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Dems Reportedly Angry That Progressives Are Pushing Them to Act Like an Opposition Party.
(www.commondreams.org)
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this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2025
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Progressives need to start their own party. The establishment DNC is so entrenched with big donors and lobbyists that it is unable to serve the people. Their balancing act of appeasing both the right and the left is just serving to alienate everyone because the final policies get so diluted. They have become too stuck in the quagmire of their own doing. I don’t see the DNC being able to change any time soon and through their inaction, will only enable more devastation of the country.
The new Progressive party should align with the DNC as the opposition during this administration but simultaneously run more like minded candidates in the next elections with their own separate fundraising campaigns. That’s the only hope I have for meaningful change to happen.
There's a free app called 5 calls. It helps you to call your representative with a script. Progressives need to get on this. I'm aware it's a pain, but the script makes it a lot easier especially when you get an answering machine instead of a person.
It's rather naive to think that phone calls will change anyone's mind in office. Money speaks, not phone calls.
It's rather naive to throw out centuries of political theory because you can't be bothered to write / call / show up.
https://act.represent.us/sign/does-calling-congress-really-work
In fact the only thing they pay attention to more than calls is people physically showing to their offices.
Do you have any data that calls, emails, letters have any consistent effectiveness? I think a lot of us feel like we are handed these mechanisms as a way for us to feel catharsis (AKA shut us up) and an illusion of participation while our inputs are promptly tossed into the trash.
Its an unpaid intern receiving these messages in whatever way they are sent, right. And how do I compete with a check being sent from a corporation or AIPAC? Lobbying is bribing. We're sending emails and making phone calls.
Following centuries of political theory have led us to this point.
Not really. The only thing they pay attention to is the amount on the check.
If calling really changed things, I'd be getting emails from TheDemocrats asking people to jump on a phone bank. All they are asking from me is "More Money to fight Donald Trump!"
Do you not get those texts? I would understand if you blocked them but they are definitely being sent.
Not anymore.... I blocked them after the 15th begging for "$50 dollars is all we need to defeat Trump!" on November 10th...
The problem is you get the NDP/Liberal vs. Conservative effect when you do this. If you have 30% of the population vote for your Leftie, and 30% vote for the other Leftie, in a given congressional district, the Republican can win with 31%, despite 60% voting against the Republican. We need RCV before we can do this, and people need to understand that they MUST put the other party as choice 2 or we are back to ending up with a Republican.
This is why a new party needs to be built from the ground up, starting with local races that are uncontested or use ranked choice voting already.
If Democrats are so scared of splitting the vote, they don't need to run a candidate. It's not like they're particularly interested in winning anyway.
That is indeed a problem that needs to be resolved, and likely through ranked choice voting. But as a country, we tend to focus too much on the presidential election. Change will have to start in the congressional elections - both at federal and state levels. The issue of votes splitting will be a lesser issue in these elections except in a few large districts. That will also be where smaller fundraising campaigns would go further.
Change starts at the dog catcher. That's how the maga morons did it. They ran for every single down ballot race, all the way to the bottom.
Hell, in my city, the local Dem committee helped the MAGA morons, by running against their own primary winner (A socialist). They were even dual dropping lit for the Chosen One they had in mind, plus the sheriff who is a MAGA nutter.
Jesus tapdancing Christ. I swear it's like the Dems as an organization want to lose. I'm only on their side to pull left. The second we can pull left to neoliberalism instead of maga nutters I swear I'm going to do everything in my power to volunteer to get them fucking tossed for the further left and less authoritarian.
The thing you're missing is that you'll tap into a whole new category of voters that have never had anyone to vote for before.
Ding. Both major parties have abandoned the working class, and a whole lot of people have given up on the system as a whole. Give a real choice that has a chance and people will turn up. But that means the politics-as-sports folks need to hang up their team colors, and that's only going to happen by spreading class consciousness. No war but class war.
I fail to see your point. That sounds like you have a 61 majority for the Republicans. The "Liberals" are aiding the Republicans getting power, as the article points out.
Also the Democrats are a pink washed far right party, by standards outsidr the US.
They just need to put the Trump party last (or whatever the shittiest party is at the time)... They can put anyone they want 2nd
100% agreed, it’s time for a new party. Republican-lite is killing our nation.
The Democratic party is dead.
The Democratic party has just officially morphed into the Republican party of 30 years ago. They trotted out the Cheney's ffs.
Not like it matters. We're not voting our way out of this situation, the fascists won't let anyone take power back now that they have it. It's revolution or a technofeudal hellscape.
The Dems will do it again too. They'll find an older grandfatherly type in the model of Reagan to run as a candidate, and he'll talk about compromise, not progressive causes. They'll toss in some vague progressive light stuff that they will promptly shitcan once they win.
Tell this to Bernie and other progressives. Seriously, if we call and email them, they might decide they even enough support to do such a thing.
The DNC leadership are elected by people who are elected by us. Almost no one votes in those elections... Probably no one even knows they exist. But a well timed strategy of getting like 50 progressives to show up to each election and vote for progressive leadership is all it would take to replace every liberal in the party leadership with progressives... No reason to leave 2 conservative parties intact
So like, how do we do that? How do I help organize that?
I'd start by looking up your local Dems party. Most towns and counties have their own Dem party who's job it is to get Dems elected locally. They themselves are elected by (registered) Dems in that town or county. They'll know who runs your state party (also elected by Dems in your state), and who from your state gets to vote for DNC (national) leadership. They'll also probably know how many people show up for these elections (it's usually like 10 people!) Then it's just a matter of organizing enough progressives to take over these local party positions and then take over the DNC... but, the good news is, progressives just took over the party leadership! At least the new Chair is relatively progressive, and was supported by Our Revolution.
On the one hand, it's super annoying that a small group of people makes all the decisions, but on the other hand, they are the people who show up month after month. You'll probably need to show up too, get to know who is progressive and who's a shill. Then make moves to replace the shills with progressives.
In Nashua, NH (the second biggest "city" in NH) we were able to completely replace the city Dems leadership with only 50 progressives showing up to vote
What we really need is a national org like Our Revolution or Move On or whoever, to make a concerted effort to plan out the takeover of every town/county/state Dems in every state. Each state should have a paid director plus staff who can map out all the leadership of all the smaller Dems parties in that state, rally progressive voters, and take the state party for progressives, town by town and then the state party all together.
"In 2025, the DNC Chair election will be held on February 1. The chair will be elected by the 448 active National Committee members, consisting of 200 elected members from state parties, as well as elected officials, constituency representatives, and at-large members."
https://indivisible.org/resource/dnc-chair-race-explained
so a 200 person minority of the voters are people elected .. somehow.... (how do pick which state people get a votes) presumably in a way that forwards the publics wishes, not that they ever do that-- and the other 248 are dnc insiders. I dont see how progressives can maneuver to a win with those constraints.
Yeah... It would take some serious organizing... Probably need a serious org to take it on
Can you clarify, who are you talking about?
The DNC Chair, vice chair, treasurer, etc
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_National_Committee#Current_leadership
Aren't there already other progressive parties? Look how they're doing.
Anecdotal, but our chapter of the DSA (not radical enough for me, but it's what I've got around me) is growing rapidly. New member orientation has been standing-room-only since the election.
You should check out the Axios article they cite before you write them all off. The supposed "gripefest" is just Dems talking about how they're recieving hundreds if not thousands of phone calls a day.