I agree. Both parties worked issues to continue economic policies for the donor class. Republicans mainly used abortion, Democrats focused on political rights. Business was fine with all these issues or could pick their side if they were true believers, like the pillow guy. Meanwhile they could work the system for the moneybags, like Hoyer for pharmaceutical or Manchin for fossil fuels. I am so tired of having to vote for the lesser evil. The moderates will blame the progressives for moving too far left when I actually believe it was the Centers strategy to go along with social/political issues in order to avoid economic policies for people rather than corporations. Of course, Talking Heads amplify the Centrist message. Wash, rinse repeat. I want the Do-Nothing Democrats to pay, to lose their power, to be voted out. Decades I have waited, worked and hoped for change. I felt so betrayed by Obama. Why won’t the progressives exercise their power for systemic change. The Tea Party did it, why not the Progressives Caucus? Why doesn’t AOC take on Schumer? She could do what Manchin did but for policies that would help people.
Critics of the Democratic Party who say the both parties are the same are likely to be thinking of Clinton and his pursuit of support of funding from big business. But neither Clinton could have been described as progressives. Both grew up in conservative families and environments, and could easily be described as conservative Democrats or perhaps even as DINO's (Democrats in name only).
Moreover, Bill Clinton came to office following the election of Reagan and he had witnessed the defection of a large share of working class Democrats to vote for the very conservative President Reagan. The corporate and right-wing propaganda that the voters leaned to the right of center probably seemed persuasive to the Clintons and it is not so surprising that his policies reflected that perception.
Question: Are you saying your neighbors who support Trump and get their information from Fox News can be persuaded to vote for a Democratic candidate? I lived in Appalachia 2003-2020 and don’t believe that could ever happen. I get your point about Bernie and it’s worth reminding folks that despite running in the Democratic primaries, he was - and remains - an independent.
I used to say we need a progressive minded third party. No. Despite any good intentions, all parties are inherently corruptible. That will not change unless there’s honest campaign finance reform and who knows when we’ll have an honest SCOTUS majority again that will allow it?
The only hope I imagine is true independent candidates winning state house and then U.S. House and Senate seats and, hopefully, the presidency. Gore was robbed in 2000 and I was pissed at Nader voters for making it a close election. But they were right. The major parties were barely indistinguishable once you focused on the core: filthy campaign cash and the influence attached to it. To me, that’s the problem.
It’s also worth noting that if the Democrats in charge in Florida didn’t sign off on those ridiculous “butterfly” ballots, enough confused elderly Democratic voters wouldn’t have mistakenly voted for Pat Buchanan rather than Gore. Other than not invading Iraq, you have to wonder what else would have turned out differently.
Yes. That is exactly what I’m saying. I’m saying that my neighbor is here in. Appalachia could be convinced to vote for someone who was truly ready to take on the institutions in the power structures that have made their lives less pleasant and more difficult. Both Tennessee and West Virginia had majority representation of Democrats until 2010 in Congress West Virginia was a Democratic trifecta until around that time. There are other examples but yes, it can be done but not with Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries at the helm.
We only have two political parties. That's all we have ever had really. Yes there are some minor parties that in a good year might get 2% of the vote but the other 98% of voters will not waste votes on someone who has no realistic chance of winning. There are never more than two viable candidates because that is as many candidates as plurality voting can accommodate. And increasingly, both viable candidates try to convince voters of how awful their opponent is.
The tendency in the general election is for the two viable candidates to try to hug the middle ground. But that is after they tried as hard as they could in the primaries to appeal to their base by taking what they think are extreme positions. Is it any wonder that voters feel their choice is between two candidates when they truly oppose both of them. They would like more candidates to choose from.
They could have that, but only if we were to change the way we vote. These problems grow out of our insistence on using plurality voting. Maine and Alaska have been experimenting with ranked-choice voting, but that really is not much of an improvement; voting becomes more difficult but the two-party duopoly persists.
The voting system does not matter if the CORRUPT ESTABLISHMENT MEDIA is only telling the sheep about the (2) Corrupt Establishment candidates and blackball everyone else like they did to Bernie Sanders. Establishment Media barely mentioned Bernie Sanders during the 2016 & 2020 Democratic Party Primaries. If they did it was in a small dismissive way, even though Bernie was the lead in both primaries they covered up any poll that had Bernie ahead. Unless we deal with the Corrupt Top 1% Controlled Media Criminal Cartel and the Establishment Top 1% Controlled Campaign Finance Criminal Cartel nothing will change no matter what voting system we enact. They will muddy the water and eliminate any real competition to the UNIPARTY CARTEL
I do love you ideas and your passion. I share most of your columns with my family and friends. As a boomer, I've lost none of my progressive beliefs, unlike so many of my cohort. I believe that you are entirely correct that our government needs to build public infrastructure and not be dissuaded from same by labels such as 'socialism' or 'communism'. That said, until we restructure the Supreme Court with an additional 6 members (so that no president can so radically alter the composition in one term), and overrule the decisions that determined financial constructs to be the same as people and that money is speech, the oligarchy will continue to prevail. We have the best congress that money can buy, and now we have a grifter-in-chief as well. Pay to Play is the new mantra. Overturning that has to be front and center if we ever hope to have a government of, by, and for the people.
The only thing that I have to add is that Michelle Goldberg was NOT 'mortified', she was 'shocked'. Mortification is a synonym for 'embarrassment', unless you mean that she was, for some reason, embarrassed for you. Mortify for shocked; notoriety for fame; infer for imply....all completely incorrect usages. It's so bad that the dictionary now has a 2nd meaning for 'infer' (which of course means to conclude as its first meaning). Sorry, but Ma was a copy editor :-)
I think she was absolutely embarrassed for me. I think that she thought that I was a poor uneducated hillbilly that didn’t understand that I was abstaining to vote, and therefore in essence voting against my own interest interests. I don’t believe that she thought that I had a defendable position.
"He passed Romneycare instead of a public option."
Yes, and he sat right next to Hillary Clinton in a debate during the primaries and scolded here for proposing the exact policy that he ended up enacting. Obama said that people want health insurance and that a mandate is unnecessary. When he got in office he listened to Rahm Emanuel and the others.
I agree wholeheartedly. I, too, worked to elect Obama because I thought he would be more progressive and help the working people. I was furious when he did nothing more than the usual moderates. I also supported Fetterman when he ran for the Senate because he, too, was saying he was there to help the working class. Also a liar!!!
Here is the piano store gambit. I claim no originality; this is George Bernard Shaw writing in January, 1890.
“I know a pianoforte dealer who has an artful way of selling indifferent pianos, even to experts. When you go into his showrooms to choose an instrument, he leads you straight to a dashing, rattling, fireirony, ‘brilliant’ atrocity, upon which he half murders your ear before you can stop him. Then, professing to understand by your protests exactly what you want, he opens just such another, only ten percent worse all round. By the time he has assaulted you in this manner some five or six times, you are ready, by force of contrast, to accept a very middling piano as a quite exquisite instrument.”
I have never seen a better description of the current American two-party system.
Great essay. I am 80 years old and have worked in many campaigns over the years. I was a lobbyist for labor unions and witnessed the decline of the Dems and the FDR coalition because of this shift on economic policy. I have several questions I want answered is to what happened to the multi- million dollar autopsy report the party commissioned after the 2024 election? What did it reveal? Did it show how the party shift to the middle during the Harris campaign and its 12 state strategy backfire. Did it show that people want more younger progressive leadership? I have called Ken Martin I have emailed Kern Martin. I have sent back donation material sent to me with these questions. I have called Chuckey and Hakeem and asked these questions. I have yet to have any response to any of these questions.
All so true! You laid it all out there perfectly. Too bad the American Sheep that worship the #Fakenews, and will never read it. And some that do read it will not understand it. I believe the Democrats lost on purpose. Their Top 1% donors don't allow them to talk about anything that puts the bullseye on the real problem: "THEM" The Top 1% Multi-National Corporate Wall Street Thugs. The Democtic Party Platform is a joke. They stand for nothing that matters to a majority of the people except a few issues like healthcare which they talk about but never do what is needed: Eliminate the Corrupt Middleman (Healthcare Insurance Companies, and outrageous healthcare premiums where most of the money is stolen by Corporate RAIDERS) from the government Corporate Welfare Subsidies and install a highly regulated single payer system. But NO DEMOCRAT the CORRUPT INSURANCE COMPANY LOBBY CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE establishment anoints will ever be ALLOWED to talk like this and wake up the SHEEP!
“In other words, affordability cannot be reclaimed and there is no structural solution. That is not political analysis. That is a surrender document dressed up as realism. And it is precisely why the moderate positions being recommended will make things worse, not better.”
The Clintonista version of the Democratic Party drove me to socialism. The longer it remains in power, the more I lean towards becoming a communist.
I voted in every presidential election since Nixon-McGovern. Since Reagan-Mondale, I never voted for a Republican, and never for a Democrat, with the exception of Obama in ‘08, the most embarrassing vote I ever cast.
No politics but class politics.
“It is the heart of U.S. policy to use fascism to preserve capitalism while claiming to save democracy from communism.” — Michael Parenti
Eugene Debs: “I’d rather vote for something I want and don’t get it, than vote for something I don’t want and get it.”
I agree. Both parties worked issues to continue economic policies for the donor class. Republicans mainly used abortion, Democrats focused on political rights. Business was fine with all these issues or could pick their side if they were true believers, like the pillow guy. Meanwhile they could work the system for the moneybags, like Hoyer for pharmaceutical or Manchin for fossil fuels. I am so tired of having to vote for the lesser evil. The moderates will blame the progressives for moving too far left when I actually believe it was the Centers strategy to go along with social/political issues in order to avoid economic policies for people rather than corporations. Of course, Talking Heads amplify the Centrist message. Wash, rinse repeat. I want the Do-Nothing Democrats to pay, to lose their power, to be voted out. Decades I have waited, worked and hoped for change. I felt so betrayed by Obama. Why won’t the progressives exercise their power for systemic change. The Tea Party did it, why not the Progressives Caucus? Why doesn’t AOC take on Schumer? She could do what Manchin did but for policies that would help people.
Critics of the Democratic Party who say the both parties are the same are likely to be thinking of Clinton and his pursuit of support of funding from big business. But neither Clinton could have been described as progressives. Both grew up in conservative families and environments, and could easily be described as conservative Democrats or perhaps even as DINO's (Democrats in name only).
Moreover, Bill Clinton came to office following the election of Reagan and he had witnessed the defection of a large share of working class Democrats to vote for the very conservative President Reagan. The corporate and right-wing propaganda that the voters leaned to the right of center probably seemed persuasive to the Clintons and it is not so surprising that his policies reflected that perception.
Question: Are you saying your neighbors who support Trump and get their information from Fox News can be persuaded to vote for a Democratic candidate? I lived in Appalachia 2003-2020 and don’t believe that could ever happen. I get your point about Bernie and it’s worth reminding folks that despite running in the Democratic primaries, he was - and remains - an independent.
I used to say we need a progressive minded third party. No. Despite any good intentions, all parties are inherently corruptible. That will not change unless there’s honest campaign finance reform and who knows when we’ll have an honest SCOTUS majority again that will allow it?
The only hope I imagine is true independent candidates winning state house and then U.S. House and Senate seats and, hopefully, the presidency. Gore was robbed in 2000 and I was pissed at Nader voters for making it a close election. But they were right. The major parties were barely indistinguishable once you focused on the core: filthy campaign cash and the influence attached to it. To me, that’s the problem.
It’s also worth noting that if the Democrats in charge in Florida didn’t sign off on those ridiculous “butterfly” ballots, enough confused elderly Democratic voters wouldn’t have mistakenly voted for Pat Buchanan rather than Gore. Other than not invading Iraq, you have to wonder what else would have turned out differently.
Yes. That is exactly what I’m saying. I’m saying that my neighbor is here in. Appalachia could be convinced to vote for someone who was truly ready to take on the institutions in the power structures that have made their lives less pleasant and more difficult. Both Tennessee and West Virginia had majority representation of Democrats until 2010 in Congress West Virginia was a Democratic trifecta until around that time. There are other examples but yes, it can be done but not with Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries at the helm.
Yes, yes, yes!! Beautifully and clearly articulated.
This 94 year old white woman agrees with your every word you have written.
We only have two political parties. That's all we have ever had really. Yes there are some minor parties that in a good year might get 2% of the vote but the other 98% of voters will not waste votes on someone who has no realistic chance of winning. There are never more than two viable candidates because that is as many candidates as plurality voting can accommodate. And increasingly, both viable candidates try to convince voters of how awful their opponent is.
The tendency in the general election is for the two viable candidates to try to hug the middle ground. But that is after they tried as hard as they could in the primaries to appeal to their base by taking what they think are extreme positions. Is it any wonder that voters feel their choice is between two candidates when they truly oppose both of them. They would like more candidates to choose from.
They could have that, but only if we were to change the way we vote. These problems grow out of our insistence on using plurality voting. Maine and Alaska have been experimenting with ranked-choice voting, but that really is not much of an improvement; voting becomes more difficult but the two-party duopoly persists.
But there is another way: https://www.opednews.com/articles/What-is-so-Special-about-B-Approval_Balanced-Voting_Voting_Voting-Machines-241208-232.html
The voting system does not matter if the CORRUPT ESTABLISHMENT MEDIA is only telling the sheep about the (2) Corrupt Establishment candidates and blackball everyone else like they did to Bernie Sanders. Establishment Media barely mentioned Bernie Sanders during the 2016 & 2020 Democratic Party Primaries. If they did it was in a small dismissive way, even though Bernie was the lead in both primaries they covered up any poll that had Bernie ahead. Unless we deal with the Corrupt Top 1% Controlled Media Criminal Cartel and the Establishment Top 1% Controlled Campaign Finance Criminal Cartel nothing will change no matter what voting system we enact. They will muddy the water and eliminate any real competition to the UNIPARTY CARTEL
I do love you ideas and your passion. I share most of your columns with my family and friends. As a boomer, I've lost none of my progressive beliefs, unlike so many of my cohort. I believe that you are entirely correct that our government needs to build public infrastructure and not be dissuaded from same by labels such as 'socialism' or 'communism'. That said, until we restructure the Supreme Court with an additional 6 members (so that no president can so radically alter the composition in one term), and overrule the decisions that determined financial constructs to be the same as people and that money is speech, the oligarchy will continue to prevail. We have the best congress that money can buy, and now we have a grifter-in-chief as well. Pay to Play is the new mantra. Overturning that has to be front and center if we ever hope to have a government of, by, and for the people.
The only thing that I have to add is that Michelle Goldberg was NOT 'mortified', she was 'shocked'. Mortification is a synonym for 'embarrassment', unless you mean that she was, for some reason, embarrassed for you. Mortify for shocked; notoriety for fame; infer for imply....all completely incorrect usages. It's so bad that the dictionary now has a 2nd meaning for 'infer' (which of course means to conclude as its first meaning). Sorry, but Ma was a copy editor :-)
I think she was absolutely embarrassed for me. I think that she thought that I was a poor uneducated hillbilly that didn’t understand that I was abstaining to vote, and therefore in essence voting against my own interest interests. I don’t believe that she thought that I had a defendable position.
"He passed Romneycare instead of a public option."
Yes, and he sat right next to Hillary Clinton in a debate during the primaries and scolded here for proposing the exact policy that he ended up enacting. Obama said that people want health insurance and that a mandate is unnecessary. When he got in office he listened to Rahm Emanuel and the others.
I agree wholeheartedly. I, too, worked to elect Obama because I thought he would be more progressive and help the working people. I was furious when he did nothing more than the usual moderates. I also supported Fetterman when he ran for the Senate because he, too, was saying he was there to help the working class. Also a liar!!!
What do you think of the speech of Trina Swanson who is challenging Pete Stauber? https://www.facebook.com/reel/1489739985997738 I hope you can access it via this link.
Here is the piano store gambit. I claim no originality; this is George Bernard Shaw writing in January, 1890.
“I know a pianoforte dealer who has an artful way of selling indifferent pianos, even to experts. When you go into his showrooms to choose an instrument, he leads you straight to a dashing, rattling, fireirony, ‘brilliant’ atrocity, upon which he half murders your ear before you can stop him. Then, professing to understand by your protests exactly what you want, he opens just such another, only ten percent worse all round. By the time he has assaulted you in this manner some five or six times, you are ready, by force of contrast, to accept a very middling piano as a quite exquisite instrument.”
I have never seen a better description of the current American two-party system.
And employee-owned corporations will help. Thanks Corbin
Great essay. I am 80 years old and have worked in many campaigns over the years. I was a lobbyist for labor unions and witnessed the decline of the Dems and the FDR coalition because of this shift on economic policy. I have several questions I want answered is to what happened to the multi- million dollar autopsy report the party commissioned after the 2024 election? What did it reveal? Did it show how the party shift to the middle during the Harris campaign and its 12 state strategy backfire. Did it show that people want more younger progressive leadership? I have called Ken Martin I have emailed Kern Martin. I have sent back donation material sent to me with these questions. I have called Chuckey and Hakeem and asked these questions. I have yet to have any response to any of these questions.
I hope you put something heavy in those envelopes before you send them back!
All so true! You laid it all out there perfectly. Too bad the American Sheep that worship the #Fakenews, and will never read it. And some that do read it will not understand it. I believe the Democrats lost on purpose. Their Top 1% donors don't allow them to talk about anything that puts the bullseye on the real problem: "THEM" The Top 1% Multi-National Corporate Wall Street Thugs. The Democtic Party Platform is a joke. They stand for nothing that matters to a majority of the people except a few issues like healthcare which they talk about but never do what is needed: Eliminate the Corrupt Middleman (Healthcare Insurance Companies, and outrageous healthcare premiums where most of the money is stolen by Corporate RAIDERS) from the government Corporate Welfare Subsidies and install a highly regulated single payer system. But NO DEMOCRAT the CORRUPT INSURANCE COMPANY LOBBY CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE establishment anoints will ever be ALLOWED to talk like this and wake up the SHEEP!
“In other words, affordability cannot be reclaimed and there is no structural solution. That is not political analysis. That is a surrender document dressed up as realism. And it is precisely why the moderate positions being recommended will make things worse, not better.”
The Clintonista version of the Democratic Party drove me to socialism. The longer it remains in power, the more I lean towards becoming a communist.
I voted in every presidential election since Nixon-McGovern. Since Reagan-Mondale, I never voted for a Republican, and never for a Democrat, with the exception of Obama in ‘08, the most embarrassing vote I ever cast.
No politics but class politics.
“It is the heart of U.S. policy to use fascism to preserve capitalism while claiming to save democracy from communism.” — Michael Parenti
Eugene Debs: “I’d rather vote for something I want and don’t get it, than vote for something I don’t want and get it.”