I’ve given up on the Democratic Party. For reasons that are listed below, I’ve drawn the conclusion that our country’s only hope is to support a 3rd party to contest the strangle hold the Democratic and White Party (aka the Republicans) have on a gridlocked national government.
Fact is, to this point I’ve cared more about getting Democrats elected than the Democrats themselves have. They currently control the White House, the Senate and the House, but still have allowed the White Party to rig elections (through gerrymandering and voter suppression laws) for at least the next decade. Democrats could stop this, but have decided not to.
I’ve had enough of that.
So, at this late stage of my life, I’ve decided to put my activist efforts into supporting The People’s Party. I’ve begun my campaign on its behalf by making the following proposal to a group of highly motivated seniors from New York and Connecticut whose company I’ve joined just recently.
See what you think. And if it makes sense to you, sign up for People’s Party membership and follow the suggestions below to get its candidates on the ballot where you live.
Proposal for Joining the People’s Party
GIVEN THAT:
The United States is a failed state.
Whose gridlocked political system daily shows itself incapable of the radical change demanded by rampant inequality, climate chaos and the threat of nuclear war,
Since practically speaking, it has become a single War Party state
Whose White Party and its almost indistinguishable “opposition” (the Democrats) have both been captured by Wall Street, the Military Industrial Complex, and by the health care, pharmaceutical, and fossil fuel industries – as well as by the gun lobby,
And whose corporate agendas (despite Democratic control of the presidency, House, and senate) have blocked legislation addressing issues touching the lives of ordinary people such as:
- Medicare for all
- $2000 stimulus checks (vs. Biden’s $1500)
- $15 minimum wage
- Cancellation of college debt
- Free college tuition
- Electoral reform
- Passage of the PRO Act (protecting the right of workers to organize)
- Immigration reform
- Normalization of relations with Cuba
- Stopping the war in Yemen
- Etc., etc., etc.
All rendering the U.S. more fascist than democratic (i.e., a police state supporting corporate interests rather than those of “the people” while blaming national dysfunctions on the poor and powerless),
AND GIVEN THAT:
Democrats simply ignore progressives because the latter have nowhere else to go
Despite existence of an unmistakable national hunger for profound political change
Evidenced by the fact that
- 62% of Americans want a 3rd party (up from 57% just last September)
- 50% of Americans now identify as “Independent” and therefore constitute a de facto 3rd party left without meaningful representation
- With only 25% identifying as Republican and 25% as Democrat.
AND GIVEN THAT:
The members of our Men’s Group feel great urgency to leave the world a better place
By using our various skills (organizational, activist, administrative, academic, inspirational, journalistic, artistic . . ..)
And the wisdom gathered from long experience-packed lives
IT IS TIME FOR US TO:
Join thought-leaders and activists like Cornel West, Marianne Williamson, Nina Turner, Danny Glover, Mike Gravel, and Jimmy Dore
And stop voting Democrat
Instead, giving our support to the nascent People’s Party
WHOSE PROGRESSIVE, POPULIST PROGRAM INCLUDES:
Removing corporate money from politics
And a social justice agenda addressing:
- Electoral reform (passing HR1 and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act)
- Drastically reduced military spending
- Climate change through a comprehensive Green New Deal
- Closing the concentration camps now imprisoning asylum seekers and immigrant children
- Medicare for all
- Forgiving college debt
- Free college for all
- $15 minimum wage
Suggested Actions
- Work on petition drive to register the party in NY & CT (it’s already registered in Maine, California, and Colorado)
- Publicize in Op-eds
- Introduce topic in our faith communities
- Volunteer
- Donate
About Things That Matter 
If many people follow your example the fascists won’t need to cheat to win elections; you’re handing it to them.
If I didn’t have children, grandchildren, and great grand children who will spend their entire lives under authoritarian faux-theocratic rule, I too would allow my arrogance to lead me to abandon the ONLY party we have that will oppose the fascists – the badly flawed but still viable Democratic Party.
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I so respect your opinion, Larry. And I well may be wrong. But the way I see it, the Democrats are going to lose anyway — certainly in the midterms, since they refuse to address the White Party’s election rigging.. And for the reasons I tried to express in my “manifesto,” they’ll lose to Trump or his fascist successor in 2024. And the U.S. will degenerate even further as the failed state it is. Both parties are dooming us with their inaction on climate change, their failure to address inequality, their nuclear arms programs, and their belligerency towards China and Russia. We desperately need an alternative.
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I get it, we certainly do. But due to the inability of the Founders to foresee a major Party (to be fair, they didn’t foresee ANY parties and hoped – naively – to avoid them) that would go off the deep end of authoritarianism, we have no alternatives, plus we have the radically undemocratic institutions of the Electoral College and the Senate.
I observed my 76th birthday yesterday. Based on the social progress that took place during the first 30 years of my life, I had hoped for a relaxing dotage and a bright future for my children and theirs. But it now seems to me, based on my reading of history, that that period was a complete anomaly to the rest of our history, and we as a nation have reverted to our cultural norms as experienced during both the Gilded Age and our recent history. I’m quite pessimistic, though my personal status and outlook is not really threatened.
I voted for Nader in 2000; I will never make that mistake again.
And thank you for the compliment. I rarely disagree with you but I had to comment on this one.
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So appreciated. As a 81 year-old, I share your experience. The ’60s and early ’70s were wonderful in their actuality and promise. But alas . . ..
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Very much agree with you, Mike. I see the dangers, as noted by Larry, but a third party seems the only hope for the future of US society. I’d want to see the New Luddites in power, but your ‘People’s Party’ would also be fine. Over here in the UK things are not a whole lot better,. but the situation in the US appears more or less terminal.
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I’m torn too, Peter. But “America” has been reduced to a one-party state with the Democrats enabling the White Party to rig elections almost as if it doesn’t care. We need something entirely new.
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