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What exactly have the Democrats done to inspire any confidence?
Nothing at all, but the progressives, the Democratic socialists, and the greens and everyone else who is fighting tooth and nail in the trenches against the far right extremists and chuds are giving it their all
Nah, let’s make sure the progressives and democratic socialists take over the Democratic Party
That's wrong, you need to coopt the dems until they are a progressive party. Same as how MAGA turned the reps into an absolutely insane party.
And despite all of this, you somehow belief that starting a third party is a viable option?
Yes, there's a surprising amount of Rep voters who hates billionaires as much as the rest of us do, but Dems aren't truly working for the people either.
There's different ideologies among the parties, but both of them are anti peasants, pro elite.
Stuff like universal healthcare, free schools and proper psych wards are incredibly supported policies among voters of both parties. "European style" social welfare with a charismatic leader would get 60% of the votes in the US
Why do all of the posters making these "let's start a third party" suggestion have accounts less than a month old?
(Admittably, I've only encountered 2 of you so far, but still, what are the odds?)
Coincidence, or maybe Fediverse is experiencing a growth spike?
Coincidentally we're also both European, unable to grasp why Americans can't understand the mechanics for why people are willing to vote for Trump, Farage or the AFD.
Their bases are fairly similar, middle aged white men whom lost a job with good benefits to internationalism. Mostly through outsourcing production of goods.
Simultaneously they suffered a loss of status, which arguably is a good thing. As status is more even today across the sexes than ever, but it can be hard for some to cope through.
Furthermore the political system of all three mastodons highlighted here, are designed to ignore the few. So when the few yell foul about an issue, and nothing is done. More and more will eventually turn/agree with the issue and demand it solved.
Most other parties are to some degree in favour of a status quo, but when the status quo means the world around you is continuously getting worse - You're willing to aim for any silver linings that challenge the status quo. Even if it most likely will accelerate society downwards, just at the off chance it won't.
In systems that let's small parties show up, you're going to see most small parties die out again within a term or three. Because they're too extreme and the commoner will have seen them exposed before they get all the power. Well in the US and UK, there's nothing to expose before you have all the power.
Germany should be better, but the no collaboration with AFD stance completely fucked it, as even more people were mad a huge chunk of society essentially got ignored. By the time anyone were willing to talk to AFD, they were already the largest party in the country - Just like the MAGAs were.
If the Republican party had engaged the MAGAs when they had 2% support among the population, tackled their 2 biggest concerns and generally exposed their extreme ideologies - We would never have had a relevant MAGA movement. But ignoring the issues, gives extremism a chance to grow out of control.
Extremism doesn't show up out of nowhere, often they have a few good points for anyone willing to listen.
You bring up Zohran Mamdani. You do realize he won by first running in the democratic primary, instead of running third party? That they did do their worst to stop him, and he still succeeded rather decisively? You do realize, that if Mamdani had run third party instead, New York would have a republican Mayor now?
And whatever advantage is gained by not having a D next to your name (Mamdani certainly won despite having a D next to his name) would be lost by having to compete with both the Democrats and the Republicans.
A third party is not viable compared to coopting an existing party.
take over the dems (long shot, been tried many many times) or start a new party. Lets try both. The republicans are a lost cause though, and we're clearly short on time.
something something vanguard
Aside from excellent trending in rights, the economy, safety, education, and jobs, compared to the only alternative, well, nothing at all.
Preselect a few socialists? (Not much)
Who most of them aren't socialist in that they don't do the basics of supporting workers control of the means of production?
I'll take a bunch of somewhat-socialist representatives over no hardcore-socialist reps.
Not be nazis. The bar is tragically low
You may be forgetting that Biden sponsored the start of the genocide. Tens of thousand were murdered through his support. Its painful to hear and I'd love to just blame it on the republicans, but aipac utterly owns both parties and pretending that isnt so just keeps us trapped in this forever.
Yeah, I'm not defending the democrats. I'm just saying the reason they have support is they're perceived as not as bad as the nazis and it's really fucking tragic that America is at that point where all a party has to do to get support is be perceived as the only viable alternative to literal nazis.
Yeah but they've consistently supported Nazis abroad and done pretty much nothing to curb fascism at home. I guess they're not technically Nazis but that's like Nazi adjacent.
Like I said, it's a tragically low bar. They're seen as the only feasible alternative to the actual nazis
They say they feel bad after seeing a dude get beaten to death on the way back from work. Their opponent would laugh instead, or would be conducting the beating.