Straight forward question. If leftist hate the Democratic Party so much, why don’t they all come together and create their own party. Have their own primaries, campaigns, candidates, etc.
First past the post:
They’d be handing the extremists on the right an easier win. They need enough energy to grab the Democratic party by the balls.
Basically, you need a voting system that goes “choice number one: Bernie, choice number two: Kamala” etc. At that point, go nuts.
The easiest switch is Approval Voting, which every tabulation machine in America can handle right now without any issue. Plus, it’s very easy to adapt to Sequential Proportional Approval Voting, and proportional representation is the thing that will actually break up the two party system.
You can’t get more than 50% of popular support without compromise. The people who hate the democratic party to the point they’d rather organise a new party are A: too few and B: bad at compromising
But if you believe in it go for it.
Just make sure that you give up and endorse the democrats if you’re polling lower than 50%, or you’ll be an effective supporter of Trump
Nah, I don’t agree with. Just wondering why they don’t.
short answer: the u.s. have a winner takes all voting system. splitting the left/liberal would ensure victory for the right.
splitting the left/liberal would ensure victory for the right.
Not really…
The moderate wing voted against Obama, but it didn’t matter because non-voters turned out in greater numbers.
The moderates can’t win without the left, but the left can win without moderates.
PSA: None of the above comment is demonstrated by the data or historical record.
Combining left and liberal seems like it ensures victory for the right anyway.
Are you sure. I feel like leftist talking points and leftist figures are more popular with right wingers than people think. They just hate democrats. You don’t think the right’s base would be effective after 4 years of trump with another party there to vote for?
Yes. It is absolutely certain. Ballot access legislation is controlled in each state by the two major parties.
Wouldn’t their dislike for Democrats transfer over to any leftist party as well? The right’s propaganda machine will label them the same way.
They seem to like Bernie.
While correct, Republicans are stupid. I don’t mean that to be mean, they are, at best, low information and deeply disengaged with something they have very strong feelings about. They vote based on vague vibes instead of anything sensible. A rich leftist might be able to save the next generation, but the current Republicans are completely lost.
While correct, Republicans are stupid.
…
They vote based on vague vibes instead of anything sensible.
Irrelevant side note: irony is absolutely my favourite thing in life.
A rich leftist …
No such thing.
Damn, I got downvoted into oblivion. I guess the left dosent want right wingers in their tent, lol.
Why would they? Working class rural voters who’ve been propagandized into voting Republican is one thing, but actual right wingers? Right wing ideology is fundamentally incompatible with left wing ideology.
Because leftists hate each other almost as much as they hate “libs”. They can’t organise shit.
True
In addition to the practical realities of a 2-party system as others are pointing out, there’s the fact that the Left eats its own. Nobody is ever good enough, and compromising with “the enemy” is “bad”, hence people can either keep their moral purity and lose, or else compromise their ethics in order to move forward, but not both. For example, Biden reached across the aisle and managed to get a ton of shit done - but who even cared? To anyone not on the right it wasn’t enough, while to the right itself it was all (claimed to be) bad to begin with, hence the message of “BoTh SiDeS sAmE” won out and thus the puppetmasters wanting to influence the election got their desires met.
As long as people choose to remain in their ignorance, we can’t influence outcomes for either better or worse.
True
Two party monopoly.
Yep.
On my voting ballet, I had 7 people running for presidency from seven DIFFERENT political parties. Yet the news only talks about two (well three… Fucking Jill Stein.)
We have a billionaire class that controls the media.
Problem: there are two competing political parties.
Creates new political party
New situation: there are two competing political parties.
Yeah, with the current political system in the US there is simply no way to get a third party any real traction.
Abolish first past the post and the electoral college, then you will see (slow) change, as it stands now, FPTP will only serve to maintain this two party system.
America went through huge population shifts, and changes of economy the last two generations which was much greater than the original Industrial Revolution in the 1700s.
It sort of broke the neighborhoods being sociable places, destroyed grassroot movements, and prevented new parties from developing.
Politics that is new, these are created in the communities and transition from the local to regional so to national.
New parties cannot be developed on the internet.
There already are multiple leftist parties in the US. The Green Party is the main one, but there are others.
The issue is that they don’t get much press coverage, and a lot of people use the argument that if leftists split off from the Democrats and divide, then the Republicans will win. That keeps a lot of people from voting for those parties.
Your greens are heavily compromised, if I’m not mistaken.
Jill Stein has had dinner with Putin, so yeah, just a wee bit.
no, she didn’t.
Ranked choice voting could help with this.
A couple of states do have ranked choice voting, but it definitely should be implemented for all.
A bit, but Star Voting is better in every way (except awareness).
The Green Party is not leftist.
What is your reasoning for this? According to their very own website, they support a lot of common leftist talking points.
From their Wikipedia page:
The party promotes green politics, specifically environmentalism; nonviolence; social justice; participatory democracy; grassroots democracy; anti-war; anti-racism.
Are you confusing what parties claim with what they actually believe and will actually do?
What they say and what they do are different things.
I mean, it’s not like they’re able to do much because they don’t have much political power. I’m genuinely curious as to the things that they have done that make you say that.
Only attempting relevance during a presidential election, then quickly disappearing after is the only bit needed.
- No member of the Green Party has ever been elected to any federal office.
- only 3 have ever been elected to any state office.
- they have had about a dozen people elected to small offices, town level.
- Their prevalence in presidential elections greatly outsizes their representation in any other position, and have been shown to pull votes from Democrats.
- There have been numerous documented instances of Republican candidates/their team coordinated directly with the Green Party.
- Russia has covertly promoted the Green Party online for about a decade.
- Stein has repeatedly appeared on Russian media.
- One of the VP candidates actually called NATO “gangster states”
- Stein claims Russia was provoked into invading Ukraine - a talking point straight out of Russia.
The Green Party is a tool of the Republican Party, nothing more.
But who is this Dems voting base? Are they mostly liberal? If so, they wouldn’t go anywhere else anyways. But I feel like they’ll be a lot of disenfranchised MAGA voters by 2028, that would be willing to support anything other than the democrats.
Right wing media would immediately jump on promoting the alternate party as horrible communist socialist liberal whatever other words they like to use to scare an anger their base, and the net result would be the same.
They have. They can’t get any traction. The major political party closest to them is the target of constant derision and they would rather feel morally superior than be successful
I see what you mean.
Our voting system favors 2 parties, so successful parties must do the coalition building before elections. And if coalition building is required to get a majority, then leftists aren’t popular enough to do it on their own.
Compromise. No matter what voting system you have eventually you need to vote on some bill. If you can’t work with those who partially agree with you they will find moderates on the other side to work with and thus get their agenda passed not yours.
Because actual leftists reject the entire existence of the state, and therefore its institutions. We know that electoral politics are nothing but theatre that is corrupt by design and exists solely to provide the illusion of choice to placate the public, and manufacture consent for our own oppression and that of others. Even if we thought there was any sort of merit to it, we know that no one who threatens the system will ever be allowed to get to the top of said system to “change it from within”, that’s just another lie perpetuated to maintain the status quo (as long as people believe that elections are the only way to change things, and keep trying that despite all evidence pointing to the contrary, those in power get to keep it).
If you genuinely care and want to know more, you could start here:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-editorial-collective-an-anarchist-faq-full (for some reason I can’t link to specific sections of the document, it’s a bit overwhelming, but looks like sections B.2, H1.5, H.5, and J.2 would be a good place to start, though it really is worth working your way through the entire thing)
Both sides of the spectrum have probably thought about it. But if a party splits they don’t have the numbers so they don’t risk it.
So an example election result is no longer 50/50 where there’s a decent chance to win. Split those voters with two parties. At worst it would be 50/25/25. Your opponent wins all the time. So they wait for the other side to break apart first.
They do, but money is the only thing that matters in US elections.
Combine donations.
