I had an idea, in the shower no less, where all the best ideas begin. We need to change the name of our party. Cenk has said the (corporate) Democrats are bad at messaging. Well, I think this would help. Change it from simply ‘Progressive Party’ to something to specify workers, after seeing how the crowd reacted to O’Brien at the RNC. (My initial idea is the title) It will take some time, obviously, to undo the brain washing on everybody by the corporate media. They could start with immigrants. First, talk about how it’s not the immigrant’s fault for getting hired, it’s the corporations’ faults for hiring them. Next talk about inflation, and link it to corporate greed; rattle off some numbers from charts; show graphs if it would help. Wages, how these companies are making record profits, raising prices, while not increasing pay. Rant over.
But we also have the problem that the Democratic party has tainted the work “progressive” as well.
“It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words…”
-George Orwell, 1984
I’d love this idea, always have; you need a few bil to get the ball rolling.
I would have a requirement for any candidate to run in and be sponsored by this party is that they have at least 2 years of no-BS public service full or part-time (minimum 20 hours a week; public school teacher, Volunteer EMS/Fire Department, public defenders, people who do Habitat For Humanity…)
<joke>The Gracchi Brothers Party</joke>
Progressive is a horrible choice for a name. They have made the word meaningless. My idea is to bring together people by breaking labels currently slapped on everyone’s heads. I would rather not use any of them in the name. Something like People’s prosperity party or something? IDK
Common Ground Alliance
Unity Forward
Groundswell
Flip the Script Coalition
Caught Trying Collective
I wrote about a Bricoleur movement.
I like how you think! The one little problem I foresee is they’ll definitely think we’re Communists then. 
Super good article!
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Secure funds to popularize name
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Come up with great name in private
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Trademark the name, etc.
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Launch
Discussing names on a forum is to only invite Repub and Alt-Right trolls to co-opt the name; either trademark it or domain squat, and start working on getting bad associations attached to it…
dude I think you give the trolls too much credit. They arent spies from cold war era. I think they just hang around on the YT feed to scream MAGA and Trump. I seriously don’t think they even watch the videos or pay attention to them.
I do think that the actual name shouldn’t be discussed. But a discussion does allow people to give their feedback so they can choose a name keeping that feedback in mind
Maybe take advantage of the board’s private messaging, if you trust some members…
it sounds a lot like anarcho-communism. Like catalonia. lol
Great Article! Love the idea!
As far as the name of the party, i hear the worries about the word ‘progressive’; being used as an adjective, it may carry too much of a subjective definition. I think the more important word is ‘worker’. No confusion there. Whatever the name turns out to be, it needs to have ‘worker’ somewhere in the title.
I can see that. What do you think of Populist instead of Worker? It still has a “you’re a bunch of commies” ring to it in my opinion. The Progressive Populist Party could work. Plus, people love alliteration! 
I remember, years ago, as a Lefty, trying to help the New Party in California get off of the ground (which was about empowering all workers, not just Union workers), only to be met with resistance from Union Members themselves. I, myself, was a proud member of IATSE for years, where I served as a Shop Stewart, and SEIU, when I moved into the Mental Health profession.
My problem with O’Brien and his Business Rep style Union is that it seems like a throw back to the Jimmy Hoffa years, where the Unions got into bed with Organized Crime in order to be able to protect themselves from the Goons hired by Corporations to keep workers from organizing. I am not accusing O’Brien of doing this, but him being allowed to speak within the Corridors of Evil, which I like to think certainly describes the Republican Party, certainly hints as something unsavory going on behind closed doors. By the way, Unions hiring muscle of their own in the early days seemed like a necessary Evil (and probably was – kind of like Voting Democrat in this day and age); however, organized crime eventually infiltrated the Unions and corrupted even those diehard Union types at the top.
Trust me when I say that none of them were pro-female; pro-black; pro-Latino; or anything else for that matter. They were about slicing out a specific group, mostly white, and making sure that they were the only ones considered for jobs. Anyone else wanting to work and not being able to buy themselves into the Union was considered “a scab.” Adding insult to injury is that it was not uncommon for corrupt Union Leaders to cut business side deals with non-union companies, and the muscle used to fight back against the Corporate Goons was turned on the workers who didn’t play along with all of this.
Sorry, I am all about the “Power of a Union,” but I get a little suspicious when a Union President is being allowed to speak at the Republican National Convention. Perhaps, I wouldn’t be so cynical if the Peace and Freedom Party (which grew out of the Black Panther Party) were asked to speak. Of course, I guess that I could argue too that TYT, like “Democracy Now” before them, and Pacifica Radio Stations (such as KPFK in Los Angeles) had not turned into becoming “All inclusive Capitalism Now” due to the need for financial backers. People should also be aware that Ms. Harris, as Attorney General in California, was one of the ones who crucified Michael Lacey and NewTimes Publishers, who basically owned all the Independent Media in this country at one time. You will have to decide for yourselves if them supporting their publications via classified ads was truly responsible for promoting sex trafficking or not.
Strange bedfellows here all the way around, makes you wonder just how Progressive any sort of Free Speech is these days. Is it just talk or a real sign of change? Just saying.
Unions arent a monolith. They are pretty prone to mutating based on local politics.
As far as the Teamsters leader speaking in RNC, I am not sure I consider that a red flag. First, I do think that he asked both RNC and DNC for time. DNC never replied and RNC did. Second, while everyone knows that GOP is a party of elites, this idea that Democrats are some kind of messiahs for workers is laughable. It is the party of wall street and JP morgan. Most people believe neither is looking out for the common guy. I wouldn’t blame people for trying to get the word out no matter what platform they get. He got airtime and I think that is important. And he wasn’t coddling the Repubs. I didn’t get that impression anyway. He seemed to be calling out that Repubs hadn’t actually cared for the workers and both parties had failed at that. Its not astonishing to me that he spoke on that platform,. It is astonishing that Repubs let him. Seems like another rebranding of Repubs going on. Like they did back during the “southern strategy”.
As for free speech. You DO have to wonder. The fact that TYT dunked on Biden and used the carrot of open convention to manufacture consent for Biden’s ouster an then quickly fell in lock step with establishment getting behind Kamala is itself questionable. Much like the crow from Animal Farm.
Well played, wrongturn: “Moses, the raven in Animal Farm by George Orwell, is a character who serves as an allegory for organized religion. Moses is a pet of Mr. Jones who spies for him and tells stories to motivate the animals about Sugarcandy Mountain, a paradise where animals go after they die. Moses is initially disliked by the other animals because he is a tale-teller who doesn’t work, but after the revolution, the pigs realize he can be useful for maintaining control.”
The Teamsters speech is consistent with the cynical Trump play: words don’t mean anything. We’ll let this guy talk; then when we get power, in part by delivering union votes, we will do as we please. MAGAs won’t remember what he was seeking in the statements of that speech; they’ll just remember: “Hey, they had a UNION guy at the Convention; so that means they’re pro-working man!” That’s why they let him run his mouth at some of the supposedly anti-Repub issues.
Maybe the head of the Teamsters was sincere, but he should have figured out the bigger picture. Getting a dictatorship takes precedence over all other issues, because once you get that, you can’t do doodely squat to remedy anything else…
As far as “Cenk folding on the Open Convention”: if ANYBODY wanted to run against Harris, they HAD TO speak up on the Sunday Biden announced he was stepping aside. Not one Dem candidate -NOT ONE!- did. Sometimes inaction is the highest form of action!
As to the excuse that it was impossible for anyone else to do so because of the funding disparity: they could have made the offer a provisional one, IF donors were to commit a sufficient amount (maybe not enough to match the Biden/Harris warchest, but enough to get a campaign started…) Again: no takers.
My read: all the contenders were way to squeamish about a Race Card War [Key and Peele poster: “If you don’t like them, you’re racist.”] So in my opinion we are electorally screwed because of that lack of courage on the Dem side. At this point we’re down to hoping that Stupid Hitler runs his mouth at the wrong times and blows it for himself -but he might be listening to his handlers this time around, as evidenced by his quiet when the Dem Party was fighting to get Biden to move along.
So Cenk’s folding on the Open Convention was a byproduct of no takers on the day Biden announced he was out: it was no conspiracy op…