A New US People's Party?

[lpetrich]

"Won’t a new party split the vote? (The “spoiler effect”)"

They seem rather Pollyannaish about their ability to inspire non-voters to vote. It can work, like in AOC's first campaign, where her primary election got 68% more turnout than is typical of midterm Congressional primaries, but it doesn't always work, like for Bernie Sanders earlier this year.

"How will the new party get on the ballot?"

Getting ballot access for a new party is a state-by-state process that generally requires collecting thousands to tens of thousands of petition signatures in each state.

By building a coalition of aligned labor unions and progressive groups, we can add to our resources and make quick work of those signatures.

Then pointing out the success of the Green and Libertarian Parties there.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Why not? We knew the terrorists were on the planes. Had any emphasis been put on the threat of terrorism, W could have had a shot. Clinton/Gore had an eye on terrorism and Richard Clarke was heavily involved in the administration. It is very possible the event is stopped. Of course, we wouldn't have known perfectly what would have been stopped.

Is he? I'd say Obama was the most left, and he was a centrist.
Clinton didn't lose to Trump because she was "too far left" and Biden loses, it won't be because he was "too far left". It would be because America has lost its mind.

You made some really good points regarding 9/11. Why do you think that Obama was most left? I've never saw Obama as a left winger. I always thought of him as a moderate. A little to the left of Clinton maybe. Certainly the republicans tried to protray Obama as a far leftie in order to scare the voters. But that's how they portray all democrats. Below is a good article:

https://www.vox.com/2019/12/20/2102...-bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-barack-obama

The 2020 democratic race was probably the most left group of contenders in democratic history. The party is clearly trending left. If that will be enough to fend off the 'upset and difficult to keep on the team" far left, we'll see!

I think Gore was only left of Obama on the environment, but I could be wrong. We were less hawkish under Obama, but still did a lot of bad shit. That may be that the generals convinced him there really was no other way, and it was really the most safe, practical way of doing whatever it is the DoD wanted to do, but I'm not convinced Gore would have been much better (possibly, but too hard for me to say).

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Is this another Republican effort to mess with the election?

 

[lpetrich]

Is this another Republican effort to mess with the election?

As far as I can tell, no.

From "Our Plan", "Run inspiring candidates and build a bench of elected officials." -- that is only feasible with running candidates at lower levels of gov't. It looks as if the MPP will be doing what the Greens and Libertarians have long neglected to do: run lots of local, state, and Congressional candidates.

Movement for a People’s Party (@4aPeoplesParty) / Twitter - I searched it for hints as to the MPP's upcoming political strategies.

Movement for a People’s Party on Twitter: "@StrangeTimes10 @LeftwardSwing We're not endorsing anyone this year, but if people have the chance to vote Green (president and down ballot) go for it." / Twitter

Thus more-or-less endorsing the Green Party in this election. The MPP won't be running any candidates this time around because it's likely too late to select some candidates in time for the states' filing deadlines.

Movement for a People’s Party on Twitter: "@jackiemccaffrey Those are his only options right now. We plan on running someone for president in 2024. Plus Congressional and local candidates in the ‘21-‘24 time frame." / Twitter
in response to
Jackie #FreeAssange McCaffrey on Twitter: "@4aPeoplesParty @ninaturner @CornelWest Look I love Cornel but he is right now pushing for Biden and pushing AOC as a candidate for 2024. Which means he is pushing a Justice Democrat, the opposite strategy. I'm just being up front." / Twitter

I find it entertaining to watch certain people call AOC a sellout.

 

[Jarhyn]

My god sometimes people can be so absolutely fucking stupid. Unbelievably. Fucking. Stupid.

Like how hard is it to grok what FPTP means for party splitting?

As old republicans either die or give up on the party as the case may be, the party will sink into obscurity, assuming we don't end up in a fascist hellhole next year.

When that happens, when the GOP crumbles, then is the time to split the Democratic party. Not before. Then the old guard republicans will pile into the big tent, act like they were right leaning democrats all along, and the progressives will at that point be absolutely capable of saying "fuck that" and creating a progressive opposition with a real chance at success.

I'll give it about 8 years before things get to that point.

 

[Harry Bosch]

My god sometimes people can be so absolutely fucking stupid. Unbelievably. Fucking. Stupid.

Like how hard is it to grok what FPTP means for party splitting?

As old republicans either die or give up on the party as the case may be, the party will sink into obscurity, assuming we don't end up in a fascist hellhole next year.

When that happens, when the GOP crumbles, then is the time to split the Democratic party. Not before. Then the old guard republicans will pile into the big tent, act like they were right leaning democrats all along, and the progressives will at that point be absolutely capable of saying "fuck that" and creating a progressive opposition with a real chance at success.

I'll give it about 8 years before things get to that point.

I see zero chance of the republican party splitting up. They are too savy compared to democrats. They are far more united than the left. Biden far more represents the left than Trump represents most republicans. Trump was (probably is still) prolife, anti-war, anti-gun, pro-gay rights, and etc. But they just love him. Biden will have a much more difficult time keeping his coalition together. Sure the republicans have a generational problem. But as some people age, they become conservative. Plus, huge plus, republicans do not need numbers on their side to win.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Just what we need -- democracy, infrastructure, fairness, civil liberties, reform, equality, justice, peace, niceness

Why has no one ever had the guts to offer these innovations until now?

Our platform - The People's Party - The final People’s Party platform will be developed and passed by members at the founding convention in 2021.

• An Economy That Works for Everyone: An Economic Bill of Rights, Strong Unions and Workplace Democracy, Modernize Our Infrastructure, A Fair Tax Code and Thriving Small Businesses, Rein-in Wall Street and Create Public Banks, Fair Trade
• Defend and Uphold True Democracy: Abolish Corruption and Restore Democracy, Secure and Transparent Elections, Defend Civil Liberties
• Respect Human Rights, Health, and Human Potential: Medicare for All, Free Public College and Quality Education, Comprehensive Immigration Reform, Respect Disability Rights
• Protect the Environment and Defend Biodiversity: Clean Energy and Environmental Protection, Animal Welfare, Sustainable Agriculture
• Stand for Equality and Justice: Restorative Justice, Racial Justice, Equal Rights for Women, LGBTQIA Equality, Honor Indigenous Rights
• Create a Peaceful Global Community Benefiting from Technology: A Collaborative and Peaceful Global Community, Promise and Peril of Accelerating Technology, Take Care of Veterans

etc.

Wow! what a novel idea! Why didn't anyone think of this before? Obviously no political party has ever espoused the above bold new proposals.

Why has there never been a Progressive Voice until now to challenge the 2 major parties. Finally, the little guy will have a real vote. Finally we can take our country back!

At last a party for *THE PEOPLE! It's about time!


*Make sure they copyright that term "The People" before someone else tries to steal it.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Why has no one ever had the guts to offer these innovations until now?

Our platform - The People's Party - The final People’s Party platform will be developed and passed by members at the founding convention in 2021.

• An Economy That Works for Everyone: An Economic Bill of Rights, Strong Unions and Workplace Democracy, Modernize Our Infrastructure, A Fair Tax Code and Thriving Small Businesses, Rein-in Wall Street and Create Public Banks, Fair Trade
• Defend and Uphold True Democracy: Abolish Corruption and Restore Democracy, Secure and Transparent Elections, Defend Civil Liberties
• Respect Human Rights, Health, and Human Potential: Medicare for All, Free Public College and Quality Education, Comprehensive Immigration Reform, Respect Disability Rights
• Protect the Environment and Defend Biodiversity: Clean Energy and Environmental Protection, Animal Welfare, Sustainable Agriculture
• Stand for Equality and Justice: Restorative Justice, Racial Justice, Equal Rights for Women, LGBTQIA Equality, Honor Indigenous Rights
• Create a Peaceful Global Community Benefiting from Technology: A Collaborative and Peaceful Global Community, Promise and Peril of Accelerating Technology, Take Care of Veterans

etc.

Wow! what a novel idea! Why didn't anyone think of this before? Obviously no political party has ever espoused the above bold new proposals.

Why has there never been a Progressive Voice until now to challenge the 2 major parties. Finally, the little guy will have a real vote. Finally we can take our country back!

At last a party for *THE PEOPLE! It's about time!


*Make sure they copyright that term "The People" before someone else tries to steal it.

I can tell that this thread is really worrisome for you! {I'm sure that republicans just laugh their ass off at how politically dumb the left is!}

 

[Rhea]

Homepage: MPP - The People's Party
currently promoting
The People's Convention on August 30, 2020

Join us on Sunday, August 30, from 4-7 pm Eastern Time for The People’s Convention.

The Convention will be digital and broadcast live to YouTube, Facebook and Twitter pages with millions of subscribers and followers. Sign up for more information and updates.

So one won't have be physically present in it.

Our vision is a major new progressive populist party that will deliver what regular people take for granted in so many other countries: single-payer health care, free public college, money out of politics, an infrastructure jobs program, a $15 minimum wage, financial regulations, and more.

...
When the pandemic hit, the Democrats and Republicans spent trillions of dollars bailing out Wall Street while leaving tens of millions of people unable to afford food and housing. Movement for a People’s Party, along with our partner organizations, led more than fifty rallies, on two different Saturdays in July, to let members of Congress know: “Do the right thing, help the people, or we will evict you from office!”

The Movement for a People’s Party continues to stand in solidarity with the communities whose pain and struggle have been deeply exacerbated these past few months.

Well hooray for them. Hopefully, they will focus on town, county and state offices, and more importantly school board. Build a base. Build seriously and for the long haul. And only when you KNOW you have enough to beat the Conservatives outright do you start to take out federal offices. And only when you hold a significant portion of the congress do you try for the presidency.

Otherwise, if they are trying to parachute into the CEO job, they are Ross Perot and Ralph Nader and Bernie Sanders, handing the government to evil bastards.

I'm all for movement to the left. But it has to be real movement, not sabotage.

Start with the town offices, the county, the state. Prove that you have a following.

 

[Valjean]

Oh goody, the Green Party is... I mean the People's Party is here to help split the left-wing vote. Hopefully it'll shift the Democrats to the left like it didn't in 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016.

Yea, totally agree. If it weren't for the green party, we'd have a much more liberal court and ironically, a much better environment. Among other things. They are the republicans best friend...

Which is why we should seriously consider ranked choice voting.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Oh goody, the Green Party is... I mean the People's Party is here to help split the left-wing vote. Hopefully it'll shift the Democrats to the left like it didn't in 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016.

Yea, totally agree. If it weren't for the green party, we'd have a much more liberal court and ironically, a much better environment. Among other things. They are the republicans best friend...

Which is why we should seriously consider ranked choice voting.

Sounds good to me. But the republicans would never go for this. Again, their side is far more united and far less threatened by a third party.

 

[lpetrich]

Homepage: MPP - The People's Party
currently promoting
The People's Convention on August 30, 2020

So one won't have be physically present in it.

Well hooray for them. Hopefully, they will focus on town, county and state offices, and more importantly school board. Build a base. Build seriously and for the long haul. And only when you KNOW you have enough to beat the Conservatives outright do you start to take out federal offices. And only when you hold a significant portion of the congress do you try for the presidency.

They themselves seem to recognize the necessity of doing so. Though they plan to have a Presidential candidate in 2024, they also plan to have candidates in "local and Congressional" races over 2021-24. We'll have to see what happens this weekend. Will they be discussing their plans for local and state and Congressional races?

Otherwise, if they are trying to parachute into the CEO job, they are Ross Perot and Ralph Nader and Bernie Sanders, handing the government to evil bastards.

I agree. That the problem with the Libertarian and Green Parties.

 

[lpetrich]

Oh goody, the Green Party is... I mean the People's Party is here to help split the left-wing vote. Hopefully it'll shift the Democrats to the left like it didn't in 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016.

Yea, totally agree. If it weren't for the green party, we'd have a much more liberal court and ironically, a much better environment. Among other things. They are the republicans best friend...

Which is why we should seriously consider ranked choice voting.

I agree. As I've noted, the MPP's platform includes RCV.

That's why the MPP ought to lay off of the Presidency and focus on local and state and Congressional races. Especially those where the voters tend to vote Democratic in large fractions.

They also ought to consider supporting anyone who runs with their platform but who runs as a Democrat.

 

[Emily Lake]

I decided to look at the election-related parts of the party's platform: Defend and Uphold True Democracy - The People's Party

In "Abolish Corruption and Restore Democracy", it has a lot of stuff about getting money out of politics, and in "Secure and Transparent Elections", lots of proposed improvements in what may be called administrative details, like automatic voter registration and early voting by mail. But it also some proposals that make important structural changes: "Switch from first-past-the-post to ranked choice voting, and from single-member districts to multi-member districts."

First-past-the-post is the usual system: each voter cast one vote and the candidate with the most votes is the winner. Very simple, but with big flaws. Like the spoiler effect.

Ranked choice: rank the candidates by preference order: first preference, second preference, etc. If your first preference doesn't win, then your second-preference vote will still count, and so on down the line. So one can vote Green, then Democrat, or else Libertarian, then Republican.

Multi-member districts make possible proportional representation: each party getting seats in proportion to how many votes it has received.

I'm on board with those changes.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Which is why we should seriously consider ranked choice voting.

I agree. As I've noted, the MPP's platform includes RCV.

That's why the MPP ought to lay off of the Presidency and focus on local and state and Congressional races. Especially those where the voters tend to vote Democratic in large fractions.

They also ought to consider supporting anyone who runs with their platform but who runs as a Democrat.

It would be nice, if they do get into office, to start immediately pushing for voting reform (instant runoff/ranked/whatever). Since it is up to each individual state, this is the way to get that ball rolling.

 

[lpetrich]

Some places already use RCV, like San Francisco CA, Oakland CA, Minneapolis MN, and Maine. There are ballot measures to adopt it in Massachusetts, Alaska, and some other places.

It was used in the Presidential primaries this year in Alaska, Wyoming, Kansas, and Hawaii, though with a modification: the count stops when all the surviving candidates have at least 15% of the total vote. Though Joe Biden won all of them, it was interesting to see who got votes from whom.

RCV, strictly speaking, describes the ballots. The usual way of counting is Instant Runoff Voting (IRV):

• Count the top votes.
• if any candidate wins a majority, then that candidate wins.
• Drop from later counting the candidate with the fewest top votes.
• Repeat.

Presidential Primary Polling Project - polls of the 2016 and 2020 Presidential primaries with RCV. Here also, one can see who got votes from whom.

DemoChoice Polls - do-it-yourself IRV polls.

Condorcet Internet Voting Service - uses RCV ballots, but uses some vote-counting algorithms other than IRV. In particular, it turns the voting into a matrix of one-on-one contests, the "Condorcet matrix", and works from there.

 

[lpetrich]

Though IRV has the virtue of being essentially spoiler-proof, it sometimes produces odd results.  2009 Burlington mayoral election was such an election, and it led to the city backing off from IRV.

The candidates were Andy Montroll (Democrat), Kurt Wright (Republican), Bob Kiss (Progressive), Dan Smith (Independent), and James Simpson (Green).

IRV rounds:

1. DS JS dropped, leaving AM KW BK
2. AM dropped, leaving KW BK
3. KW dropped, leaving BK

Winners with methods:

• KW: FPTP
• BK: TopTwo, IRV
• AM: Borda (ranks->ratings), Condorcet methods (their winner is the one-on-one winner, if there is such a winner)

In fact, the candidates form a good one-on-one victory sequence: AM, BK, KW, DS, JS

 

[lpetrich]

2009 Burlington VT Mayor votes aggregated

However, I went to Minneapolis's election-results site, and I downloaded all the ballot data for the city's 66 RCV elections. Of these elections, 22 of them did not have a first-preference majority. But nevertheless, every one of them had agreement between the IRV winner and the Condorcet one-on-one winner. Only four of them had a disagreement between the FPTP winner and the IRV (and Condorcet) winner.

But that does not mean that IRV was adopted in vain, because it shows the strengths of the mandates of the winners when the voters are not afraid of wasting their votes.


I'll be searching for ballot data on San Francisco, Oakland, and Maine.

Australia and Ireland have used IRV for some decades, so I could look there also for ballot data.

 

[lpetrich]

EXCLUSIVE: Cornel West On Whether The Left Should Stick With Dem Party Or Make A Clean BREAK - YouTube

Krystal Ball interviews Cornel West.

CW endorses voting for Joe Biden as the lesser of the two major-party evils. Even though he is too wimpy to take on the many problems that we face, too wedded to the sorts of neoliberal paradigms that got us into this mess.

As to working within the Democratic Party vs. building a third party, it's an awkward dilemma. Consider how the Democratic establishment screwed over Bernie Sanders.

As to building a working-people coalition, that's going to be awfully hard. A lot of the white working class likes the Republican Party, and a lot of the black and Hispanic working class likes the Democratic Party.

Nothing on what's going on in the People's Party, however.

 

[Rhea]

They themselves seem to recognize the necessity of doing so. Though they plan to have a Presidential candidate in 2024, they also plan to have candidates in "local and Congressional" races over 2021-24. We'll have to see what happens this weekend. Will they be discussing their plans for local and state and Congressional races?

2024 is too soon. It’s the very next election. They need to establish positions in congress first. Or they are just trying to parachute into the CEO job and will hand it to those farthest from their ideas, as did Perot, Nader and Sanders.

Build the base. Build the legislatures, the school boards, the county boards and the town boards. Build that. Take the time to do it solid. Caucus with the party most like you until you are sure you can absolutely, on your own, beat the party least like you. Until then. Coalition and build.