Trump Unhinged and Third Parties.

To the extent that my recent work is following a central theme of building progressive momentum in the Democratic Party, I want to address two topics: Trump’s joint session of Congress address and response and the folly of relying on third parties to deliver us from this madness.

With respect to the joint session. Holy hell, that was embarrassing. I wish other countries couldn’t see this shit. The Republicans look absolutely bloodthirsty and manic in their fealty to this creep. And the Democrats look bewildered. They keep playing into his kabuki theater. Tiny little pre-made signs. Are you serious?

Only Bernie kept it real by storming out at the end and telling reporters to follow him because he was giving the real response. As usual, he hit all the high notes.

• Medicare for all, blowing the cap on Social Security to preserve the trust in perpetuity, make the rich pay their share and increase retirement benefits to seniors.
• Building housing on federal land to house the homeless.
• Continuing to center climate change in our minds as we move forward.
• Progressive taxation.

And so on. It was classic Bernie. With a few tweaks, this is the foundation of our plan. There are a million other things we can do once we take back this country and show these charlatans for who they really are.

Instead of getting behind the most popular politician in the country who just happens to caucus with the Democrats, they trotted out Elissa Slotkin of Michigan to give the official response. And here’s what we got. I’m going to give you the highlights of her speech in bullet point form (watch the whole thing yourself, if you’re curious):

• She was in NY on 9/11.
• She joined the CIA and then the military.
• Mentions how George Bush and Barack Obama both believed in this country.
• Said we need to stop losing jobs to China.
• We need lower prices and better jobs.
• That tariffs are bad.
• The national debt is too big, national security is of paramount importance and we need to secure the border.
• Reagan was a better Republican president than Trump.
• We’re a nation of innovators and risk takers.
• And that we should get engaged. Do something other than doom scroll.

Go fuck yourself.

We don’t need your hawkish republican-light bonafides.

Don’t give a shit that you were in the CIA, in fact that makes me nervous.

Keep George Bush and Ronald Reagan’s names out your damn mouth.

Don’t say healthcare costs are too high unless you’re talking about Medicare for All.

National Security, national debt, secure the border and we’re a nation of risk takers and innovators. How are we still leading with Republican talking points?

This is how Kamala Harris lost. We litigated this already. Even David Brooks is like, “maybe Bernie was right all along.” You can’t be serious.

For those who say, it’s a pendulum, it will swing back, it won’t.

Why would Republicans destroy the economy on purpose, they say?

First of all, why do you think they’re all building spaceships and designing chips to put in their brains? They’re ready to ‘peace out’ of this planet and think they’ll live forever.

Seriously though, they don’t care about you or the economy or economic theories, taxes, regulations, competition, whether anyone will be able to buy anything. And I know this is the hardest thing to understand.

If they light it all on fire won’t they go up in flames as well? No. Actually, no. That’s not how it works.

Again. They wrote it all down. The period of time in history that they covet is the second industrial revolution. Read Project 2025. The mid 19th Century is their “Roman Empire” as the kids say. All the trappings of a feudal society in the beginning stages of industrialization. The haves and have nots. Please read your Dickens folks. Jacob Riis and How the Other Half Lives. They don’t want one economy, they want two. One for you to service the one for them. They don’t need all of you and won’t part with a penny.

What do you think the AI revolution is really about? Think about the hundreds of billions of dollars being spent. People like Larry Ellison will tell you it’s to cure cancer and, sure, that’s part of it. But if they destroy the healthcare system, then who do you think will have access to any life saving technology that comes from this?

The vast majority of the money is going into labor replacing technology. That’s you. They’re trying to fire you. The guy they hired to run things got famous for the catch phrase, “you’re fired.”

If they live in gated communities with armed guards and service people who take care of them, they don’t need an economy that works for you. They know this because mansions were built in the mid 19th Century. People had servants. They didn’t pay income taxes. This country was theirs. That’s the American dream in their minds. That’s why they’re working so hard and so fast right now to dismantle everything. Everything. They want there to be nothing left to build by the time Democrats get back into office.

So does that mean we’re screwed even if we win the mid-terms?

Yes and no. They’re going to drive the economy into the toilet and people are going to be pissed. We can’t just take back a few seats and push that old pendulum. We need to crush them in the mid-terms. Take the House for sure. But we need to send Susan Collins, Thom Tillis, Jon Husted, Ashley Moody, Joni Ernst, Roger Marshall, Steve Daines, John Cornyn and Lindsey Graham packing.

We need to make things impossible for Donald Trump and show a blue wave across the country that gives the House impeachment power and the Senate the ability to eliminate the filibuster and stand up to the Oval Office. Make his life a nightmare. Send bill after bill that helps the American people across his desk and let him veto it. And then mock his giant veto signature that overcompensates for his tiny hands. The way to get to Trump isn’t to refute him. It’s to mock him. He cannot handle it.

Democrats. Please, play hardball for once in your political lives.

Be Bernie not Chuck.

It’s our job now to show up at Democratic town halls and demand they get rid of this Elissa Slotkin bullshit and run on Medicare for All, Housing First and a Civilian Labor Corps. Then once you’re back in control, you can await further instructions. From us. The people who put you there.

Regarding Third Parties

The goal is to get Trump out of office in 2028 if a Big Mac stuck in his arteries doesn’t take him first. But it’s also to destroy the Republican Party for a generation, just tear it up by the roots. If that’s the mission at hand, it’s also fair to be of the opinion that the Democratic Party is not up to the task. By this logic, it feels like fighting for a third party to take over the country and put our organizing effort behind makes total sense.

In a perfect world, sure. In reality, my contention is that this is exactly the wrong strategy.

Arguing against third parties is a pretty fraught endeavor, especially for a self-proclaimed leftist, so I feel the need to contextualize this presentation a bit. I’ve argued against third parties in America tangentially, but I’ve never explicitly laid out my case and I owe you that much.

Here’s my thesis statement: There is no place for a third party as the U.S. political system was and is constructed. Moreover, any effort to build a third party hinders our ability to pursue leftist policies and radical reform. So now, the onus is on me to present my case. I hope you’ll settle in, come along and respond with your thoughts.

Let’s talk about parties and elections.

My pessimism surrounding third party efforts is reserved for federal elections mostly. I want to be clear on that. But as the saying goes, all politics is local so my pessimism does also extend to local efforts because they’ve been corrupted by the national trend.

As a New Yorker, I am now a registered Democrat because I want to vote in Democratic primaries. But I typically cast my vote on the Working Families line because it reminds Democrats that the Working Families platform is still vital to our interests. Now, I can only speak to the Working Families Party in New York but I can tell you it’s pretty effective as third parties go. It represents real, working class people and union members and focuses on community outreach. But even in this example, it’s rare—if not non-existent—to see candidates that only appear on this line. Typically they’re cross-endorsed Democrats.

Building a statewide party with roots in every community is really, really difficult and expensive. And because the political economy is built around jobs and the infrastructure to support them, it’s helpful when parties have something to offer. Like a job. Very few third parties are entrenched politically in a community AND have the ability to offer something to the grassroots organizers and volunteers if they’re victorious. If you’ve ever wondered why local elections are so hard fought and bruising and why people care so much is that oftentimes their livelihoods depend upon it. And I’m not being critical of that. I’m a believer in the political economy. Is it sometimes ruined by patronage and political nepotism? Absolutely. Show me an industry that isn’t.

The threshold to have a political organization that is effective at organizing, messaging, getting on ballots and getting people into office is incredibly high. So before we move to national efforts, let me just explore what it looks like on the ground in a place like New York where political activity is robust.

The Working Families Party has no exclusive representation in New York, nor does it in any other state that I can tell. That’s not a knock. I’m just providing context. It has a mission of “fusion endorsements” where it gets behind what it considers the most progressive candidate in a given election at the local, municipal, state and federal level. These endorsements are meaningful because it counteracts votes on the Conservative and Libertarian lines and gives voters an idea of which candidates have passed muster according to their vetting.

You know who else has zero exclusive sitting elected officials? The Green Party. This is the party the Left typically talks about when it comes to presidential candidates.

Again, take New York. In the ‘24 election between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, Jill Stein was not on the ballot. She had to be written in because the Green Party didn’t acquire enough signatures to get on the ballot in Blue York. Neither did the Libertarian Party, mind you. The only reason the Conservative and Working Families parties appeared as distinct lines is because they agreed to “fusion” endorsements with the Republican and Democratic Parties respectively.

How did this happen? Straight up collusion between the two major parties that increased the signature threshold to 130,000 valid signatures to appear on the ballot. So right now you’re probably having a couple of thoughts. One being, “that’s fucked up.” Doesn’t that make the argument for having a stronger third party? Another might be, “you’re telling me these third parties can’t muster enough support to get 130,000 signatures, which represents the 2% threshold among voters in the state?” That’s kind of what I’m thinking. I could walk around Manhattan for two hours and cough on 130,000 people and the Green Party can’t find 130,000 signatures? Really?

Guess what? Doesn’t matter. Because if it looks like they’re going to get 130,000 the state will increase it to 200k. They’ll keep moving the goalpost because the state parties are just as corrupt as the national parties.

Want to hear how corrupt my election district is? The last couple of election cycles we’ve been given a choice to fill six county court judicial positions. Know how many candidates were on the ballot? Six. Choose six from these six. Not only is the process so corrupt it prevents balloting by third parties, the two major parties collude on the judicial selection process and cross endorse them all. HA!

So if a state like New York with its rich political history and deep roots in community organizing can’t mount a proper third party challenge, where does that leave national efforts? Please understand, I’m not criticizing the attempt or even the meaningful work that a group like the Working Families Party does in raising awareness around key issues and making Democratic candidates keep certain promises if they want that fusion endorsement. I’m merely trying to illustrate how entrenched the Democratic and Republican Parties are in the process. And that’s just on the state level.

So let’s turn to the exciting stuff and talk about the presidential elections.

I don’t recall an election in my sentient political life when the parties involved and pundits commenting on it didn’t characterize it as the most consequential election in a generation…in our lifetimes, and sometimes in American history. With more years in my rearview mirror than the road ahead, I think they might have been right this time on at least two counts; and it depends on how you measure it.

Trump’s second term is already shaping up to be the most consequential in a generation, and it’s only been a few weeks. In terms of my lifetime, with a smidge over a half century down, I can say that it’s trending that way. With respect to all of U.S. history, let’s talk about the measurement to clarify.

Broadly speaking there have been two competing visions for America. A gross oversimplification, but go with me. Opposing forces are either trying to advance the cause of humanity or take us back. It’s either progress or nostalgia—hope and change or make America great again—both of which depend upon one’s lived experience to define. White, Black or other. Male, female or other. Old, young. Urban, suburban, rural. Wealthy, poor. Native born, immigrant or indigenous. We bring ourselves to every conversation and ideological vision.

So I’m defining consequential as progress versus retrenchment, generally. Consequential through this lens means that regressive forces have the capacity to tear down existing structures in an attempt to turn back the tide of progress and reform. Likewise, progressive forces have the capacity to tear down barriers erected to prevent the working class and marginalized in this country from moving forward to participate in this economy and our democracy.

So again, in this context, since the late 1970s the American political apparatus has been run by neoliberals. A perfect continuum regardless of the face in charge. Clinton, either Bush, Reagan, Obama, Biden and even Trump 1.0—on balance, indistinguishable on foreign policy, economic policy, treatment of the poor and working class, you name it, in so far as the results, not rhetoric. Some were better stewards and mouthpieces of capitalism and others were disgusting and stupid, but they all worked in service of the neoliberal capitalist agenda.

So in a generation, sure. This Trump term is the most consequential because he’s playing 52 pickup with democracy and even our notion of neoliberalism.

In my lifetime, it’s still Reagan. Reagan was the turning point who codified neoliberal ideas into policy and set the whole thing in motion with a vision for nostalgia and punishing the poor and working class. But Trump 2.0 is going to give him a run for the money. Either way, the nostalgia crew... the going backward instead of forward measurement, these guys have been on a tear for my whole life.

Most consequential in history?

In terms of forward progress I’ll cite LBJ over Goldwater. Maybe FDR, though he’s a mixed bag. Probably more progress than not. How about Lincoln!?

In terms of going backward? How about Woodrow Wilson and the Andrews—Jackson and Johnson. I mean, we’ve had some doozies.

Whether the election of Donald Trump rises to the occasion of being the most consequential in U.S. history depends upon how effective Russell Vought and Elon Musk are in rolling over the Constitution, the Democrats, the courts, federal agencies and the American people. So far…I don’t like our odds.

So when I hear people on the left say they’re done with the Democrats, can you blame them?

Donald Trump’s COVID response probably contributed to hundreds of thousands of excess mortality in this country. He shredded all decency, all norms. His cabinet was the most corrupt, maybe ever. The ones he didn’t fire wound up under indictment. Everyone that worked with him said he was stupid and shouldn’t be in charge of a preschool let alone a country. He tried to overthrow the government, gave the largest tax cut to the wealthiest people in the country, and is a convicted felon. And the Democrats lost to him, twice. Why would you trust these idiots?

I get it.

In our recent essay on getting money out of politics, we detailed the 180 year effort to get money into politics, culminating in the disastrous Citizens United decision. To say we lost this battle is the biggest understatement I can make in this essay. The monied elites in collusion with the GOP worked case after case in the court system to dismantle campaign finance hurdles to build the capstone argument that money is speech and corporations are people.

You have to understand that this is the nail in the coffin cementing the two party system in America. We have to face this fact if we’re going to build a campaign to undo it. The Democrats may have rhetorically pushed back against this effort along the way, but it was halfhearted at best because now they are the beneficiaries of two party incumbency as a result. These two parties now control every lever of power when it comes to determining who gets to participate in the political process.

Focusing on building a third party movement also ignores the rest of American history. Let’s pretend money isn’t the obstacle for a minute. Prior to the Citizens United era, there were exactly zero successful efforts to win a presidential election. Zero. There were bold attempts, which we’ll talk about in a moment, but even these just served to strengthen the resolve of the major parties to sideline efforts through bureaucratic means.

We’ve had a two-party system since the earliest days of our founding when we were divided into federalists and anti-federalists. The two sides formalized their opposition to one another in the form of parties, the Democrats and the Whigs who eventually became Republicans. So this is how it has always been.

Now, let me run back some figures I shared when I was shouting at the rain during the election because RFK, Jill Stein and Cornel West put the third party conversation back on the front burner given the antipathy toward the way the Democrats were running the campaign, and disbelief among normie Republicans that Trump was the nominee again. At the time I was taking the DNC to task because the leadership was sniffing its own farts thinking they had a winning strategy running on a right leaning platform that did nothing to acknowledge the economic fear and precarity of the average American. It was little wonder people were praying for a third party to emerge.

Third parties haven’t held significant influence over presidential elections in more than 100 years. Two things happened way back then that convinced party bosses to put their thumbs on the electoral scale and we’ve been living with the fallout ever since.

The first was the performance of socialists under the multiple candidacies of Eugene Debs. While Debs never cracked anywhere near the margin required to win a national election, his momentum was substantial enough to impact outcomes and win hearts and minds along the way. Of course, this became a non-starter for the monied class in the United States as a wave of socialist governments crashed over the European continent and Russia fell to the Bolsheviks.

The other major factor was the Bull Moose himself, Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy created the first national progressive ticket when he was upset at the direction of the country under his hand-picked successor William Howard Taft. There’s enough literature to support the idea that Teddy just missed being president and this was more vanity than substance, but his candidacy was a third-party triumph as he shellacked his former Republican ally by a substantial electoral margin.

To make a long story short, the wheels were set in motion from this point forward to minimize the potential impact of third parties through anti-socialist smear campaigns and by erecting barriers to entry for presidential candidates.

Even still, third parties made true protest showings over the next decades and sometimes influenced the outcomes. In modern times, people point to the Perot and Nader campaigns as spoilers because they took disenfranchised voters away from the main parties. The duopoly apparatus had successfully blocked third party candidates from making too much of an impact before Perot’s bid in 1992.

Over years they worked to increase the number of signatures required to get on the ballot in each state. Just gaining ballot access became a numbers game in terms of signatures and money. It’s enormously expensive. But Perot was extremely wealthy and so he set up a separate operation entirely dedicated to acquiring and certifying signatures. This had two major effects: The first was that it created a de facto grassroots movement; the second was that it gave Perot access to the American people because he qualified for the presidential debates.

In the end, Perot won 19% of the popular vote. Even though he failed to earn a single elector, his performance sent shockwaves through the American political establishment as it was the largest third party showing since Teddy Roosevelt.

The key to his success was his ability to connect with people through the medium of television. His direct and no nonsense responses connected with blue collar voters from both parties. He famously ran long infomercials explaining fundamental aspects of the U.S. government in plain language, using charts, graphs and a pointer. But it was his debate performances that really put him on the map because he appeared alongside George Bush and Bill Clinton. It’s impossible to overstate how huge this is in terms of optics. The debate stage, as we’ve all just been reminded, can serve as the great equalizer.

So the RNC and the DNC upped the ante and worked both the access and visibility angles.

First, they increased the thresholds for signatures and the nuances to acquiring them in the states they controlled respectively. As importantly, in 1987 they started a new corporation to control the debates, which had been run by the League of Women Voters independently for the entirety of the modern television era. Immediately, this new corporation called the Commission on Presidential Debate—owned by the two major parties—set the terms of the debate and turned them into a media circus. They also created arbitrary rules for who qualified to debate.

Having learned from the Perot fiasco, by the 2000 election the commission went into full swing to prevent third party candidates from participating in the debates. Both Pat Buchanan, who was running on Perot’s Reform Party ticket, and Ralph Nader on the Green Party line, were barred from the debate for failing to meet the arbitrary thresholds of the commission. To illustrate what a joke it was and still is, one of the criteria is national poll performance averages, but the polls themselves are often conducted by entities controlled by the Democratic and Republican Parties.

That’s why you haven’t seen a third party candidate on the debate stage since Ross Perot.

So when people like Jill Stein come out of the woodwork every so often to run for president, it’s not the money or even the votes and signatures I care about. It’s the energy. We need every ounce of energy pulling the oars in one direction: Away from oligarchy.

There are 180,000 election precincts in the country.

There are 55 political parties recognized by the Federal Election Commission.

1,900 State Senate seats

5,300 State House seats.

The Libertarian Party is on the ballot in 38 states for the presidential election and it’s been around for 51 years. Know how many libertarians are currently in Congress? None. Zilch. Zero.

The Green Party is on the ballot in 23 states. The Green Party as currently constituted has been around for 24 years now but the organizing efforts began 41 years ago. It has elected members to positions in local city councils, parks and recreation boards, school boards and water boards. Know how many are in Congress? None. Zilch. Zero.

You see, here’s the ultimate irony of the two major parties doing everything they can to consolidate power. When you pair this kind of political monopoly with unlimited money, you set the stage for unlimited corruption. That’s what happened. The parties aren’t in control anymore. They’re empty vessels on ventilators pumping with cash from billionaires and corporations. The only thing they’ve left the door open that even resembles democracy anymore is voting. And if we don’t do something to take advantage of this opening before it’s too late, there are people in the White House right now who are planning to foreclose on this option.

How We Can Move Forward

Let’s go back to the 2024 election, just a few months ago before we talk about what needs to happen next here. You remember. Before we left Ukraine to die, broke ties with every ally we’ve made in the world over the last 100 years, ripped apart Medicaid, put tariffs on our primary suppliers of raw materials, which will increase inflation for consumers, blanket fired tens of thousands of federal workers and gave Elon Musk the keys to dismantle Social Security. That election.

Imagine if Harris didn’t run away from her previously documented commitment to Medicare for All. Imagine if she split from Biden over the massacre in Gaza, said that Bidenomics hadn’t done enough to alleviate poverty, pledged to reinstate the direct child credit payments and doubled down on student debt relief. Imagine if she had done even one of these things instead of sidelining Arab American voices, trying to run right of Trump on immigration, staying silent on student debt, saying she owned a Glock or building an entire economic agenda around a first-time home buyer tax credit that literally no one understood.

Trump didn’t win the election in the landslide he claims. There’s no mandate. The Democrats literally handed it to him on a silver platter by doing nothing but run on ‘joy’ and ‘never Trump.’ In trying to appeal to Republicans they alienated Democrats. So here’s my bigger fear about the midterms and why I’m speaking out so passionately about the need to abandon the fantasy of a third party.

The Party is ours for the taking, not the other way around. A means to many ends that benefit the people. To quote Leon Trotsky who knew a thing or two about revolutions: “Without a guiding organisation, the energy of the masses would dissipate like steam not enclosed in a piston-box. But nevertheless what moves things is not the piston or the box, but the steam.”

Trump is going to destroy this economy. Been saying it for a year. But what I thought would take at least a year is going to happen in a matter of months. This is real. This is not a drill. Don’t listen to James Carville who advised the Democrats to just sit back and let things implode because it will guarantee victory in the midterms. I’m not saying don’t listen to him because he’s wrong. I’m saying it because he’s right.

If we allow the Democrats to do nothing and win by default then we’ll get Pete Buttigieg, Gavin Newsom or some other mealy-mouthed corporate sellout in 2028, and the oligarchs will still win because nothing will fundamentally change. Real change occurs in moments of crisis and they’re delivering the biggest one since the financial crisis—only back then very few saw it coming. Now it’s on display for everyone to see.

But we need to scare the Democrats and let them know they cannot get our votes back unless they submit to our non-negotiables. Three non-negotiables to get back our vote, all five to earn back our trust.

The best part is that these are things that everyone on the so-called left from Blue Dogs to democratic socialists can rally behind because they’re good policy.

Medicare for All is a winner. A Civilian Labor Corps to replace jobs being liquidated by the AI, high interest rates, DOGE and trade wars. And a Housing First policy to commit to housing the homeless in this country, a national shame.

I’ve argued for these three non-negotiables to earn back our votes because the Democratic Party is the only one with the apparatus to manage a national election. This is our moment. Stop overthinking the corruption of the Democratic Party itself and focus on taking it over. Add a hundred more Jasmine Crocketts, AOCs, Jamie Raskins, Ayanna Pressleys and Summer Lees and we’ll compel the feckless Senate Democrats to grow some stones and get in the game.

The Party is ours for the taking, not the other way around. A means to many ends that benefit the people. To quote Leon Trotsky who knew a thing or two about revolutions, “Without a guiding organisation, the energy of the masses would dissipate like steam not enclosed in a piston-box. But nevertheless what moves things is not the piston or the box, but the steam.”

We give far too much credence to the notion of parties in this country. Parties are themselves instruments of power. The question is really who wields the instrument. Elected officials aren’t divine. Nor are many of them particularly principled if we’re being honest. They are mirrors, hollow reflections of prevailing sentiments within artificially drawn boundaries of a community. Where the Republicans have succeeded more so than their adversaries is drawing those boundaries to consolidate sentiment. They’ve done a better job of identifying the inclinations of a community, feeding them false narratives and mining them for money and votes. Imagine if we fed people the truth and spoke with one voice.

We are the steam and the DNC is the piston box. In the pulpit we need religious leaders calling for Medicare for All to and to house the poor. It’s in their books. All the books. They all say the same thing. Pick your prophet and I guarantee that’s what they would say. We need every organizing rally, every social media armchair warrior post you make, every town hall meeting with your congressperson to be filled with the words of the people.

Healthcare, Jobs & Housing. You run on those things, you’ve got our vote in the midterms. You win on those, you find a candidate to stand behind in 2028 who’s committed to putting them into play. Then we can do the long term stuff to get money out of politics and enact legislation that provides climate justice to citizens at home and abroad. Because the planet belongs to all of us.

But if we divide at this moment, send our steam in any direction but the piston box, it will dissipate. We took the supermajority in the ‘00s and in the ‘60s. It can be done. It’s proven. You know what’s also proven? No third party holds a federal office in this country.

The reason the modern DNC is filled with such hubris is because they won with Obama and they won with Biden. Both of those victories came on the heels of utter financial cataclysm and it made them think they were good at their jobs. But a turnip would have beaten John McCain in ‘08 and a turnip beat Trump in 2020. The real tests in between they failed miserably. But they’ll repeat these errors and run on nothing if we don’t spoon feed them the platform.

So if you’re committed to winning and transforming our politics forget about the party and focus on the issues. Yell from the rooftops about the People’s Platform of Housing, Jobs and Healthcare and ignore the chaos coming from the right. They are going to burn it all down. Don’t let them rebuild the same thing and stop asking to build something over there. Rebuild it within the frame but with better materials.

Here endeth the lesson.

Image Source

• Daniel Torok, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Changes were made.