this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
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How do you propose to elect somebody like that? Somebody well to the left of Biden would lose the center, and hence the election.
Elect the progressives in Congress, where they stand a chance and can influence legislation. Put a moderate in the White House because we can.
We need to foster a much larger, and longer scale ambition: democratic reforms.
Ranked choice voting, an end to the electoral college, greater participation in local elections, and campaign finance reform are the primary avenues that come to mind.
I don't disagree that we should elect progressives to congress, but if the problem is structural, the solutions must be too. And they must be things that can overcome the current structural barriers. So obviously electing a third party candidate can't be a solution to the barriers to that prevent third party candidates, for instance.
But direct democracy ballot measures, for instance, can be used to institute ranked choice voting, and state legislatures can be used to compel more democratic measures on local elections, which can then foster the generation of politicians who built a populist base and are more likely to expand the franchise to the state level once they rise in their careers.
Don't forget: overturning Roe was believed impossible, but the people who wanted to do it spent 50 years building the tools to build the tools to build the tools to do the impossible.
Yeah, it will take structural change, and the way to pull that off is to elect people to state legislatures and to congress who will actually work to make it happen. It doesn't happen otherwise.
I don't get why this is downvoted? A grassroots new political party can't go from 0 to Congress/Whitehouse in any reasonable time. A coup is a worse idea that if failed would crush the entire movement. A revolution means the most powerful military by far to ever exist, and the worlds reserve currency has uncertain control and would destabilize the world.
I think I'll take pushing the DNC to get us where we need to be, thank you very much.
You do it by framing the debate around meaningful policy changes, and immediately delivering on those changes at every opportunity to do so. Progressive policies will meaningfully improve people’s lives in almost every way. Force those centrist voters to think. Clearly paint a picture of the vast wealth inequality that exists between the elite and normal Americans. Force them to ask themselves why other candidates don’t want them to have better pay, more time with their families, free access to the best medical care, and free access to higher learning to improve themselves and learn new skills. These things are the “bootstraps” repugs love to harp on about, and progressives must lead the charge in enabling our people to take hold of them.