Yeah, if any third party was serious about changing things, they’d start from the bottom, and build a base of support. You want to change things? You need people in local councils, state legislatures, seats in Congress. These things are actually achievable for independents, at least in some districts. And you’re never going to get the higher-level positions unless you have those things in place.
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Or a clever idea by bad people.
It’d be interesting to see where the money is coming from.
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Libertarian is defined as it’s original socialist meaning, not the modern Ayn-cap meaning.
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The party, which is centrist, has no specific policies yet.
Well, they’ve got my vote!
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I wouldn’t assume that this will split the vote in favor of Republicans. There are plenty of people who are fiscally conservative but also in favor of reproductive rights and who are opposed to the over-the-top theocratic influence in the GOP. In the 1990s I voted for Ross Perot because I felt that he had good business sense and would benefit the economy. After the election, several acquaintances accused me of putting Clinton in the White House by voting for Perot instead of Bush. Did Perot split the Republican vote? Maybe. But I never had any intention of voting for Bush or Clinton.
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Ranked Choice voting is the only way we will ever get out of this two party system… or adopt a parliament type model - but that will never happen.
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Not with that attitude.
But it’s noteworthy that two states already have Ranked Choice Voting for all elections, including Federal, right? That wasn’t the case just a few years ago.
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No policies? Count me in!
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The fact that they can claim a specific place on the political spectrum without any policies is proof that US politics has devolved into a branding exercise. Your place on the spectrum is supposed to be defined as the aggregate of your polices, not the other way around. Democracy is supposed to be about voting for ideas, not people or banner colours.
It’s also funny that they think “forward” is somehow different than “progressive” which is supposed to define the Left. He probably thinks anything left-sounding is so toxic in America that it can’t win, even though he has some very leftist ideas like Universal Basic Income. Not that I would vote for him if I were American, but still, it’s like words have lost all meaning.
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Ross Perot has entered the chat
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We must prance, flounce and entrechat into the future.
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So when are Manchin, Sinema, and Susan Collins signing up?
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There’s a pretty substantial difference, in that Nader had actual, popular positions that weren’t otherwise on the menu. If you voted for Nader, you sent a message in a language Democrats might actually listen to. But if anyone voted for this Sorkin-brained brunch goblin, they’d be pressuring Democrats to do exactly what they’re already doing, and splitting the non-Republican vote.
Of course it matters that third parties can let Republicans in. But that’s a tactical judgment on the ground, not a fundamental principle. If you’re voting in a primary, or in NY or CA, then voting against mainstream Democrats can’t let a Republican in, so you should absolutely make them work hard for your vote.
If someone is getting 110% of the vote, like Nancy Pelosi, you should want to reduce their margin, because it means you’re leaving leverage on the table. If Pelosi thought voters might punish her for anything whatsoever, she might not have spent the day after the Roe decision asking for money and campaigning for a pro-life congressional candidate.
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It will break in favor of the Dems. His image has tarnished & he did very badly in the elections.
He might get some never trumper’s.
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I was going to mention that the last time a brand new third-party got traction (as opposed to independents like Nader and Anderson), it was largely because their founder candidate ran a pretty much one-issue campaign on an at-the-time hot topic. Without announcing any kind of concrete viewpoint or policies, this won’t get enough traction to get through a mud puddle.
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Centrist: pro-abortion; pro-gun control; pro-single payer healthcare; pro-climate saving; pro-mass transit; pro-smaller military; pro-taxing the rich.
Those are all positions with 50% or more of popular support. That makes them centrist. Let’s check out the website for this new centrist party and I’m sure they’ll support all those… and no, nope, they don’t.
Another right wing party, this one splitting the difference between the extreme radically socially regressive right wing party and the economically corporate right wing with some socially progressive views they like to talk about but have real trouble seeming to get around to enacting. Way to jump that gap to centrism…
m
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… You mean, like the Democrats?
Oh, we’re fucked, aren’t we?
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I think US third parties started by billionaires are the political equivalent of Not Invented Here syndrome in software engineering. It’s difficult to get engineers to maintain existing systems because they all have a hubris that tells them they can do it better if they start over and their ideas are so good that they won’t have any of the problems that the previous people did. The thought process is never “maybe these problems happened for important reasons that I should seek to understand” rather than arrogantly rewriting the parts they do understand and assuming the rest will follow.
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Every time I think about Andrew Yang, I’m reminded of his terrible take on crypto solving the world’s poverty. He never gets into the details of how a tech that is broadly inaccessible, hard to understand, and extremely volatile can be used to “eradicate poverty”. Given his hard pivot to crypto, I have a feeling this new party is more likely to be poached from libertarians and disaffected Republicans, than from Democrats.
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