greens even though most people on here agree with her politics more than kamala, because they saw her as sabotaging the democrats chances and handing the election to trump.
Also hijacking a party is easier than building a new one and if you gain control you can use the power of that party to shift opinion. Most voters these days vote based on there team, or more recently against the other team. So if the democratic party started pushing a green new deal then the rank and file would fall in line, if nothing just to stop the Republicans. You can see this in how trump hijacked the Republicans. If you showed a republican project 2025 in 2015 they wouldve called it absurd, but now most are in support of it.
This sounds like living in a perpetual state of short term gain long term loss. Change won't happen over night, and you may lose a few elections in the short term, but ultimately you'll establish a party you actual want to support instead of one you're kind of willing to tolerate.
I'm not going to criticize Jill Stein or her party for voting based on their beliefs.
Its not "hijacking" to push for policies in their own party.
I disagree, or perhaps it depends on how you look at it. If a small, vocal minority in an overall larger group begin to push policies/opinions consistently that are not shared by the overall larger group, you could argue the values of the small and larger group no longer completely align. If the smaller group continues even after being made aware those policies/opinions aren't going to fly, one could argue they are now separate groups. I suppose it depends on how far their values have grown apart from each other.
I'm not necessarily saying that is what is happening here, but it's no secret progressives aren't happy with the democratic party establishment. Starting your own party might be best.
In politics we call those groups factions and 'vocal minorities' form the base of support.
If you want to change policy in the USA then you need to either mobilise large numbers of people or large amounts of money and I'm surprised that the top comment is someone complaining about a political party being subject to democratic forces.
It's not small. The Congressional Progressive Caucus is 95/215 House Democrats. It's half the damn party.
If they left, the Democratic Party would collapse, so it's insane how senior Dem leaders treat them. Democratic leadership sucks at coalitions, though, or even listening to voter sentiment, so I don't expect them to learn anything from all their recent anti-progressive actions that have been blowing up in their faces.
Wake me up when we have a voting system that allows for more than 2 parties. Until then, I will try and push Dems left
IRV. Some states have it.
I am aware some states are adopting it. But until it is a common thing nationwide it doesn't really remedy the situation. Yet.
What one can do is always vote even in primaries. Primary turnout is one of the big problems. Use polling info to do your own IRV. Vote for people your both want and can win. If your in a atate that can choose which party to vote in during the primary, choose based on best effect.
Oh for sure, and I do. I'm a big proponent of voting your heart in a primary
Yeah. That worked out so well for this last election.
Yeah party politics should be decided by who 'donates' the most money not by voters or party members. Pay up or shut up plebs!