How Progressives Can Win Next Presidential Election
by John Lawrence
The Democrat brand is tired and worn out. Many people would not vote Democratic just on principle no matter what they offered. They want something new and exciting and different. That's why a lot of them voted for Trump. So this is what I propose to put a Progressive in the White House. Start a third party with a spiffy new name that seems fresh and different. Get a celebrity/entertainer to run for President. Someone, say, like Steven Colbert who spends the first 15 minutes of the Late Show 5 times a week excoriating President Trump so you know his heart is in the right place.
The Democrats should also put up their best candidate, say, someone like Andtrew Cuomo or Elizabeth Warren. Since American election periods are so long, like they start campaigning a year before the election, It should be fairly obvious 4 or 6 months out who has the best chance. Then both parties should join forces under the same banner even if they have to at that point combine parties into a new second party. What they don't want to do is to have three parties running in the general election. That would only split the vote between the two leftist parties. So before the general election there would only be two candidates running for President, one from the Republican party and one from the combination of the Democratic party and the new third party perhaps under a completely new party name
This way you avoid the situation that Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were in. They mostly represented the same ideals, but they were forced to compete against each other because that is how the primary season works. By combining parties before the primary season would otherwise end, you avoid the situation where you have two good people competing against each other. By uniting long before the general election instead of after the normal primary season ends, forces are joined long before the general election.
I believe the platform of this new combined party should be basically Bernie Sanders platform i.e. an economic platform: free public college, free universal health care, major spending for infrastructure and tax the rich to pay for it. Thus the appeal is to the middle class primarily. Progressives should stay away from identity politics or at least downplay it. The majority is interested in their own economic betterment, not in helping some faction or other which is in distress. Sorry, but that is just the way it is.
American politics has entered a new phase. The same ol same ol is not good enough. Donald Trump proved this if nothing else. Trump is in the process of destroying the Republican party. Hillary, despite good intentions, did as much for the tired old Democratic brand. The American people are ready for something new and exciting, something that Bernie Sanders started, something that benefits the average middle class person and not just the large corporations and their lobbyists.
