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[smjjames]

All I'm saying is, give me an option. Give me any option that's more likely to bring the country to a better place than the Democrats, and I'll vote for them. Hell, I'll volunteer for them.

Your only other option are the Republicans. I get what you're saying about options and third parties, but the political environment as it is right now means that the two main parties have a stranglehold on the system and neither wants to let go.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

All I'm saying is, give me an option. Give me any option that's more likely to bring the country to a better place than the Democrats, and I'll vote for them. Hell, I'll volunteer for them.

I'm glad you asked. (Note the membership explosion)

So get out there and primary some sentient statues of liver cancer.

[SalmonGod]

All I'm saying is, give me an option. Give me any option that's more likely to bring the country to a better place than the Democrats, and I'll vote for them. Hell, I'll volunteer for them.

We have to demand it.  We have to stop giving them a free pass because of this good cop/bad cop culture war routine.  We have to vote for 3rd parties even when we know they won't win to put our numbers on the map.  Until it truly sinks in that we won't settle for voting against our own interests anymore, we'll keep getting served the same shit.  Instead of them scaring us with "vote for us or the Republicans will win!", we need to scare THEM with "give us something to vote for or the Republicans will win!"

Edit:

Yeah, it's that or actually give up on the Democrats and truly support a third party like the one MSH linked.

[UristMcChladni]

All I'm saying is, give me an option. Give me any option that's more likely to bring the country to a better place than the Democrats, and I'll vote for them. Hell, I'll volunteer for them.

I'm glad you asked. (Note the membership explosion)

So get out there and primary some sentient statues of liver cancer.

I mean, I'm down with that, and if they can keep up the momentum from PA and keep their membership ballooning, that might eventually be a feasible option. But where I am right now, identifying with the DSA is going to mean voting D.

The Democratic Socialists envision a humane social order based on popular control of resources and production, economic planning...and racial equality.

I mean, you're gonna get the hackles of people on the right up, but it seems that even the most tepid progressive policies do that, so I'm down for going full socialist.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Make no mistake, the DSA is an entryist organization rather than a third party.

But that's why they're, you know, actually successful. Those two big tents aren't catching on fire anytime soon, but the ringleader can change. Trumpian nationalists were a minor but recognizable current within the GOP, now they are the defining leadership of the party.

The idea of "don't wake the Republicans" is a shitty strategy anyway. You shouldn't go around mocking people en mass like Hillary, but her problem wasn't that her policies were "too leftist" (hah), it's that she came off as thinking she was better than the public.

You might be surprised to believe how willing "always Republicans" are to listen to radical leftist thought if you don't sit around insulting them. In my experience, they're often even more receptive than centrist liberals.

[smjjames]

All I'm saying is, give me an option. Give me any option that's more likely to bring the country to a better place than the Democrats, and I'll vote for them. Hell, I'll volunteer for them.

I'm glad you asked. (Note the membership explosion)

So get out there and primary some sentient statues of liver cancer.

They've definetly had a revival in recent years, but they still pale in comparison to the size of the two biggest third parties, let alone the two main.

Interestingly, they don't show up on the wiki page for third parties in the US, despite listing parties with lower membership.

Make no mistake, the DSA is an entryist organization rather than a third party.

But that's why they're, you know, actually successful. Those two big tents aren't catching on fire anytime soon, but the ringleader can change. Trumpian nationalists were a minor but recognizable current within the GOP, now they are the defining leadership of the party.

edit: Or because it's an entryist organization, whatever that means.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Basically, the DSA is like a political caucus within the Democrats, except they don't care if the Democrats authorize their presence. They endorse candidates and have affiliates, perform political activities like canvasing for those candidates and such. But if the DCCC were to come down from on high and tell them to make their candidates support The War, they'd tell them to get fucked.

The DSA's ultimate goal is to usurp the very real governing power structure within the Democratic Party.

[smjjames]

The DSA's ultimate goal is to usurp the very real governing power structure within the Democratic Party.

Isn't that the goal of every single third party or political caucus within a party (at least those that have national aspirations)? To eventually take the reins of government? You gave an example of one in the post previous to the one I quoted.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Well, not every political organization. UKIP didn't try to take over the Ories from within, they tried to replace the Ories. And then the Ories started mutilating themselves, crying "I can be like UKIP too! LOVE ME".

And that's how we got Brexit.

But in the US political situation there's basically nothing but trying to knock one of two party establishments out of power.

[UristMcChladni]

within the Democratic Party.

reins of government

There's the difference. Third parties want to establish novel parties. The DSA wants to reform the democratic party. Of course both promote candidates for government positions.

Think tea party, but with socialism. And probably more tea. The tea party was never a third party.

[smjjames]

I did mean just those in the US. I can imagine that if we had a more Parliament-like party system, there'd be a huge load of parties with a few being big, but probably not complete domination.

@UristMcChladni: Yeah, the Tea Party was a movement within the Republicans, similar to the one within Democrats which is kind of a nameless amorphous shape right now.

[Lord Shonus]

The important thing to remember is that the two big US political parties are a closer analog to European political coalitions than they are to European political parties. With very little effort, you can identify many sub-parties in both major blocs - Looking at the Democrats, you big ones like the "Labor Rights" wing and the "Enviromentally responsible wing", smaller ones such as the "Campaign Finance Reform" or "Bring Our Troops" home wings, and fringe groups like the handful of outright socialists. An "entriest" party aims to become a major one of those sub-parties, and thus redirect the coalition to their goals.

[WealthyRadish]

As has been said a billion times, the issue isn't that the two parties are too popular (obviously) or even too rich and powerful, it's that our election rules make it extremely difficult for more than two parties to compete in a stable system. The congressional elections with high-population FPTP single-member districts in particular are so extremely weighted against third parties that they may as well not exist, and as most state governments mirror the congressional system, they hardly have a chance there either. The whole American political system is generally undemocratic and unresponsive whether third parties are desired or not, but mysteriously this issue never comes up in the national media aside from the odd reporting on gerrymandering.

The argument that the parties are internally varied and more like a coalition falls flat in my opinion, since even if this were true in the past, the development of 20th century telecommunications and mass media has so extensively homogenized american culture and politics that regional differences are weaker than ever, and where they do manifest in politics will largely only do so within the two-party framework (i.e. little actual deviation from the mainstream, just varying in intensity and in particular around strong single-issues).

[smjjames]

The problem is that in the current hyperpartisan environment, neither party wants to give even a nanometer to the other, so, I don't see any solution out of it because any solution is going to involve relaxing both parties grip on the system.

You know that three Californias thing you may have heard of? Well, it's now on the ballot for November. Ballotpedia page

While it makes for an interesting thought experiment and a discussion on the merits of it is fine, I'm not okay with having a single person decide how to split up California, it should be the people of California that decide how to split it up.

The guy behind the ballot measure is also rumored to have Russian connections, so, nope.

[redwallzyl]

I'd have to review my standards of law, but I'm pretty sure that only the federal government can make decisions regarding what land is occupied by what state, so I'm not sure what that's supposed to accomplish?

I think so but I know that Texas has some special thing where it can just dissolve itself into like five states.