To appear on the ballot, you have to petition the States.
Or will a lot of irreparable damage be done by then??
I think having an independent candidate ruins it for one of the main candidates. Is that a bad thing? Maybe not. I think people prefer to go with a Republican or Democrat because people like to feel they are voting with a majority and are on the winning side. Yes, if someone want to run as an independent, definitely get out there now and give us another option.
I think we have hit a nerve!
Note his argument: âWeâre doing enough for workers; weâre just communicating it poorlyâŚâ You got your answer at the polls: for most people who have seen how it has economically gone these past few decades, itâs getting worse. I say it for the umpteenth time: Harris offered NOTHING in terms of improving job security/standards during her campaign WHEN SHE COULD HAVE; NO-THING! (other than a cheezy Repub-style tax-cut for next yearâŚ)
The next steps:
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Choose candidates, so the petitions can be commenced. Approach marginalized Dems to ask if they would accept running as Indie in 2026 (that would be a Bernie taskâŚ) Are any Never-Trump Repubs pro working class? (like Kinzinger??) Itâs a longshot, but also approach members who resigned (there were a lotâŚ) I would constructively suggest that if you are going to enlist candidates without much in the way of congressional experience, that they have some record of public service: teachers, EMS, people who worked at serious non-profits⌠I think the Senate candidates for 2026 would be a short list, but thereâs no reason an attempt could not be made to turn out lots of candidates for the House in 2026.
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Reconvene petitioning efforts to be supervised by former Sanders campaigners who proved their loyalty (to cut down on corporate Dem sabotage -or by MAGAs!)
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Raise money to do basic online advertising for the petition effort and for a meeting (next pointâŚ) I would trust somebody Sanders chooses to control that purse.
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Meet in the first quarter of 2025 to arrive at a a slate of 2026 congressional candidates, and to formulate a Declaration of Mission (so the effort does not devolve into a laundry list of issues that most of the working class do not care aboutâŚ) Thatâs an interesting point right there: how do you decide what are key metrics for gauging working class interest? The organizers of this effort should agree on a set of polling data that is not corporately co-opted.
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By 2026, choose a Pres+VP candidate. Immediately start petitioning, while simultaneously petitioning for ballot 2028 congressional candidates.
@patrie As long as there is no formal support of any kind for independant candidates, itâs unlikely theyâll turn away from the âHereâs your campaign money party systemâ to âbeg for any financial support you can get, and work your ass off for a questionable chance to get electedâ. Unless candidates could be shown that running as an independant can be viable, there is little incentive for candidates to go such a route, when the party system is, for the most part, the only viable system to reliably get elected.
I keep telling everyone that I can use research and historical analysis (science) to show that independant candidates winning is demonstrably feasible AND how successful independant candidates get elected, essentially creating a research based report that is essentially a guide to independants getting elected. Nobody seems interested in supporting my work (my patreon), or giving it a go themselves (itâs just research).
Furthermore, until we address the fact that our politicians are financially captured by corporate, religious, and foreign interests, voters have a zero chance, for all practical purposes, of getting anything they want/need from our politicians. Getting more candidates that arenât financially captured elected, whether they are independant or not, is the only chance that politicians will prioritize the needs of voters. However, if nobody ever shows them how to bypass the donor system, and get elected when going without the support of corporate, religious, and foreign interests, this will never happen.
Iâm arguing for formal support; once you have an agreement among petitioners as to a Mission Statement, you can raise money for candidates who run on such a checklist of objectives. I would initially trust Bernie to sign off on disbursements from the purse as to who is keeping it honest with those objectives and statements.
Your observation brings to mind this old jokeâŚ
True dat! (the editorial on this vidâŚ)
This is a great video! The editorial soberly assesses the risks of doing it. Distilling the punditâs take, he appears to say: âWill it work? Probably not; but what does the working class have to lose at this point?â Before Harrisâ campaign, it looked like Harris might put some NEW worker policies on the table. She effectively did not. Weâre locked out! You have to accept that reality; they are waiting for Trump to fail and then ride a gravy train for another four years. And if Trump does a coup? They have shown they donât even care about that. How do I know? They gave up NOTHING for the working class in terms of new policies, in spite of them getting feedback that the working natives were getting restless. The fact that they were willing to not offer much of anything in terms of job security/toning down the WWIII proves they donât care unless they will get their profits. As the lady said in another editorial vid I had shared: they would sooner have Trump than an FDR/Sanders/working-class-dark-horse candidate.
I want to re-emphasize: did the Dem Party do SOMETHING for the working class? Yes. Was it enough? NOWHERE NEAR! This âHey, we did something for workersâ is a colossal red herring pushed by the corporate owners of the Dem Party.
Funding and an honest gatekeeper is unlikely to be anywhere near enough. Any such plan would require enough support and resources that potential candidates could conceivably believe that they have a serious chance of winning. Nobodyâs upending and turning over their life for questionable maybes, not for the numbers of candidates needed anyways.
Weâll see if anything coalesces in the weeks and months aheadâŚ
Bernie needs to enlist Joseph Stiglitz if he is all in on organizing this new Independent petitioning effortâŚ
Yeah, sure Dave; based on the message in that thumbnail, itâs just the votersâ fault, not the two Party system. And where was your honest reporting after Bidenâs debate?? You didnât say much of anything. I guess you couldnât be ungrateful for them having invited you over to the White House for cocktailsâŚ
This notion of organizing independent candidates for 2028 is fundamentally flawed and distracts from a more critical reality: the two-party system isnât brokenâitâs designed this way. Trying to infiltrate or bypass it with independent candidates is like patching a sinking ship with duct tape. The effort would be better spent dismantling the structural barriersâballot access restrictions, media blackouts, and the donor-industrial complexâthat ensure any outsider candidate fails.
The obsession with finding a âworking-class saviorâ or âBernie-like figureâ ignores the systemic rot that will crush even the most noble intentions. Instead of chasing the mirage of independent candidacies, why not focus on building grassroots coalitions that can force systemic change, regardless of who occupies the Oval Office?
Does the energy spent drafting petitions and fantasizing about viable independents truly tackle voter apathy, financial capture, or the monopoly of corporate interests? If not, isnât this entire conversation a self-soothing exercise rather than a genuine strategy for change?
You can only do that once you get candidates into Congress. It starts by getting candidates balloted the only way we can NOW: by petition.
With the House approaching a split, this is a perfect time to do this; Independents will have maximal power after getting seated.
The only thing we need from Bernie is the assistance of:
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organizing a convocation to decide on a core set of objectives for this group of Independents [a candidate runs on issues opposed to those objectives, or does little to support those objectives, they get kicked out; extracurricular issues that are not counter to those core issues will be accepted, so long as the candidate does not neglect addressing the core objectivesâŚ];
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for him to set up trustworthy stewards for disbursement of funds for this Independent effort (to fund House Representatives and legal challenges to the petitions to ballot; perhaps some law school tuition for paralegals to walk the papers throughâŚ); and
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his former campaign workers, to supervise collection and verification of the petitions.
This is not about Bernie running again; this is about him sowing the seeds of a political exit from the duopoly. Without a shit-ton of money, I see no other way this could be pulled off.
As soon as you announce this, MoveOn and MAGA saboteurs will be coming over in droves to kill the baby in the crib. If it is run by people who previously worked for him, it will be a lot harder to do that.
I have no illusions as to how difficult this will be! This video (linkâŚ) lays out all the challenges quite well. After the pundit lists them all, he asks himself: âWould I still support it? Yeah, even though its chances are poorâŚâ (sic.) I feel similarly; the options now are: leave the country, accept living in a banana republic, or run in a party organization that is not owned by corporations. The corporate owners of the Dem Party just have NO INCENTIVE to give up their power. They will wait out whateverâŚ
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This. If we do this, and come up with an alternative to party finance, so Democrats, Republicans, third-party and independant candidates can raise election funds without resorting to corporate, religious, and foreign money, we will have politicians who are INCENTIVIZED to put the interests of their districts first.
It also would REALLY help if we can show genuine and honest politicians that put the voterâs interest first how to capitalize on those qualities to help get them elected.
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Well I spoke to that on another thread: IDEALLY we should promote people who have had SOME history of public service: teachers, EMS, volunteers, did non-profit workâŚ
Thereâs a funny saying: if history was written by cats, it would all be about cats. And when laws are written by lawyers, itâs all about the lawyers (I would point to healthcare laws for examples of thatâŚ) Itâs great when you have an understanding of law to be able to craft rigorous legislation. But itâs even better if we have plain-speaking language used in our laws. The legal team for this initiative could be called upon for assistance if such a Rep is not a legal heavyweightâŚ
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A slogan I would like to suggest: â2016: fooled us once. 2024: you will never fool us again.â
Maybe that would be good as a bumper stickerâŚ
PS Many of the online discussions I am seeing now in prog posts on new plans of actions after the Dem Partyâs betrayal of the working class are merely warmed over versions of the Dem Partyâs non-working class issues. I suggest we do not rinse+repeat strategies, as the Dems and Harris did using the failed Clinton 2016 playbookâŚ
We gotta do something completely different this time.