Like what are the practical steps to take? Stuff like universal healthcare isn’t even a controversial policy. How do we form a voting bloc around that?
We need folks <55 to show up for every single election to get progressives elected into local, state and national positions.
2016 is when the youth vote started reliably turning up for presidential elections. That’s great but it’s not enough, we need young folks participating in primaries (which they tend to sit out,) congressional elections, state elections, county elections and local elections. >55 still outnumber <35 by anywhere between 2:1 and 8:1 in almost every election except the presidential race. Until that changes progressive candidates don’t have a chance at local, state and national positions that give them a springboard to higher office.
TL;DR: The <55 vote needs to turn out in force for every election every year (plus primaries!) and vote for progressives that represent their interests. Until that happens politics will remain dominated by neoliberal and conservative homeowners who show up reliably every time.
Bernie Sanders has pointed out that he was happy with Biden passing the progressive legislation coming out of Congress. If you want something like universal healthcare, it is going to take a Democrat controlled Congress with enough margins to allow for minor dissent from some Senators.
Time to start becoming more involved in congressional elections.
You can’t. The USA political system is capitalist-as-opposed-to-humanist. It exists to serve capital. You will have to look elsewhere for humanist concerns.
It’d be more effective to try and get progressives into lesser positions, first - local government, state government, congress. Going straight for the presidency is a non-starter unless you can get the democratic party to buy in, which won’t happen. Putting progressives into office elsewhere, especially if it forces the dems to start cooperating with them to pass policy, is an easier and more realistic starting point.
The current Dems will stop any attempt at progressives winning anything. The first step has to be taking over the Democratic party. Find your local Dem party (every state and many cities/towns/counties have there own Dem party, and if they don’t, you can form one pretty easy) and start by replacing any conservative Dems there. “Luckily” these elections have extremely small turnout, and are relatively easy to win. These smaller Dem parties then elect leadership of higher level Dems like the DNC. Once progressives have control of the party we can choose what the party fights for and who gets support in primaries.
Alternatively, a highly popular candidate like Bernie or AOC could break from the Dems and start their own progressive party, but that would likely just lead to the Republicans always winning.
Support ranked choice voting initiatives at a local level, then state level, then national level. This bottom-up approach is quite practical, though it takes some time to complete.
I’ll give you three paths:
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Option 1: It’s not so much about getting a progressive in the White House, it’s about getting a significant majority in the legislature. LBJ was not considered a progressive when elected, yet he signed many progressive objectives into law. Get a decent power base in the legislature and any moderate president worth half their salt will sign the stuff into law.
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Option 2: Get Progressives in the cabinet and then utilize the order of succession. Arguably the most progressive person in recent history that we’ve had in the White House was Henry Wallace, he was VP in FDRs 3rd presidency and then became secretary of commerce in the 4th and as part of Truman’s cabinet. He was a known communist apologist. At one time, he was a heartbeat away from being president.
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Option 3: The Snapback to normalcy. Just a theory, but for whatever awful reason, as soon as America elects one party or the other, they essentially get buyers remorse the next election. Not always, but fairly often. So, America could elect someone so awful, who cuts back so many popular programs, and enacts so much of their own agenda that Americans find unpalatable. Add to that a raise in taxes and a bad economy during the election cycle, and maybe, just maybe a progressive demagogue would have a fighting chance. Of course, the opposite is just as likely to occur for another 4 or 8 years first, so when using this option, be careful what you wish for.
- Someone else said it well on another thread, but essentially; life keeps getting harder/worse for regular people regardless of which party is “in power”. So if a Dem is in charge, the next election goes to a Republican, then when things get worse, the next election goes to a Dem, then things get worse and it goes back to a Republican… Etc
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Ranked choice balloting in all 50 states.
Proportional Electoral College voting in all 50 states.payers of the money that funds the US elections and props up the two-party sham would never allow universal healthcare
most we would get is some lip service because it is all a stroke job
Push for single transferable vote for elections.
It’s as simple and difficult as finding common ground with many of the various groups on the left. I think there IS a cause that we can all agree on - wealth inequality because it’s the cause and/or symptom of most of the other problems we champion - and we need to unite behind that so we can be an electoral force. There are enough of us if we voted together.
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Write fanfiction about it.
Our current election is a TV host turned wannabe dictator vs a fuckin’ cop.
Good things don’t happen here.
Stop voting for the duopoly and show them they can only win votes by implementing these policies.
Imagine a third party receiving 10% of the votes. You can bet both democrats and republicans will suddenly start pandering to those voters. Trump is not on stage in Michigan with Arabs because he loves them. He really wants those last few voters.
It is by putting your vote on public display outside of the duopoly that you can start to make demands.
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