Wait, is everyone a Democrat?

I have been an independent since I first registered to vote, believing that the establishment in both parties are something to take with a grain of salt.

The Democratic Party as we know them are not affiliates of the cause, but now we have Justice Democrats and I have to ask, when do we flood the Democratic primary?

You know there are independents out there who still refused Biden, have not changed their mind on being disenfranchised by our politics.

They didn’t budge for Biden, and I couldn’t blame them then, and can’t deny they were right to be skeptical.

But there was no direction before. You guys want to take the Democratic Party? We need to form a strategy, and omit the message for now;
how do we stay organized?
How do we fight back against campaigns that attack both directly and indirectly?
How do we know which candidates are real, and which are actors?
These questions are partially answered, our show chats have shown we are ready to bring the good fight for truth to the country, but we all know the gaslighting and dark money that is inevitably going to block our way.

The key we have seen is persistence, build a platform that won’t lose momentum, which we have, and find positive outlets to continue that energy until progress is made.

For every year more dragons join the cause. We don’t lose numbers to messaging, only when the establishment convinces us that our “socialism” is a lost cause.

Socialism as in fair compensation for employment, proper medical care, or equal policing.

That being said, there is an untapped resource if we want to try and seize the Democratic Party. People would start voting again for that I think.

Primarying is for those that see a possible avenue for being represented, if we bring the right representation, primaries will only add pressure for every Progressive that gets voted down over establishment, and will only accumulate if we make sure our local communities don’t forget what their elected officials do while in office.

I have never considered joining parties, but that would be something I would be willing to entertain.

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I’m still an independent. Our goal as a nation is supposed to be to put our nation and our community first, not a political party. Right now, both parties want allegiance to their party. I won’t do that.

I am in a state with open primaries, though. In states without open primaries, individuals like us are going to have to be more strategic.

We also still need SOME strategic voting for third party candidates. I know that this is considered “controversial” but the threat of possible loss due to progressives voting third party helps to shift policy left in the DNC. We have data on this.

Ultimately, I do not believe that we can actually change the DNC entirely, though. We will need to create a new party, but it will have to be splintered from the DNC and after there are enough Justice Democrats to show that they are viable as a progressive party.

The main branch of the DNC has had far too much reinforcement for corrupt behaviors. You cannot spend as much time as we have as a people reinforcing corruption and then just expect to be able to change it.

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Except that’s not really the case.
Those of us still independent could potentially come in and take the party by sheer numbers.

My thoughts were exactly the same as you, however there are Justice Democrats now trying to gain more influence, and the Democrat party still isn’t budging.

We could make it budge, if we give good reason to our fellow stubborn independents, then we would have more say over who is chosen as Democratic primary.

And that is what gets us. When we pop up like Nina Turner, it’s easy to cut down because she’s only one threat.

Because they can keep Progressives off the ballot, most of us can’t vote in primaries anyway.

But we could, and we could make the name Democrat into what we wanted it to be.

I could easily be considered an independent and if I ever ran for public office it would probably be as an independent. The truth of the matter is I am not a Democrat. I don’t agree with the pure democratic idea of winner takes all regardless of the margin of victory. If 49% of the country is technically on the losing side of an election, that’s a lot of people whose voices are simply ignored by the winning majority. Not to mention the fact that, especially today, Democrats are spineless wimps who would rather keep a bad policy around that helps them make money, rather than enact good policies.

Republicanism, on paper, was supposed to correct that. It used to stand on the ideology of providing a voice for the minority. Lincoln’s Republican party. I very much agree with this kind of political philosophy. So one might call me a paper republican. Alas, I’ve never been able to align myself with today’s GOP because let’s face it, they don’t follow this kind of ideology anymore. The GOP has lost its collective minds and I hestiate to even call them Republicans anymore. The Republican party is now the Conservative party. They’ve simply hijacked the name to lend credibilty. But despite being a paper republican/independent, I’m very much a progressive so I’ve almost routinely ended up voting for a Democrat in nearly every election, with mild exceptions, since I could vote. That was 25 years ago.

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but as democrats, independents can make a difference by affecting the Democratic primary.

While I agree winner takes all is not the greatest system, but that is the system we live in.

We would be joining to disrupt that system, if for no other reason than getting more progressives on the ballot, get them through the primaries and get them on the ticket.

This isn’t about values anymore, it’s about action;
it’s about actual progress.

Let’s put it this way, we don’t need to align with democrat values to be part of the party.

We’re not going to be there to lend corporate democrats extra influence, we would be there to complete mission goals:

Get more progressives passed the Democratic primary which as independents are excluded from.

Because Demcrats can keep progressives from winning primaries, we never get on the ballot, we never really have the chance.

Joining the Democrat party would influence the party to lean, the more we have, the better we can coordinate that influence to lean it further.

More progressives on the ticket, then less control the establishment has.

I urge you to consider, there are many in that party that would align with us if they only had a chance to hear our voices.

Think about it.

I’m independent and generally primary with the Democratic party. But in Texas, it’s so gerrymandered that my voting power is significantly diminished.

I’m going to be honest I agree with all of you, now to collectively apply these thoughts comprehensively, and take page out of everyone’s book to make an point or an encyclopedia of sense that represents all our opinions is difficult thing to do when dealing with diverse region, when only having two choice to represent us.

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I too have to recalibrate.
This discussion will have to be broken down by state. I see through some quick browsing that generally your blue states will have inclusive primaries where as red states usually do not. Az seems to have included independents to vote in primaries if the voter requests it (assuming safeguards like preventing voting in both primaries, etc.).

I suppose the beginning is to get a state by state dashboard on the current political climate on policies.
If we build our foundation blocks with the most important issues of the local community, Progressives will have a compass of public interest going into office.
Maintaining that communication ensures an elected official to have a working compass to help guide their leadership.

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I completely agree, the difficulty I’ve found is having a platform to really be heard, to really exonerate my ideals to truthfully be recognized as an individual wanting and willing to help. being able to convey that to multiple parties is truly showing my intentions of progressively helping the the common public.

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I was raised republican. Moved to be a libertarian in philosophy for some time. Got tired of them only doing libertarian capitalism on labor while ignoring capital such as busting up concentration of wealth, opening up the patent office and so on. Monopolies or large entities are the antithesis to older tried and true capitalists that believed in democracy.

I am straight democrat because we have the threat of fascism at this point. If we moved to far left such as trying to end private property or complete state control of everything I would move back right.

In many ways I had the same path as Cenk in life. Though I wish I had figured it out sooner. But my core values remained and guided me to where I am. And they will continue to do so.

As for the primaries that is where we need to focus absolutely. Cenk is right on for that. Right now expect moderates to be on the offensive. They think this last run of a literal “socialist” in name losing means they can attack progressives and denigrate them. I truly think we need to retire the term socialist. It does more harm than good.

Ignore the labels and represent your community. What is needed in Alaska where they have Grizzly bears and have to carry a pistol for defense won’t necessary work in California. We need to be sensitive to this.

Rural folks want their guns. They call the cops and they may not show up for an hour if at all. It’s a different life.

Also what we can do in the cities is different than what we should expect from rural folks. And no matter what remember that globalization destroyed the center of this country and many people are angry about it. That is what gave the racists their leverage to exploit. Some folks aren’t racist and don’t want it. But they sound like the crazy racists because guess what globalization did brutalize them. Recognizing that would go a long way to winning.

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