politics

There's a saying that "you can't shoot an idea."

This is such a great idea that I came up. Thank you, me. 😃

The Dems don't have to reinvent themselves, and they don't have to lie, cheat, steal, commit treason, and be pedophiles to beat the MAGANazis, they just have to play HARD BALL, and make the MAGANazis fight for every single inch of ground.

Bernie is so old that he’s a Silent Generation and not even a Boomer, however Bernie has more energy and larger backbone than most Democrats ever have had.

Nancy Pelosi does need to retire but she's better than Chuck "Folding Chair" Schumer.

Honestly I think Bernie should go too. He deserves a good retirement after a long career of solid work. We need people in office who can run the show for the next thirty years.

My SO and I have joked that while I could never win a local election, if I ran, I might just be able to get within punching range of our shitty representative.

Don't forget Bernie, he's been going around the country holding how to fight the oligarchy rallies

A couple reasons.

Bernie and the Democrats are going to align 90% of the time (just like with Manchin on the other end of the spectrum). Basically, the other party is anti-America. So being pro-America makes you a de facto Democrat.

Since we don't have Ranked Choice Voting or any other system that is conducive to multiple parties, primaries allow directionally aligned candidates to decide who is most popular to avoid splitting the vote. This isn't necessary if a candidate has enough support for it to not matter. (Bernie is an independent in congress, but he ran as a Democrat in his presidential runs.)

Our first past the post +presidential election system means that a third party, particularly a splinter third party will just pull votes from the not as terrible party, strengthening the opposition parties electoral strength. Funding third parties in close races to split the opposition has been a strategy of both Republicans and Democrats.

They kind of are in a different party: the Democratic Socialists of America isn’t on the ballot but Bernie runs as an independent who caucuses with Democrats. If Democrats wanted to, they could run a candidate against him. But to form a truly independent third party, you’d just be splitting the votes on the left.

As you get to state and national elections where much of the nation is pretty evenly divided, running as a third party all but ensures the Republican will win (even without winning a majority in most states, though a few use different systems). In essence, our system requires coalitions to be made before the election rather than after.

You could compare it to UK elections. In 2024, Labour won 33% of the votes but won 411 of 650 seats because the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, and regional parties split the rest.

Because it leaves open the potential for a Democrat v. Republican v. New Party election (at whatever level, not just presidency) and that's likely to improve Republican chances. Where the progressive candidates are strong it's better for them to beat the centrist in a one on one then take on the Republican with their center-left voters. Where they're weak the most a three way contest does is maybe make the right win over the center.

There are many many races without real Republican challengers where a new party could challenge moderate Democrats from the left, but in those situations the Democratic primary is the real vote and you might as well just win there.

State laws make ballot access difficult. Every state has its own rules and most of them are meant to exclude 3rd parties. Neither Dems nor MAGAts like competition.

Money. They wouldn't be able to fundraise the money they need to get messages out to people. Then there's the depressingly large number of Americans who vote by party in a system meant for voting by individual. They would lose funding and then get smashed in the elections because nobody knew the party was even there.