Progressives within the Democratic Party are about to be called "spoilers"

I've seen variation of an argument recently on social media that came out today as this NBC article: "Democrats are having a banner recruiting year -- and it could cost them". The article essentially makes the case that, because there are in some districts a large number of people running as Democrats, that it could "cost" the party. They specifically cite California and it's "top two" laws, that basically requires the top two candidates to go into a run-off even if they are the same party. The article argues that the large number of Democrats will split the vote in the primaries and allow the top two candidates in the general to be Republican candidates.

In fact, the article says:

But crowded primaries can also waste money, sow internal divisions, push candidates to the ideological extremes, and tarnish whoever emerges from the melee.

It goes on to say:

Republicans are counting on overcrowded Democratic races to help bail them out of what is shaping up to be a very bad year. 

"We look forward to facing whoever limps out of the Democrats' battle royale: black and blue, and broke," said National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Steve Stivers. 

One GOP super PAC is even considering meddling in Democratic races to sow chaos and promote weaker opponents. "It'd be too much not to," said Cory Bliss, the executive director of the Congressional Leadership Fund. 

It cites the example from California again, that the state party has thrown its weight behind the candidate from last election, Doug Applegate, and is calling on challengers to drop out and support him, even though Applegate has been accused of scandal is not necessarily looking like a strong candidate. Regardless, the fact that the candidate and party are trying to pressure challengers out of the primaries -- the elections that are supposed to choose the candidate for the party, rather than allowing party elite to decide! -- shows that Democrats have not learned a thing since 2016.

This is exactly the arguments we saw as the Clinton wing of the Democratic party put pressure on Bernie Sanders and his supporters to drop out and fall in line behind Clinton. The "split the vote" argument is also exactly the reason they give for why voting for the Greens is a "waste".

Mark my words: the Democratic party is about to launch a campaign against progressive/socialist challengers, calling them "spoilers" and "weaker candidates propped up by GOP". This is all scare tactics to try to get people to fall back in line with the corporate "centrist" Democrats whom they will claim are "stronger" candidates that can "reach out to republican voters with bipartisanship".

The Democratic party could be working to fix this. Since the primaries are completely party-controlled, the DNC could do a simple vote and switch to ranked choice voting and make the "spoiler" argument completely obsolete. They could use ranked choice to find the candidate that is actually the most preferred by the most voters (open primaries would be even better at this!), rather than the establishment-backed flawed winning candidate of a plurality vote. And yet, they don't. I haven't heard a peep about ranked choice, and in fact, establishment politicians on both sides of the aisle are fighting ranked choice implementation in Maine after voters chose last year to switch to ranked choice. This might have something to do with how a number of Democratic state representatives in Maine have broken off and become Greens, and the Green Party is rapidly growing there. People are sick of establishment politics.

Democrats don't want ranked choice -- in the general election or even the primaries -- because they can use plurality voting and the "spoiler" argument and the "weaker candidate" argument as a stick to beat back opposition. They prey on the politics of fear, counting on you to ultimately side with their establishment pick out of fear that a worse candidate from the Republicans could ultimately win. They make this argument every election, and despite their corporate candidates typically winning primaries, they still go on to lose the general election. But instead of asking how their strategy can change to win over more voters, they still blame progressives and Greens for those losses. Despite the huge losses to the GOP and Trump in 2016, Democrats are continuing with their same policies, because why not, it has worked in the past. They are anticipating riding an anti-Trump wave to victory and have no need to appeal to progressives. They will use 2018 as an opportunity to try to crush the progressive "rebellion".

We need to move beyond the two-party narrative about how we vote. They use our voting methods to bash not only third party movements like the Greens, but even progressive challengers within the party.

Our energy is not well directed at "invading" the Democratic party, however. The primaries are not "official" elections, in the sense that they are party nomination procedures. Parties, as private organizations, can nominate however they want. Look at how much the Unity Reform Commission is struggling to get support to pass their small reforms that are much less than what progressives were originally asking for. There is huge momentum within the party to fight change. So to get the change you seek, you must take over nearly all local and state parties, with the end result being you get to maybe set some internal policy. None of that work is helping making fairer elections for our fellow Americans in the Republican, Green, Libertarian parties, or independent voters. (Remember that Trump won a lot of the early primaries with only something like 20% or 30% of the vote -- a landslide of Republicans did NOT want him and voted for someone else, yet he won -- ranked choice in the Republican primaries could have stopped Trump, and yet no one talks about that). Even if the Democratic party becomes more "progressive", we're still operating within a two party system that shuts out voices and opposition. We need to do better than this.

What we can do is change our laws for the general election. We can fight for a more fair system for all candidates, regardless of party affiliation, and make it easier for everyone to vote. While this is also an uphill battle, this is a battle for what's right, for making our system more democratic and fair to all, not just taking over a single party in a flawed two-party system. When we win this, we're not simply propping up a private organization with control over our elections process, we win and spread democratic reform for all Americans. This is what Greens stand for. We want proportional representation and ranked choice, we want voting holidays, we want equal access to debates and the airwaves, we want automatic voter registration and open primaries, we want verifiable voting methods instead of electronic machines we can't trust. These are things that are good for every voter and every party, and yet the two major parties never talk about any of this. And it's very clear why: they want to retain the control over our elections process, rather than opening it up to everyone with methods like proportional representation. Private organizations should NOT control our elections.

If you're sick of Democrats using the "spoiler" stick every election, please consider joining the Greens and helping us grow a new major party and change our election system.

Neoliberalism and why Republicans and Democrats are so similar

A world where profit is more important than people, where the rights of corporations trump the rights of individuals, where corporations use their influence on government to turn police forces into private security that focuses on protecting corporate assets. While I've long suspected these things were true, I didn't understand these are the results of neoliberalism until I read Noam Chomsky's "Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order".

When commentators refer to "neoliberalism" they are referring to the idea that corporations are the most important aspect of society. The word comes from "liberalism" (or more specifically "classical liberalism") which is the set of economic ideas perhaps best articulated by Adam Smith in "The Wealth of Nations", a book widely viewed as a classic on how free markets and capitalism work. Smith's work is where terms like "the invisible hand" come from; Smith argued that truly free markets were able to regulate themselves and would always bend toward correct actions. Smith however did acknowledge that monopolies and other economic conditions would prevent truly free markets and some limited government to protect against that was necessary, which most proponents conveniently leave off.

"Neoliberalism", with neo being a prefix that means "new", is literally the "new liberalism", a modern offshoot of those ideas. Government is seen as a necessary evil that must be kept minimal, taxes must all be kept minimal and never applied to capital, and the private sector and "invisible hand" of the market are the most powerful forces that must be trusted to work out in the long run. In other words, the role of government is to protect the rights of business in order to maintain a free market that is safe for capital to invest. The theory is that a free market full of competition will eventually stabilize and bring valuable goods at reasonable prices and pay reasonable wages, and this free market process is "automatic", meaning that government need not and should not ever intervene. Smith's work was in the late 1700s, a very different world before industrial automation when most of the world's population were farmers. Neoliberalism is effectively the attempt at carrying his ideas into the new industrialized (and now global) economy, and Chomsky's book does a great job at showing how this policy has been disastrous and counter to democratic ideals.

Neoliberalism has been on the upswing in the United States for decades, but probably most noticeably became public policy during the Reagan era. The Adam Smith Institute proudly provides both a good description of neoliberal policy and a boast that they have influenced such policy decisions since the 1970s, to give an example. Since then, Republican and Democratic presidents and Congresses have pushed for free market "invisible hand" solutions to problems. The parties disagree slightly on implementation -- with Republicans tending to lean completely toward "market-based solutions" while Democrats acknowledge some small "safety nets" might be necessary -- but both overwhelmingly agree that private business and not government needs to fix problems. We see this as members of both political parties have de-regulated banks and businesses (they call it "red tape"), cut funding for social programs and benefits, and pushed to privatize many services including utilities like water and even social security. This idea that capital -- investing in privately-owned businesses that control resources and sell to others for profit -- is superior to any other economic model and will always automatically lead to solutions of public problems is exactly the definition of capitalism.

If you don't believe how similar the two major parties are on neoliberalism, try to ask most politicians on either side about the free market or capitalism. Both Republicans and Democrats loudly trumpet private for-profit insurances as the model for healthcare, and reject any sort of publicly-funded model like single payer medicare for all, or even simply a public option to compete with private insurance. (Their differences on healthcare really only come down to whether government can require by law people to buy insurance, otherwise their plans are effectively the same). Nancy Pelosi, Democratic House leader, loudly proclaimed "we're capitalists, and that's just the way it is" when asked at a recent town hall. Bill Clinton worked with Republicans on many reforms during the 1990s, including de-regulation of banks and capital as well as "reform" of social programs like welfare (that lead to those programs being ineffective, allowing politicians to later use that as "evidence" the programs don't work and scrap them all-together). Even today, Democrats' arguments the GOP tax reform plan are mostly about not following proper Senate procedure.. We have to make taxes lower for business and capital to let the free market, is what the GOP argues, and Democrats largely agree with them. Notice how much even Democrats scream "It will raise your taxes!" -- further promoting "tax phobia", teaching citizens to be afraid of taxes and treat them as "theft" -- rather than fighting for a program that raises taxes on the wealthy to ensure a fair and just economic system for all. They're not arguing for a fair system, they're arguing that Republican voters and donors are reaping the benefits instead of their own Democratic voters and donors. Either way, it is unjust since someone most "lose" in order for another to "win" and make profits in such a "free market" capitalist system.

The "invisible hand" of the market will fix everything and government should keep interference to a minimum, according to both major parties. They only disagree on the best way to encourage a free market, not the concept of a market-based solution itself. Contrast the Green Party's platform that explicitly says:

The Green Party seeks to build an alternative economic system based on ecology and decentralization of power, an alternative that rejects both the capitalist system that maintains private ownership over almost all production as well as the state-socialist system that assumes control over industries without democratic, local decision making. We believe the old models of capitalism (private ownership of production) and state socialism (state ownership of production) are not ecologically sound, socially just, or democratic and that both contain built-in structures that advance injustices.

When was the last time you saw a politician saying natural resources and industry should be democratically-controlled by communities rather than owned and operated by capitalists? Unless you've seen a Green Party candidate speaking recently (or maybe a DSA-backed candidate), you probably have never seen this from major party candidates. We don't have a real debate on economic policy in this country because leaders and most establishment candidates of both parties are largely in agreement on such issues. Neoliberalism has infiltrated most of our discussion to the point that many accept its tenants as "common sense" or "obvious" because they've never heard an alternative. They almost treat the "invisible hand" and "free market" as a religion, that "free market competition" doctrine cannot be wrong and any questioning of it is blasphemy.

So neoliberalism has as its base a very capitalist-focused, free market economy with minimal government and taxes. But that isn't all. This focus on capitalism and privately-held resources has led to the problems we see in our government and foreign policy.

In order to expand profits and capital, businesses must continue to expand claim more resources (buy more private property). Naturally, this leads to businesses buying other businesses to get their resources, and leads to monopolies. Of course, in today's world, it is easy to hop on a plane or set up an electronic bank account around the world, so monopolies are not restricted to their home country. It is now easy for big business to "invade" other countries and attempt to gain private control of the resources of that country as well as the home country. They can do so economically, but it's really easy if they can use another source of power: military.

Viewed through this lens, United States intervention in other countries since World War 2 makes much more sense. George W. Bush is famous for describing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as "bringing democracy" to the people, but that never entirely made sense as presidents for decades have been close allies with very authoritarian regimes. We fund and provide weapons to Saudi Arabia, for example, despite the country being a royal dictatorship with some of the worst civil rights violations in the world. Why?

"Democracy" is a euphemism for neoliberals. They don't mean to bring literal democracy -- as in people directly governing themselves through popular vote -- or freedom, but rather to import American-style neoliberal free markets. As Chomsky put it, we're not making the world safe for democracy but making the world safe for capital, much as Adam Smith argued in his book that capital needed to be safe for a free market to continue to function. In some sense, the fight was for freedom, but freedom of business capital, not individual freedoms. When you see that, it becomes clear why many "allies" of the United States are among the worst human rights offenders in the world while we demonize other countries. Our "allies" are ones willing to do business with us (like Saudi Arabia selling us our oil addiction), while our "enemies" are ones that are economic rivals (or simply more socialist states uninterested in cooperating with privately-controlled American corporations). Notice tensions are cooling with rival countries like Russia as they become more capitalist and open to American businesses and capital, incidentally. Of course, we utilize any economic rivals as a source of anxiety to push for more military and defense spending, which itself is typically handled by privately-owned military industrial "contractors that profit from further spending. The spending that generates military profits must come from somewhere, and so taxes are raised, wages are lowered, to ensure the nation keeps spending while the capitalists continue to profit.

"Free trade agreements" are all about securing favorable conditions for corporations and capital. Since agreements like NAFTA have been signed, we've seen a shrinking middle class with lower salaries and benefits, and a growing poverty class with no safety net, as corporate taxes are cut to help fund offshoring of those corporations to generate even larger capital and profits. Not only that, but in the process, we've granted corporation more and more "human rights", allowing corporations to sue governments for profit loss (arguing for example that social programs prevent them from making as much profit as they could have) and further weaken our social safety nets. We've also empowered the president to make such binding agreements without consulting Congress, further centralizing economic power in the hands of a few individuals rather than the people. De-regulation and trade agreements have effectively left corporations with more rights than individuals. Again, leaders of both parties have generally championed free trade agreements and their effects, with only a few such as Bernie Sanders speaking out against them.

To enforce trade agreements and business property rights, we see our police forces drift toward "police states" that become more concerned with protecting private property than actually defending citizens against injustice. A well-known recent event was the DAPL protests, in which peaceful protesters were violently attacked by police forces who considered themselves "defending" the property on behalf of the pipeline that supposedly owned the land (nevermind that the protesters were largely Native Americans that had rightful ownership of that land under treaties with the United States - again, our police and military make the world safe for business and capital, not individual human rights).

While Republicans are often detestable for socially-backwards views, we must remember that Democrats usually support the same neoliberal policies Republicans do. Such policies lead to massive wealth inequalities that elevate a select few into "rich" status at the expense of pushing large amounts of Americans down into poverty, all while reducing our individual freedoms, weakening our democracy, and transforming our country into a police state more interested in protecting capital than human civil rights. Unfortunately Republicans winning elections is often a backlash to such policies hurting the average American, much like how Democrats win after average Americans continue to suffer under the same neoliberal Republican policies. Both sides get to bash each other over the head with the negative effects every 4-8 years and win in landslides because people are angry and yet feel trapped in the two party system. In effect, both parties get to "have their cake and eat it too" as they implement neoliberal policies that profit themselves and simply wait for the next cycle to sweep them into power for even more profits.

The way to combat this is not to support either major party, but to fight the entire neoliberal establishment as a whole. I believe the best way to do so is build a new political party and movement that focuses on people and planet over profits, that values human and individual rights, that believes corporations are not entitled to make money no matter what. A party that acknowledges that natural resources are precious, and their extraction and use deeply impacts the entire community if not region or whole world, and so we need more bottom-up democratic structures managing those resources rather than top-down corporate dictatorships. The Green Party is exactly that party, and I invite you to join in building the party rather than propping up either of our current major neoliberal parties. And if you want to learn more about neoliberalism and how today's world was built by both major parties, Chomsky's book is an excellent introduction to the subject.

Anatomy of Democrats' Meaningless Statements

This recent piece of fluff written by current Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair Tom Perez perfectly sums up how the Democratic Party still resists change while pretending to stand up for progressive values. They've done a pretty good job at mastering doublespeak, on the one hand saying the words that make people feel comfortable while on the other doing so in a way that is so vague that it is meaningless. Certainly, continuing actions by the Democrats speak louder than words: the DNC has recently purged progressives from top leadership roles, Democratic leaders in Congress have supported Donald Trump's plans for increased war and military spending and were even urging Trump to change the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem, all while resisting Bernie Sanders' calls for single payer medicare for all, tuition-free college, and other domestic programs.

The CNN article above continues the trend of saying words that sound nice on the surface but are not backed up by anything when you read into it. Let's go through and see exactly how weak and uninspiring this article really is.

...we must focus on ensuring that voters across the nation trust our party...

...rebuilding trust with those who share our progressive vision for America and by addressing concerns many have raised in recent years...

Notice not once in these opening paragraphs do they acknowledge what the complaints actually are. The accusations -- first released by Wikileaks more than a year ago and later confirmed by several sources, most recently Donna Brazile in her book -- were that the primary was rigged by allowing Hillary Clinton and her campaign to control the Democratic party and effectively lock out challengers. That arcane election laws made it difficult or impossible for voters to register in time to participate in closed primaries. That state party funding was siphoned to Clinton's campaign rather than supporting down-ballot candidates.

An "apology" is not an apology if you can't own up to what you did wrong. These words are meaningless.

Democrats can win big if we're united, and we know that can only happen by healing divisions that still linger from last year's bruising presidential nominating contest. 

...

Republicans are leading a coordinated, nationwide effort of voter suppression and partisan gerrymandering...

Also notice that jab about remaining "united" at the end there, followed by a quick segue into the bad things Republicans are doing. Again, rather than admitting wrongdoing, they're talking down to progressives and treating their legitimate grievances as overreaction. "You have complaints, but does that really matter when Republicans are also bad?". It's lesser-evil-ism all over again. Yes, Republicans are doing bad things, but what are YOU going to do to fix it? Trading one evil for another isn't much of a win.

We believe Democrats can win everywhere if we organize and lead with our values.

Again, no apology, more generic words about unity. They're more interested in winning elections to retain power rather than standing up for what's right, and implying if they don't win, it's because *YOU* didn't organize and work hard enough for them. They push any blame onto progressives rather than acting like leaders and owning up to problems.

We made historic investments in Virginia, New Jersey, and in mayoral and legislative races that helped pay big dividends with our major victories last month

What they leave out is that Democrats have continued for the past year to ignore progressive candidates and races. Some of those wins were due to DSA support, not the Democratic Party, but they are of course perfectly happy to take credit for the wins (this is one of many reasons I encourage DSA members to put that effort into building the Green Party, not giving Democrats a free ride!). Democrats still support establishment candidates and races. Of course they do. This isn't new and not unexpected. What's needed is evidence that they will support progressive candidates, which they're not providing.

We will not win the future by re-litigating the past. But we do have to learn from our past mistakes.

Up to this point they still have not owned up to any wrongdoing or given specifics. And "re-litigating the past" is another jab at progressives that have still not received answers for the problems with the 2016 elections. Of course they want to move on from the past and cover it up.

But maybe I'm being too harsh. Let's see if the second half of the article has more specifics, now that they want to talk about particular proposals.

No party officer should be allowed to support, endorse or favor any candidate in the primary process.

Good sentiment, but how do you ensure this? No specifics. If they can't even discipline the last DNC chair that was strongly biased -- in fact, they defended her as Clinton made her an honorary chair of her campaign once she resigned from DNC chair -- what evidence do we have that it will change? Also, while it sort of implies that past officers weren't neutral, it does not come out and say it or apologize. This is a sentence specifically constructed as a sort of a "dog whistle" politics, designed to get a message to progressives without admitting any problems for people that don't know the story. It's a way of covering up what happened from the general public without being too obvious.

The debate schedule is decided in advance, instead of negotiating it after all our candidates have entered the race.

The debates were mostly scheduled in advance in 2016 already, problem was Clinton's campaign was allowed to direct DNC decisions way back in 2015 and so Clinton was the one deciding the debate schedule in advance! So this proposal is completely worthless and doesn't fix anything.

Any and all joint fundraising agreements will be transparent and available to all official campaigns.

This is implicitly referring to the joint agreement with the Clinton campaign that allowed her campaign to secretly work with DNC and appoint her campaign staff to DNC leadership positions. Again, not admitting that or apologizing.

However, the deep root of the problem here isn't transparency -- though transparency is of course very important for any democratic organization -- but rather the content of those agreements. The DNC used this agreement to siphon money through state parties to Clinton's campaign, which made it easier for DNC to collect money around campaign finance laws. It broke the spirit of the law if not the letter of the law. Nothing here admits to that or describes how they are against it. So I read it as "I guess we'd be OK with making agreements with ANY candidate willing to help skirt campaign finance laws".

Notice also they say the agreements are available to all "official campaigns". What is an "official" campaign? That's a weasel word there. DNC can define what they mean by "official", and they can make it so that Bernie's campaign doesn't count as "official" if they want to. But even if they don't directly exclude Bernie, it only says such agreements will be transparent and available to campaigns, not the general public.

If they really wanted transparency, they'd put all of this out in the public eye. But that's not what they want. My guess is that they'll set a rule that the DNC only recognizes a campaign as "official" if you sign non-disclosure agreements and what not, so they can use legal pressure to keep details of agreements secret in future. It's an attempt at strong-arming candidates and campaigns, not really about being transparent.

we must work with states to implement policies that make it easier to vote, including vote-by-mail laws, automatic voter registration, same-day voter registration, expanded access to the polls and more robust voter protection efforts

These are good steps mostly, but the elephant in the room is the closed primary process itself. Having a commitment to open primaries would be better. A commitment to ranked choice voting or proportional representation would be even better.

But it's also vague. What is "more robust voter protection efforts"? They don't have any specific ideas or stories to share?

it's critical that the Unity Reform Commission provide recommendations that acknowledge the grass-roots benefit of the caucus process while also finding ways for those who have been excluded on caucus nights to have their votes counted

What does this even mean? What do they propose to do to fix it? If they can't articulate a plan here, I very much doubt they have one. A statement just for show. Likely nothing will change.

The real solution is to establish voting holidays and ranked choice voting so everyone has a chance to vote and their vote actually matters in the process. This is what Greens support.

provide for a significant reduction in the number of unpledged delegates

So in other words, they'll reduce it a bit to seem like they're doing something, but they will ultimately retain superdelegates that are unbound to votes and can vote as they please. Without a strong commitment to grassroots democracy and complete elimination of superdelegates, this is a worthless gesture. It says they still want to retain top-down control over the party as much as possible.

Greens do not have superdelegates, we believe in participatory democracy, not top-down party leadership dictating views. Why is it so hard for Democrats to say that? We know why, which is why this action means nothing. They haven't change their opinion, just trying to hide it better.

If we want Democrats to win and stay in power, we have to reform our party in ways that rebuild it from the ground up. A unified Democratic Party is a party that understands that every ZIP code counts and there's no such thing as an off-year. We've already begun making new investments in our state parties and down-ballot races

Oh, is that all of their policy proposals already? That was pretty weak and non-specific. They're just back to repeating themselves on talking points now. Yet again, pushing "unified" without addressing the concerns is an insult to progressives. Also again, investing in state parties and down-ballot races is meaningless, of course they're going to do that for establishment candidates they back, what we want to see is reform that doesn't shut progressives out of the process.

we changed our rules in October to ban corporate donations from political action committees whose goals conflict with our platform

So they still accept super PAC money, just as long as it matches their platform. What's in the platform? Read it yourself. But I can tell you what's missing from the platform: most progressive requirements, such as single payer healthcare, tuition-free college and student debt relief, ending the wars and reducing defense spending. Even when they sort of adopt progressive principles like a living wage, they do what they're doing in Pittsburgh -- slowly phase in $15/hr over the next *7* years. Families can't wait 7 years for better wages, and by then, inflation will make $15 worth less and still be a poverty wage. Democrats platform puts rights of business and corporations over people. Only accepting money from people they agree with will only exacerbate that problem, not fix it.

Plus, from their very own platform: "Big money is drowning out the voices of everyday Americans, and we must have the necessary tools to fight back and safeguard our electoral and political integrity.... We need to end secret, unaccountable money in politics by requiring, through executive order or legislation, significantly more disclosure and transparency—by outside groups, federal contractors, and public corporations to their shareholders. We need to amplify the voices of the American people through a small donor matching public financing system. We need to overhaul and strengthen the Federal Election Commission so that there is real enforcement of campaign finance laws. And we need to fight to eliminate super PACs and outside spending abuses."

I don't have a lot of hope they will even honor this rule when their platform says they want to eliminate big money and super PACs, and yet never talk about that. Their platform is just words to them, not a code of conduct to live by. Actions speaker louder than words. They're not even trying to work toward these goals within their own party, what evidence do we have they'd actually push for it in government?

Contrast with the Green Party, which already today requires that ALL of its candidates refuse all corporate and super PAC money. We walk the walk because we believe strongly in it.

The DNC has come a long way since the 2016 election, but we know we have much further to go to earn the trust of voters and bring more people into the electoral process. We have our values and the support of the vast majority of the American people by our side. And when we lead with those values, we win.

Actually nearly half of all Americans are registered independents. Independents make the majority of Americans. They're fed up with the two party system. If you really wanted to earn the trust of voters, you'd talk about why the Democratic party has lost millions of voters, why the independents are growing, and what you'd do to win them back. But not a peep.

But aside from that, what has the DNC done to earn the description of "come a long way"? They certainly didn't provide any specific policies or evidence in this article. They didn't even do a great job explaining their values, even though they supposedly "lead" with those values.

Hopefully this deconstruction of their statement has been helpful. Democrats continue to play this game, saying just enough to convince people to stay in the party but never producing real meaningful change. Democrats hate their progressive base, but sort of know they need them to win, so use this doublespeak to keep the party together. But they have no interest in becoming progressive, or letting progressives win. Their goal is to retain control of the Democratic party as a major political party, and control as much as government as possible to enrich their checkbooks.

The Green Party meanwhile has been a progressive party since its very inception. So why are you donating your money, time, and effort to a party that has done everything it can to lessen your voice while still demanding your vote? I invite you to put that energy toward building the Green Party instead. We win when we have candidates, we just need more to join the cause and run for office as a Green. I've spoken with many voters that are Democrats only because they don't feel they have an option yet, but spoke highly of Greens and said they'd switch in a heartbeat if Greens ran more candidates.

We have the support of many Americans behind us, we just need to continue to grow. Remember that statistics about nearly half of voters being independents: there are way more of us than corporate establishment Democrats. They control the party structure and can squelch progressive voices within their party organization easily and legally. But they cannot stop progressives coming together outside the system. They cannot stop a strong Green Party. A strong Green coalition could easily overtake the Democratic party in terms of size, because their membership is 22% of voters and falling. That's not an impossible climb to reach 10-15% of voters and challenge the size of Democrats if we keep spreading the message and stop falling for Democrats' tactics designed to "keep us in line" rather than reform. At that point, with a strong Green challenger, Democrats MUST reform or be replaced. Working outside the system rather than in it is, in my opinion, the best and only way forward.

Be Careful Labeling 2017 Democratic Elections as "Wins"

Initial analysis of 2017 seems to show that many high profile races resulted in democratic socialist candidates winning, even in districts that previously voted for Trump or GOP in past elections. Here in PA and Pittsburgh in particular, we saw an independent candidate Mik Pappas win against an incumbent establishment Democrat (who held the office for 24 years!), as well as Our Revolution and DSA candidate Anita Prizio also winning a seat on the county council. But independents, progressives, socialists, and Greens won races across PA and the nation yesterday. Greens have been elected to more than 44 local offices just this year so far. More ran for office, with some like Jabari Brisport in New York City receiving some of the highest third party votes in decades. In fact, the Green "success rate" (percent of all Green candidates that won their races) was something like 27%, which is pretty impressive for a smaller third party that rejects corporate cash and relies solely on small individual donors in a strongly unfair electoral system.

This is a great start for progressives, and I think shows an upward trend for third party candidates. Imagine what we can do as the Greens grow with more volunteers and candidates! While we should definitely celebrate some early wins against the establishment, I think we also need to pause and be wary about how we interpret these events.

The media is already reporting this as a "blue wave" of Democrats and trying to co-opt the movement. Ex-Clinton campaign staff are already out saying Democrats are winning and that Bernie should be a Democrat or get out of the party because they don't need him. And to some degree, they're right: despite the strong showing from Green/DSA progressive candidates, many more corporatist right-wing Democrats have been elected solely on an anti-Trump agenda. As Draft Bernie points out, the media has been focusing on a few Democrats: Ralph Northam, a conservative that voted for George Bush in past elections, and Phil Murphy, a former Goldman-Sachs executive. As is typical, Democrats think that catering to conservatives and financial elite is OK since they'll get elected anyway just for not being Trump.

We need to watch these newly elected officials, because we've seen this behavior before. Remember a "blue wave" swept Obama into his first term with a majority in Congress, which Democrats then squandered and made sure very little of the progressive agenda was actually accomplished. In fact, some of Obama and the Democratic Congress's first acts were to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich, expand war in the Middle East, and pass a right-wing health insurance plan that relies on for-profit insurance to deliver care (Obama quickly dropped his earlier proposals for a public option once elected). And in fact he was willing to cut social security and other programs to get a deal, and pushed on that idea throughout his presidency. None of that is progressive at all, and it's really par for the course with Democrats. They (at best) sound progressive on the campaign trail, but as soon as elected, the donors pull the strings to get what they want. The needs of the people come last, every time.

It's even harder to believe that Democrats will change much from this election when you consider these progressives are being swept into a larger party that is still set up to squelch progressive voices. DNC chair Tom Perez is fresh off of kicking progressives out of leadership roles in the party and is still out repeating Clinton campaign talking points. Donna Brazile's truth-speaking about the stolen Democratic primary is now being called Russian propaganda, among other things. Most disappointingly perhaps, even Bernie Sanders has dialed back his expectations for the Democratic Party, with a recent email to supporters saying he wanted the DNC to "reduce" the number of super-delegates in the party, rather than previous calls to eliminate the undemocratic super-delegates all-together. The local candidates that won office today are only a few small voices within a giant political machine that is continuing to do as much as it can to crush those progressive voices, and I worry those local candidates will quickly find themselves frustrated by party leadership.

While we celebrate some local wins, let's also be careful not to get too excited about the overall Democratic Party victories as a sign of progressives winning. While progressives certainly had some encouraging victories, they haven't taken the party yet, and Democratic leadership thinks 2018 will be an easy win because of Trump; not only do I think that is a dangerous attitude to have (as we saw in the losses of 2016), but the 2017 elections reaffirm Democratic beliefs that there's no need to change the party because they still win votes by default by simply not being Republicans. I think progressives are really shooting themselves in the foot when they donate their time and energy into the Democratic party by running as Democratic candidates. Exactly as we're seeing, even when progressives win, the Democratic Party machine simply uses it as an excuse to support its agenda and attack insurgent progressives even more. You're emboldening your enemy the more you try to play nice with them and think you need to follow their rules. Martin Luther King, Jr.,'s non-violence movement wasn't to work with the oppressors within the system, it was to peacefully build a new coalition outside of the system that would force the needed cultural changes.

Power never gives up power for free. You generally can't appeal to power's "sense of fairness", because it has none. Democrats will not give up their power, their rich donors, their corporate influence in the party until forced to do so. They will continue to attack progressives and rig elections because it has worked in the past for them. Democrats have to lose big time and see their voter base dry up before they will make changes; only when the voters leave and Democrats are no longer a "sure thing" will the donor money dry up too, and it will take hitting their bottom line before they get the message. Whether you believe we need a whole new party or believe Democrats can be reformed, both strategies I think require a strong Green Party challenger to the Democrats to win some high profile elections and force Democrats to re-think their position in politics.

I'm looking forward to the opportunity for the Green Party and progressive movement in general in 2018. I hope you'll join the Greens too and help us run more candidates and expand our movement.

DNC Revelations

There have been some interesting revelations this past week regarding the Democratic Party. ... sort of.

In reality, Donna Brazile's allegations regarding DNC corruption & the Clinton campaign's takeover of the party are nothing new to Bernie Sanders fans. I even wrote a blog post last year arguing Bernie should join the Greens after suspicious voting problems surfaced in the primaries. There were reports more than a year ago of voter purges (recently confirmed by the NYC board of elections). Now, Brazile is confirming that the DNC did in fact have a bias toward Clinton -- because Clinton campaign and the DNC signed a contract allowing the campaign to effectively control all DNC decisions!

It feels to me a bit like posturing. Perhaps Brazile and some of her allies want to have the "tell all" in order to either get their 15 minutes of limelight as they retire. But I lean toward thinking that Brazile and others know that the DNC is on a bad path, voters are angry, and they don't want to receive the full blame. Brazile is probably hopeful she can retain her cushy job in the DNC by being the "whistleblower", for example; I have not seen any story so far mention that she was recently appointed to the DNC's rules committee, meaning she is one of the members that sets the rules for the 2020 primaries. As far as I know she has't resigned from the post, and it would now look super suspicious if Tom Perez fired her after these allegations came out, so she probably feels fairly "safe" in her position of power within the party now. Voters are angry, fundraising is way down, the party is doing terribly, and she doesn't want the blame, she wants to sneak in as a "well I never supported the corruption, I'm the whistleblower!". Don't fall for it, she hasn't changed and magically become more progressive, she's fighting to save her source of income.

So that said, what is the next step from this revelation?

I think many will likely use this as an opportunity to "rally the troops" to take over the DNC with more progressives. That is, Justice Democrats or similar organizations will say "we have the corporate DNC on the ropes, support us and we'll win and take over the party!". DON'T LISTEN TO THEM. This doesn't change anything, it just further exposes how fundamentally corrupt the DNC organization is and how they will never change.

The DNC chair is still a corporatist. He appointed corporate lobbyists to most positions of power and purged the progressives. They still back corporate-funded candidates over grassroots-funded progressives. They still have superdelegates to control who wins the party nomination. Party primaries are still done under party rules, meaning they don't legally have to uphold any sort of fair nomination process for any level of office -- and Brazile and others involved in this scandal are working right now to set the primary and debate rules for 2020! Do you think they'll make rules that favor a progressive winning? (Look at the DNC's recent resolution that specifically said Bernie and other independents should join the Democratic party -- they know he won't, but they will use it say he isn't qualified to run for office in 2020, mark my words) And they're working harder than ever to shift their platform to the right and court more right-wing voters and, in particular, rich donors. With the GOP self-destructing under Trump, they want to step in and basically be the "new" right-wing party.

A few Democrat officials will be thrown under the bus, fired from their jobs as a sacrifice to "save" the party in its current form, but make no mistake: the corporate influence is not gone. Just because the influence has potentially turned against Clinton doesn't mean it decided to give up and go home. Power gives up nothing when it doesn't have to. This just means the power and influence has decided Clinton is a liability, and is looking at other candidates and leaders for future elections, and you can bet those new leaders won't be progressive. Oh they might appoint a mild progressive to some ceremonial position with no power (as they did to Keith Ellison), but there is no way corporate donors will let a real progressive that threatens their influence on the party into any position of power within the party.

These allegations show how deep the corruption runs. Those that run the DNC let Clinton basically have the party so they could make more money from her. They filled up the DNC budget with "consultants" that got big paychecks that didn't pay off when Clinton lost an election that should have been easily winnable. That's why this is coming out. Not because they're changing strategy, but simply that they're changing the face of the party.

We cannot fight corporate Democrats on their terms. When we play their game and run in Democratic primaries, we lose, often in that election but even if a progressive sometimes wins, we lose the long game. They can suppress primaries, as we've seen. They can work against progressives. And in the off chance a progressive wins a race, they can use the party machinery to crush dissent and make the progressives "compromise" or smear them. Even with progressives within the Democratic party, they're fighting a corporate platform trying to blend into the party instead of proudly pushing for a true left-wing agenda with a party that supports them.

We must fight on OUR terms. We do that with a two-pronged approach:

1. Join the Green Party. Don't compromise on ideals. Greens have a strongly progressive platform, much more progressive than even Bernie Sanders. Greens are more accurately referred to as "eco-socialist". We must not settle for compromise with Democrats; we must take our agenda straight to the Americans people and convince them of the need for a strongly socialist platform. We must not let Democrats unilaterally set what the "moderate" or "centrist" or "compromise" viewpoint is; who appointed them in charge of defining those terms, defining what Americans want? I think most Americans actually want a Green agenda if they only knew what it was! I think the Green platform *is* the centrist, *is* the compromise agenda. The Democrats are a largely right-wing platform, moving further and further away from Americans' ideals every year, and it's time to start treating it that way. Joining the Green Party, supporting Green candidates, and running for office as a Green gets you a platform to talk about a real progressive eco-socialist agenda instead. You can proudly speak your mind knowing the party is behind you, rather than angry.

2. Many objections to Greens boil down to "the system is rigged against them, so we have to run as a Democrat". Think about that for a second: the system is so rigged that no other candidates even have a chance, and yet you think Democratic primaries are not rigged and can be won by the opposition? Those two statements are fundamentally opposed, and I encourage you to reflect on that strategy and ask if primary opponents will really work better long run than running in general election.

I personally believe that, while there is definitely corruption within the major parties and their processes such as their primaries, our election and justice system on the whole still work reasonably well. Most Americans have a sense of fairness and do not share the attitude of party leaders. Most elections (even primaries) went smoothly, it was only some districts that had problems. While court is complex and costly and needs reform, it does still work, and was the preferred method of getting justice for activists such as Martin Luther King, Jr.

So I say we run candidates as much as possible. When corruption and problems surface, we attack them in court. We can win court battles to make a more fair system. Jill Stein, the 2016 Green presidential nominee, already did this in Pennsylvania: her lawsuit last year got a state law struck down that required any candidates not in the two major parties to go through extra hoops to get on the ballot that Republicans and Democrats didn't have to do. For example, Greens would need thousands of signatures to be on the ballot, but Republicans and Democrats only would need 500. How is that fair? It wasn't, and a court struck down that law. We won, which is why we're seeing more Greens this year running for office, and I hope to see even more in future years.

While the presidential elections are high profile and so the most complex and corrupted (and so need a lot of work!), we're seeing a lot of progress at the local and state level. So we need to be running more candidates at those levels, and filing lawsuits as necessary to continue to pave the way for future elections. Those campaigns, even when they don't win, help educate voters and the general public about these sorts of issues, so it's even more critical to run for office -- hopefully you win, but even if you don't, it's a very important voter education task that needs done anyway.

Now I'm saying Green here as it is the largest party that I feel shares my values, but we see others popping up that may also work. Socialist Alternative, Progressive Independent Party, "Draft Bernie" (not sure if they made a better name yet, People's Party?). Choose whatever party best interests you. I encourage you to join the Greens because we're growing and I think have the most momentum, but do what makes sense for you and your area. Let's also get all of these parties together to talk how we can form a coalition.

Third parties are the only way to truly break the spell of corporate rigged elections and capitalism. If we want fair elections, grassroots democracy, and a more socialist economy, we MUST fight in a new party, because the two major ones will always be against us. Fighting from within puts us at a disadvantage. While fighting as a third party is also difficult and uphill, victories we gain will be long-lasting victories that change the national discussion on our own terms, which is really what our ultimate goal is. It is worth the fight. I hope you'll join us.

Insanity is Working With Democratic Party

Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results, as they say. It seems like since the late 1960s, American socialists gave up on their own relatively successful party (which was winning local/state elections and influencing the national parties) to try to work within a two-party system, and that strategy has been a massive failure. Every election, socialists try to influence the party platform and candidates, and are basically disregarded as the party picks its own candidates and ignores its own platform. For 50 years now!

This is probably one of the biggest takeaways from my most recent read, "The 'S' Word - A Short History of an American Tradition ... Socialism" by John Nichols. It's a good book that I recommend to anyone that wants a short overview of important moments in American history that were shaped by socialist ideas (sometimes those ideas were a bit ahead of their time; perhaps the better way to say is those ideas shaped American socialism?). The book covers how Thomas Paine, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr., among others, were all influenced by socialist ideas and principles. It also is a decent short history of the Socialist Party, including the campaigns of Eugene Debs.

But the most interesting chapter to me was the last one, that talked about the socialist movement since the 1960s until today. While never a major party nationally, the Socialist Party was at its apex a very influential party that won local and state elections. In some cities, socialists were the major party, or at least the major opposition party. Socialists were often invited into Republican and Democratic administrations, as appointees or advisors. Many of the policies and programs that we know and love today - medicare, social security, five-day work week, even public water and sewer -- started as party platform demands of socialists that major party candidates adopted in order to win elections.

Unfortunately, the major parties used World War 1 (and later WW2) to stop the socialist movement. Most socialists opposed the US entering the war and spoke out strongly against it. The major parties passed laws declaring any opposition to the war as "unloyal" to the country, making it illegal with a stiff penalty of years in jail. Therefore many socialist party leaders, including presidential candidate Debs, were thrown in jail for a few years before later on having their sentences commuted. The aggressive attacks against 1st amendment speech had a chilling effect, and the party shrank. The socialist party didn't disappear because it was unpopular, it began to disappear because it was undermined by collusion between the major parties against our constitutional principles of freedom of speech. That undermining led to disagreement between factions within the socialist movement on how to best combat attacks from the major parties.

So the question is, what happened in the 1960s? There was a growing movement for the Republican party to move to the right that echoed many of the civil-war-era arguments for "states' rights". Largely the movement grew as an opposition to the expansion of civil rights, with a purposeful campaign known as the "Southern Strategy". The Republican party as we know it today -- not the party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt -- was forming.

To combat that, some socialist leaders, in particular Michael Harrington (who wrote a popular book "The Other America" on poverty, which apparently influenced JFK and Johnson), decided that the best thing to do was to play electoral politics as part of the Democratic Party rather than continuing to fight on in a Socialist Party. Harrington worked with several other activists to establish what would eventually become the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which focused on putting pressure on the Democratic Party to implement policy rather than the traditional voter education goals of Socialist Party campaigns. Harrington and his activists went to the Democratic conventions to demand more socialist policy as part of the Democratic platform. They were successful getting many ideas written into the platform (at that time, the "most liberal platform in party history"), and were at first embolded by some early steps taken by Carter, but Democratic presidents have utterly failed to ever implement those socialist ideas in the Democratic platform ever since. In fact, the socialist-backed candidates were never picked, and the party instead picked pro-corporate party insiders, with candidates since Dukakis growing more and more weary of calling themselves "liberal" (we see that in today's Democratic candidates that often proudly call themselves "centrists"). With many activists moving to DSA and assisting the Democrats, the Socialist Party essentially died out nationwide (with a few holdovers here and there).

That story really stood out to me as a parallel to our recent elections. To stop Trump, Bernie and many others made the argument to hold the nose and support Democrats and vote for Clinton. Progressives were kicked out of the convention as Clinton nominated Tim Kaine, a fairly conservative Democrat, as her VP pick rather than a more progressive person like Elizabeth Warren or a socialist like Bernie. Several Bernie backers were placed on the party's platform committee earlier in the year, but Clinton-backed members defeated most proposals from the Berniecrats while the items that made it into the platform were essentially ignored by Clinton and her surrogates. Much like how in 2008 many rallied around Obama for hope and change, only to be disappointed when Obama ignored practically all of his progressive policy promises in order to implement a right-wing healthcare plan and continue much of Bush's economic and war policies.

This reaffirms my belief that attempting to work in the current money-dominated two-party system is a failed strategy for progressives and socialists. I knew that Obama and Clinton had no interest in implementing progressives policy, but I was surprised to learn it dates back much further. Progressive and socialist activists within the party have been trying to work with the Democrats for 50 years, only to watch Democrats drift further and further to the right each election. It feels insane to me to think that continuing this strategy will somehow magically work finally in 2018 or 2020, when it hasn't happened yet in 50 years.

It also confirms that third-parties can and do win; the strategy of a strong Socialist Party resisting both Republicans and Democrats has worked in the past to bring about important change. The strategy works because the major parties have to work to win the election. They have to offer better plans than you if they want to win, they cannot rest on status quo that isn't working. In a two-party system, it is too easy to be lazy and say "Well at least I'm not as bad as the other side!" and let the status quo stand, as we have seen for years now. Having third, fourth, fifth parties requires everyone to work harder, and so all Americans win with the best ideas being elected and implemented.

I view the Green Party as the spiritual successor to the Socialist Party. In fact, many Greens refer to the party as "eco-socialist", to emphasize that the Green platform is a combination of de-centralized democratic socialist economic policy with a need to practice ecological wisdom in our industries and economy (publicly-owned production that still spews out pollution is not a longer-term viable option either!). Socialists I think would find a lot in the Green platform that they would love, and probably don't even realize it! Not long ago, I had spoken with a few socialists at a rally in the early days of the Trump presidency, and asked if they'd sign to get a Green candidate on the ballot. They at first said no thanks. When I asked why, it became clear that they thought Greens weren't socialist enough for their support. As I explained the Green platform, they started to perk up, with one person saying "Oh, I didn't know that's what Greens stood for".

I think our challenge is to teach people about the history of socialism in our country - the labor movements, civil rights movement, etc. - and work to correct those misunderstandings of both socialism as a whole and the Green platform specifically. I know my goal is to help grow the Green Party into a strong champion of progressive socialist ideals in the Pittsburgh area. I think we can finish the work that Debs and others started more than 100 years ago, and work for a more just society and economy for all. I invite all others in the area to join the Green Party and help us create that vision.

Nearly a Year

So it's been nearly a year since the 2016 election, and about the same since my last post (which was thoughts on improving our election system as a bit of a retrospective on voting issues that led to Trump becoming president).

The nearly year of Trump as president has been interesting. It's difficult to sum up a year in a single blog post, but let's review a few of the most important events that stand out in my memory at this moment.

The year started with some mass mobilization for demonstrations and protests that in my view quickly fell apart. I haven't heard much from the Womens' March, or Science March, or any other group since then, which has been disappointing. It shows the events were knee-jerk rather than pushing for a real movement. Honestly, I wonder if the events were Democratic Party supported more to suppress coverage of progressive movements more so than for any purpose. I personally attended both the Womens' March and the Science March in Pittsburgh, and both events disappointed me. Very short, quick marches, with a few guest speakers that railed against Trump and said how important it was to elect Democrats. They were really campaign rallies. There was no discussion on keeping the movement going, on how to continue action, no calls for more people to run for office, certainly no discussion on the flaws of the 2016 Democratic campaign. I've still not seen a "post-mortem" for the Clinton campaign from Democrats, much less anyone at these type of events addressing the real issue, that the two-party duopoly is what gave us Trump (since it also gave the weak, corrupt candidate Clinton as the "opposition"). We have to break the two-party system, get big donor money out of politics, if we want to prevent this scenario again, but few "leaders" talk about it.

Trump has enriched his own pockets through his businesses that he has still never divested from. He and the GOP have been pushing for repealing the ACA ("ObamaCare"), which so far has been unsuccessful, but they're now trying to essentially defund large parts of it in their new budget and tax reform policy. The tax reform proposal is essentially a big giveaway to the ultra rich at the expense of social programs and healthcare funding. And Trump is playing a bit of a game of "chicken" with North Korea, pushing us to the brink of war in an effort to get a "better deal". While there has been pushback on it at the grassroots level, again I have not seen a very strong Democratic response to the proposals -- some Democrats have even voted FOR some of the GOP plans and Trump nominees, in what has been a very ineffective "resistance". In fact, Democratic politicians seem to be waxing nostalgic for Republican politicians of old such as George W. Bush rather than embracing progressives and Bernie Sanders. We also can't forget about the Democrats' pushing us to the brink of war with Russia too, with their blame of Russia for "hacking" the elections in favor of Trump as an "act of war". (Notice that this rhetoric has recently died down drastically as evidence came out that Russian oligarch businessmen were actually engaged in pay-for-play with Obama and Clinton to obtain a nuclear deal with the US starting in 2009, as reported by the New York Times. Sounds like it's becoming the pot calling the kettle black.)

While I'm not sure I'd call myself "surprised", the fact that a year after the election I'm still seeing attacks on Bernie Sanders and his policy disturbs me. DNC Chair Tom Perez (which itself was a big fight against Bernie-backed Keith Ellison, that had its own controverseries) recently purged progressives -- those that backed Bernie or Ellison -- from DNC leadership roles. He appointed Donna Brazile, who was caught aiding the Clinton campaign during the primaries and had to resign her position at CNN because of it, to the DNC Rules Committee which sets primary rules for 2020. Previous DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, who had to resign after emails were leaked showing her collusion with the Clinton campaign, is still a top Democrat running for re-election. All evidence points to the fact that the Democratic Party is preparing to defend itself from a progressive challenge, more so than combat the Republicans.

I think it stems from Democrats relying on the two-party system. They don't feel like they need to try, because liberals will vote for them if only to stop GOP from continuing power. They want to have their cake and eat it too, by keeping all of the corrupting donor money that influences their policies for corporations rather than the people, while still winning elections because you "have no other choice".

The year has convinced me that we will only get progressive reform in this country with a strong third-party push. Republicans and Democrats have absolutely no incentive to change when they are fine with the status quo -- they keep winning your votes because you think you have no choice, while they stay in power due to gerrymandering, and keep collecting all of that private donor money. We can march and protest and complain all we want, but they have no reason to take the American people seriously when they know at the end of the day most will continue to hold their nose and vote for the establishment.

We have to have a strong third-party. It's counter-productive to continue supporting the establishment. Either that third-party must become a major party, or it will grow to exert enough pressure that the Democrats and Republicans finally take the threat seriously and do it themselves to prevent that third-party takeover.

To build that third-party, it is critical that we talk with activists and voters more. Educate on American and world history, the history of the labor movement, progressivism, and socialism, and how third parties have been instrumental to many of the biggest leaps forward in American history. Find grassroots leaders dedicated to growing a third-party at the local level, for if we can win localities and begin implementing progressive policy,

My goal moving forward, more so than direct activism or protests, is this education. I believe we have to have educated voters united in a new grassroots third-party before activism or electoral politics can be effective at bringing change. Everything else is "jumping the gun" in some sense; if party leaders don't acknowledge your protests, nothing will change, and like I said, many of the protests I've been to recently have utterly failed at voter education or encouraging people to run for office, and so have been completely wasted efforts. We have to make education and networking a priority, think long-term, rather than knee-jerk reactions that don't accomplish anything and even sometimes are counter-productive.

I have been reading a lot recently, and have really enjoyed learning about history of politics and political philosophy. So I plan on writing future blog posts about recommended reading for progressives based on the things that I've found enjoyable and informative. Watch for those posts coming up! Please subscribe and check for updates. I'll be announcing these posts on Twitter @ProgressivePgh.

Why the Democratic Party is Conservative, not Progressive

In a previous entry, I talked about what I believe it means to be a true Progressive, and gave some personal analysis of the Political Compass's way of grouping political thought. Today I'd like to talk more about why the Democratic Party has not always been a great home for Progressives, and especially not recently with candidates like Obama and Clinton.

In order to understand this, we need to look a little more at the history of the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party grew out of the Democratic-Republican party of Thomas Jefferson and others, which was Anti-Federalist. That's right, the Democratic Party in most of its history was actually for weak federal government, states' rights, and very pro-business. In many ways they were similar to modern Republicans, but perhaps a little more left-leaning than today's GOP.

The big change to the modern Democratic party was essentially during the civil rights movement. Southern Democrats were largely very conservative and still in favor of those original Democratic-Republican ideals -- pro-business and states' rights, which they used to argue against civil rights for African Americans. Civil rights legislation was finally pushed by a few Democratic presidents, leading up to Lyndon Johnson's signing of civil rights into law.

At this point, there was a mutiny -- thanks to the "Southern Strategy" of the Republican Party at the time, the Republicans quickly snatched up a large amount of Democrats that were unhappy with the expansion of civil rights and government programs under Democratic presidents. Meanwhile, African Americans that traditionally voted Republican (due to their loyalty to the party that freed slaves under Lincoln, and other reforms) strongly switched to vote Democratic in support of this legislation. By the '80s, the two parties were completely different, and oddly enough, essentially traded places in their platforms views. The Republicans, that were once founded on ideals of a strong federal government and civil rights, became the modern GOP that is very pro-corporate and states' rights focused. Meanwhile, the Democratic party that at one time was strongly against federal government expansion now supported expanded programs in an effort to establish civil rights and help the poor.

So the modern idea of a "liberal" Democratic party has only really existed since maybe the '80s (Gen X and Millennials, not for the Baby Boomers). Is it any wonder why there's such a split between the generations, with most millennials voting for Bernie but baby boomers voting for Clinton? Many older Democrats that are still loyal to the party still come from the era when Democrats were very pro-corporate and pro-states'-rights -- in essence, "conservative" as we understand it in the modern era. Considering Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas starting in the early '80s, we can conclude he was a Democrat in the old sense of the term; in his younger days when he joined the party, particularly in the south (like Arkansas), the Democratic party was much closer in ideals and platforms to today's GOP. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, as a young college student had campaigned for Barry Goldwater as a Republican. Goldwater was a controversial figure, but in summary, he was very strongly conservative in our modern sense of the term, and was one of the influential figures that changed the GOP from its old roots to today's pro-business conservative party. Hillary shortly afterward was talked into joining the Democratic party, likely because it was the "conservative" party at the time in the South and would have matched her stances.

So what we see in today's Democratic party, that was very much alive at the convention, was a fight between two factions in the Democratic party. One, is the Progressive faction, that wishes to keep alive the progressive ideals of New Deal Democrats and the Progressive Republicans of history. FDR and Teddy Roosevelt come to mind, with the expansion of social programs and busting of trusts and banks that became too big. This is the platform that has evolved over time and wants to take over the party. Meanwhile, the other faction is the Conservative faction, that still holds mostly true to its original roots as a conservative pro-business party, that largely wants to de-regulate and minimize federal government influence on business. At one point this faction formed the Blue Dog Democrats, a caucus of conservative Democrats in Congress. We see this conservativism in action as the Clintons are largely pro-fracking, pro-banking (did not support breaking up banks and in fact argue for less regulation), and pro-TPP (which is a trade agreement written with large amounts of business influence, that gives businesses a lot of authority over US government laws and regulations). Obama initially campaigned on a large amount of Progressive promises, but in office (especially his second term), he has continued many of the policies first instituted under Bush and the Republicans -- he's prolonged wars, he worked on "Obamacare" which was the Republican healthcare plan from the '90s (Romneycare, anyone?) and removed the public option from his fight, has deported more immigrants than Bush, and has cracked down on federal government whistleblowers more than past presidents. When all is tallied up, Obama and the Clintons are pretty moderate and even leaning conservative on some issues, particularly economics and business; don't let them fool you into thinking they're progressive. Being Progressive is about more than just supporting women and transgender rights (while those are great goals, there's more to being Progressive than just those issues), and even if they are more moderate than today's GOP, that doesn't make them Progressive, that just means our whole political system has shifted too far to the right.

So Progressives don't really have a home anymore. Initially, the Republicans were fairly Progressive, with Teddy Roosevelt even forming the Progressive Party at one point when he was unhappy with the direction of the Republican Party. Then, Democratic presidents such as FDR carried the Progressive torch when they implemented the New Deal, expanded social programs and civil rights. But now, with both the Republican and Democratic Parties moving to the right, what are Progressives to do?

We vote for an actual Progressive, that's what we do. Dr. Jill Stein is Progressive and wants to expand those Progressive ideals of the New Deal with what she calls the Green New Deal -- continue social programs, transition to clean energy, abolish student debt and break up the banks. The Green Party is a home for Progressives in today's era. And much like Lincoln helped establish the Republican Party (factoid: the GOP was actually a 3rd party against the dominant Whig and Democratic-Republican parties of the 1800s!) due to failures in our party system, I think the time has come for a new party to be established. I think that party is Green, and I support Dr Jill Stein. I hope Bernie Sanders also joins us in the Green party, for that is truly his home. We can't be afraid anymore, we can't keep propping up parties that move more to the right as the younger generations yearn to move to the left. If we all vote Green this fall, we will win. As Jill Stein says, if everyone with student debt voted for her, we'd be a winning majority. So let's make that happen in November.