I’m looking for a word to describe the upcoming struggle. Not states rights for the blue states. The historical association is problematic. We need to push the envelope to maximize the blue states as pluralist and progressive sanctuaries even as the Republicans explore executive and national power as an axis for repression.
A struggle for state autonomy on behalf of Americans forgotten elsewhere.
“If class politics is over, I really don’t know where to go.”
Right.
Something happened, Max. It happened during the ’80s.
I’ve gone through two major head changes. Like you, I grew up a middle-class Jewish kid in the suburbs who believed in the American Dream. My becoming a Marxist in college was a head change that upset my whole family.
But I started reading Murray Bookchin during the 1980s. Over a period of ten years I went through a second really major head change: from Red to Green.
Marxism is wrong in its fundamentals and just doesn’t conform to reality. So it leads its adherents into a dead-end: “I really don’t know where to go.”
The United States is the most dominant imperial power in history. Its wealth/power elites maintain its position (and their position) acting through two political parties and a duopolistic electoral system. Among those elites there are differing ideas about the most effective orientation. The two parties reflect that. A conservative wing of the bourgeoisie advocates for implementing policies that are straightforwardly nationalistic, pro-market, and pro-wealth accumulation. The Republican Party is their vehicle. A liberal wing thinks it’s wiser to foster stability through geopolitical alliance relations and, domestically, through placation of the masses via the welfare-statist policies of the Democratic Party.
There are continual debates “at the top” about these differing orientations. The elites compete in trying to disseminate more appealing messaging to the masses. Neither seems to “win out” long-term. For over 150 years the Republicans and Democrats have traded place in regard to presidential administrations. For over 150 years our national legislature has been about evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. So those parties obviously are responsible for the state of things . . . the obscene levels of inequality, the militarism, inadequate housing and healthcare coverage, the unfair taxation system, political dominance by the mega-corporations, destruction of ecological habitat, the climate chaos, the withering of local community life. That’s the essential status quo and it doesn’t change all so much under the jurisdiction of one party or the other. They are both creatures of hypermodern industrial capitalism. That extant status quo is unsatisfactory for the masses of people; they express dissatisfaction by voting out the incumbents on a regular basis, so we see oscillating administration of the system. At one time the Republicans were a little better. Nowadays the Democrats are a little better. Sure, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, and Trump were “the greater evil,” but, really, not by all so much relatively, in regard to the systemic essentials.
There will be a breakthrough point after which our electoral system will open up. From what happened with Perot you can see how it can happen. This year Kennedy could have advanced from 15% support to 20% support and made a significant impact. We should be laying the groundwork for true multi-party democracy rather than continuing to foster delusions about the Democratic Party, rather than continuing to suffer disappointment decade after decade.
Like every Green Party post ever, this bit fails to address the problem with 3rd parties in the U.S., which is the threat of causing Right-wing victories that enable them to build in irreversible, grievously harmful policy changes. It's ironic that one of those is in the field of climate change, a "green" enthusiasm.
Max, do you think a hundred years from now it will still be: Only two significant choices, Dem and Rep.
Maybe you think that’s perfectly fine, but I think most people don’t agree.
Just one party is monopolistic, if not totalitarian. Just two is duopolistic. More and more people are working toward or at least in favor of electoral system reform. So I hope you’ll agree with me that a hundred years from now the American electorate likely will enjoy a fuller multi-party democracy than it does now. If so: Some year will be appreciated retrospectively as the start of a process that culminates in such.
There’s no way to know when that will transpire. It actually could have started to develop during the 1990s. If Ross Perot had been more of a pol he might have been able to breathe enduring life into the Reform Party. It was a good name for a new party, it had a lot of money, it had some gravitas after getting more than 5% of the vote. Perot wasn’t the one to pull it off.
Someone will be. Maybe Bernie goes back to his Debs and finally does the right thing ... launches a new party. Maybe it will be Andrew Yang in 2032. I don’t know if it will be this decade or the next or the next. The point is that the American electorate deserves better and likely will get it.
Those of us who have absolutely no interest in the Democrats or the Republicans (some of us have never considered the Republicans and haven’t felt any allegiance to the Democratic Party since the days of the Vietnam War); those of us who think the state of extant reality (inequality, militarism, destruction of habitat) is attributable to both because they’ve traded places in regard to administering the Leviathan for 150 years now . . . we feel we are plugging away at laying the groundwork for the eventual breakthrough. I’m sympathetic to those who consider their priority project to be: keeping the greater evil out. I hope to get some sympathy for those of us who prioritize a different project: electoral system reform culminating in a healthier multi-party democracy.
We disagree on the extent of the difference between the parties. And it's not just the difference. It's the drift of the Right towards unprecedented authoritarianism, creating the possibility of irreversible harms. I have little confidence in the potential for a new third party. The realignment strategy is still the best available.
I’m looking for a word to describe the upcoming struggle. Not states rights for the blue states. The historical association is problematic. We need to push the envelope to maximize the blue states as pluralist and progressive sanctuaries even as the Republicans explore executive and national power as an axis for repression.
A struggle for state autonomy on behalf of Americans forgotten elsewhere.
“If class politics is over, I really don’t know where to go.”
Right.
Something happened, Max. It happened during the ’80s.
I’ve gone through two major head changes. Like you, I grew up a middle-class Jewish kid in the suburbs who believed in the American Dream. My becoming a Marxist in college was a head change that upset my whole family.
But I started reading Murray Bookchin during the 1980s. Over a period of ten years I went through a second really major head change: from Red to Green.
Marxism is wrong in its fundamentals and just doesn’t conform to reality. So it leads its adherents into a dead-end: “I really don’t know where to go.”
Here’s where to go:
https://discussion.dsausa.org/t/what-ever-happened-to-the-peoples-party/37270/7
We both knew this at Rutgers at age 20:
The United States is the most dominant imperial power in history. Its wealth/power elites maintain its position (and their position) acting through two political parties and a duopolistic electoral system. Among those elites there are differing ideas about the most effective orientation. The two parties reflect that. A conservative wing of the bourgeoisie advocates for implementing policies that are straightforwardly nationalistic, pro-market, and pro-wealth accumulation. The Republican Party is their vehicle. A liberal wing thinks it’s wiser to foster stability through geopolitical alliance relations and, domestically, through placation of the masses via the welfare-statist policies of the Democratic Party.
There are continual debates “at the top” about these differing orientations. The elites compete in trying to disseminate more appealing messaging to the masses. Neither seems to “win out” long-term. For over 150 years the Republicans and Democrats have traded place in regard to presidential administrations. For over 150 years our national legislature has been about evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. So those parties obviously are responsible for the state of things . . . the obscene levels of inequality, the militarism, inadequate housing and healthcare coverage, the unfair taxation system, political dominance by the mega-corporations, destruction of ecological habitat, the climate chaos, the withering of local community life. That’s the essential status quo and it doesn’t change all so much under the jurisdiction of one party or the other. They are both creatures of hypermodern industrial capitalism. That extant status quo is unsatisfactory for the masses of people; they express dissatisfaction by voting out the incumbents on a regular basis, so we see oscillating administration of the system. At one time the Republicans were a little better. Nowadays the Democrats are a little better. Sure, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, and Trump were “the greater evil,” but, really, not by all so much relatively, in regard to the systemic essentials.
There will be a breakthrough point after which our electoral system will open up. From what happened with Perot you can see how it can happen. This year Kennedy could have advanced from 15% support to 20% support and made a significant impact. We should be laying the groundwork for true multi-party democracy rather than continuing to foster delusions about the Democratic Party, rather than continuing to suffer disappointment decade after decade.
Like every Green Party post ever, this bit fails to address the problem with 3rd parties in the U.S., which is the threat of causing Right-wing victories that enable them to build in irreversible, grievously harmful policy changes. It's ironic that one of those is in the field of climate change, a "green" enthusiasm.
Max, do you think a hundred years from now it will still be: Only two significant choices, Dem and Rep.
Maybe you think that’s perfectly fine, but I think most people don’t agree.
Just one party is monopolistic, if not totalitarian. Just two is duopolistic. More and more people are working toward or at least in favor of electoral system reform. So I hope you’ll agree with me that a hundred years from now the American electorate likely will enjoy a fuller multi-party democracy than it does now. If so: Some year will be appreciated retrospectively as the start of a process that culminates in such.
There’s no way to know when that will transpire. It actually could have started to develop during the 1990s. If Ross Perot had been more of a pol he might have been able to breathe enduring life into the Reform Party. It was a good name for a new party, it had a lot of money, it had some gravitas after getting more than 5% of the vote. Perot wasn’t the one to pull it off.
Someone will be. Maybe Bernie goes back to his Debs and finally does the right thing ... launches a new party. Maybe it will be Andrew Yang in 2032. I don’t know if it will be this decade or the next or the next. The point is that the American electorate deserves better and likely will get it.
Those of us who have absolutely no interest in the Democrats or the Republicans (some of us have never considered the Republicans and haven’t felt any allegiance to the Democratic Party since the days of the Vietnam War); those of us who think the state of extant reality (inequality, militarism, destruction of habitat) is attributable to both because they’ve traded places in regard to administering the Leviathan for 150 years now . . . we feel we are plugging away at laying the groundwork for the eventual breakthrough. I’m sympathetic to those who consider their priority project to be: keeping the greater evil out. I hope to get some sympathy for those of us who prioritize a different project: electoral system reform culminating in a healthier multi-party democracy.
We disagree on the extent of the difference between the parties. And it's not just the difference. It's the drift of the Right towards unprecedented authoritarianism, creating the possibility of irreversible harms. I have little confidence in the potential for a new third party. The realignment strategy is still the best available.