Seems I’m late to the party here. Story of my life lol.
However I was hoping to see more ideas for protests and things of the such. Nothing draws media attention like a crowd. Maybe I missed the thread but I wanted to at least share two of my ideas here. Maybe someone has the time and resources to make these happen.
One is pretty simple. We set up fifty boxes as close to the Capitol as legally allowed nowadays. One box per state. The boxes would then serve as a mass complaint department for any tourist happening across them in DC. (Maybe boxes for the territories/international tourists?) Would also be nice to have a person from each state manning their state’s box daily or weekends. Squad goals lol.
Once a week or however we empty the boxes and see what people think about what is wrong with their government. I’m willing to bet once we’ve filtered out all the “Demorats” and “Republianazis” answers what will be left will be a general consensus on corruption in Washington.
I know its an obvious conclusion but the point of it is to highlight things agreed on between states and move away from what divides us that the media loves to put on the forefront of everything.
I see it as a way to “redress grievances” in real time and not through the filter of media or some politician’s campaign tour. I don’t know who here knows the story of Martin Luther and his 95 Theses but that’s where I get the idea from…we have to compile a list of grievances and nail it to the door of the Capitol. Metaphorically and physically if possible.
My other idea is a bit more complex and I’m not 100% on how we could even get it to work but since the DNC and RNC both actively work to suppress outsiders I believe we need to find some way to start a “People’s Primary”.
I guess the best venue to start would be close to the White House since I see this as basically a presidential primary outside of the influence of the DNC and RNC. A bipartisan forum for outsiders to make their case. I know everyone has their opinion on third party runs but at a point where the majority of the country despises the leading candidates what other choice do we have? Keep voting for the lesser of two evils?
At the very least if we could get any momentum behind a write in campaign for someone I believe it has the potential to influence Trump and Biden to change up their rhetoric and be more populist in action as well as stump speeches. Like how no one was talking about Medicare For All and Raising the Minimum Wage before Bernie forced people to talk about it just by running.
We need a forum for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents to freely tell the major parties they are done with their shit. Towing party lines is what is destroying this country.
This is a good idea in the sense it shows sophistication politically the problem with it is you display a lack of sophistication logistically in the same action. This isn’t meant to critique MLK because my argument only works with modern framing.
The problem that stem from this are two fold:
If you rally behind a series of grievances you help the unheard feel heard which is great. The others thing you do is you attach your movement to a position that must be defended. This inherently will cull some support unless this position is indeed populous. While this may sound great if you gain power you will be elected enact these positions. If this position is a critique and not a solution you will then defending your inaction. If you act you will not have the popular support inherent in your platform and may have to lobby your own supporters for a solution.
You invite agent provocateurs to lobby malignant positions for the purpose of diffusion and degradation.
Your primary idea is pretty good however there are considerations regarding primate behavior. Progressives until recently haver suffered from a crisis of persuasiveness. They didn’t understand the group decision making dynamics of primates. The basic piece you must understand has to do with body language and resonance.
In a nutshell when a primate group decides where to move or which direction they will at first observe. This could look like a campsite of humans who were playing charades on which direction to look for firewood. The kids and young adults would be all over the place. Sooner or later cued or not some people would start to head in a direction where they suspect firewood. Others would stay put. As some firewood was found the more respected members would follow those that were successful. Once the critical mass of respected members decided to move that direction to get the firewood many if not all that identified themselves as part of that group would follow.
The problem is if you are considered to be a bit out there (questionable motives) to the rest of the group you have a much more difficult time lobbying the group. This is where we found ourselves for a long time as progressives collectively. We were inclusive but had a hard time understanding this charisma dynamic.
So in conclusion the primary is a good idea but could be detrimental if we didn’t take care to make it attractive to be associated with.
You let me know if I am over simplifying but what I’m understanding is…
Make sure we have plans of action not just a list of complaints. I would go more into plans but would need to see the results of things first. I’m hoping the corruption issue is what is most important to people but part of this is also to see WHAT it is people agree on and go from there.
Avoid alienating as many as people as possible. I would focus on keeping things as simple as possible to achieve this. Focus on corruption and worker’s rights cause even racists gotta clock in somewhere lol. It would be nice to takedown racism/bigotry in one fell swoop but we have to create wins where we can not alienate votes for the sake of the “moral high ground”. If your kid is drowning does it really matter if Hitler was one of the people who helped you fish them out of the water? Is my logic.
As for the purity of motive issue. That’s why I believe we need to highlight the bipartisan nature of things for the primary because we need to create a voice counter to corporate corruption. One of the aspects of this for me would be leaving an open invitation to Biden and Trump to come debate on the “People’s Forum”. This isn’t necessarily supposed to be an avenue for a third party run but a protest to how the DNC and RNC run their primaries. Hell if we could get Cenk in there as a write in candidate/third party I would be head over heels but the point of things is to scare the DNC/RNC more than anything. At least in the case of the DNC we WANT robust primaries not debates buried on weekends or during football. The point of the People’s Primary is to show the major parties that people are sick of the two party run around.
Safeguards against lobbyists and bad actors is a much more complex issue. About one of the few I can think of is one of Cenk’s favorite tag lines of “Facts Matter” where we’re not gonna have Trump there ranting for a half hour about rigged elections when he wont even go to court over it. That and I would probably want donor lists disclosed if possible.