We’ve spent a lot of time talking about subverting the Democrats via a Tea Party-style movement, voting for a 3rd party, or attempting to start a new one from the ground up, and let me be the millionth to say it: we aren’t going to be able to start an insurgent progressive party in enough time to take any national seats in 2018.
This is just conjecture. You are not actually stating any facts here. I think a progressive movement could win seats, but it may involve running independent candidates instead of a candidate in some new party. It will almost certainly involve seats in districts with jungle primaries.
“Fine,” you might say. “I know it’s going to take a long time. I know the last time a insurgent party managed to burst into the mainstream was the Republicans way back in 1854. I don’t care. We have to do it.”
Here’s the issue with that: if there is not at least a mild shift towards the left in our national legislative branch, 2018 will see a dismantling of the Constitution. If there is even minor movement to the right from where we are right now, any and all changes to the Constitution would be paced rapidly due to supermajorities in all legislative bodies. Given the current regime’s propensity toward authoritarianism, I’d suggest this is not something we want to happen.
This is, again, just speculation, and fear-mongering on top of that. You could just as easily hypothesize that Trump doesn’t even last until the 2018 midterms without getting impeached. Both are just conjectures based on air.
I like where your article is coming from, but it is ultimately just a lot of platitudes. I did not count a single concrete, actionable proposal. I saw a lot of rhetoric about “getting them to follow us” or how “we” need to “start changing things” or “work outside the system.” None of this means anything or provides a blueprint for how to enact positive political outcomes. Nebulous promises of change with no real plan and unfocused principles brought us the neoliberal Obama presidency and now the neofascist Trump regime.
