Time to break free of traditional political ideological labeling and divisions. Time to abandon old, divisive sociopolitical labels like “liberal” and “conservative”.
A new political party based on a vastly, commonly held virtures lends itself to embrace over 66% of Americans, and it clearly embraces progressive principled thinking. In the most ideal American sense of unity, a political party should not be able to be defined or placed as “to the left” or “to the right” of where the Democratic or Republican parties currently are. Just let it exist organically based on present-day principled thinking. The American Progressive Majority.
Originally Posted By u/Atlanticbboy At 2025-03-23 04:38:18 AM | Source
it’s wild that only 55% of you guys want a fairer health care system
It’s because the phrase “Medicare for all” has been propagandized. If you instead asked if people wanted “affordable medical treatment and preventative care for themselves and others”, I’m sure that number would be much higher.
A lot of women, LGBT also don’t trust Medicare to provide healthcare coverage. They already do not cover a lot of their politicized medical care, and are cutting more. There wouldn’t be an alternative either if no private market.
Things like HRT, surgery, abortion, birth control, surrogacy, IVF, vaccinations, prophylactics, etc could be excluded depending on the politics of who is in charge.
The idea is Medicare for all as baseline, and private market on top of that. Every country with single payer health care also has private market clinics. The idea that private markets would be outlawed is a misunderstanding, and when pushed by those who would make less money under a single baseline payer system, is misinformation.
Interesting I did not know that. Would MFA lead to increased private insurance premiums over what they are now? Would less subscribers lead to many providers not being in network?
Still not an ideal situation if women and LGBT were forced onto even more expensive private plans for coverage.
At any rate I think most people want universal coverage it’s just our politics and system is so complicated that there is a lack of trust leading to concerns and confusion. Plus I knew people who died being denied coverage by Medicare, so the name itself is tainted for many. It probably should be called something like Healthcare for All.
When basic healthcare is universally covered, premiums or out of pocket just for anything considered an extra service aren’t directly comparable to premiums for insurance for all Healthcare. They will be much less, because they cover less, because anything the government designates a core service is provided at no cost.
Private insurance or just out of pocket costs (they are lower costs, cut out the middleman of insurance) on top of universal health care systems can be upgrades to included services - like getting a private hospital room rather than having a roommate - or could be going to clinics that only have private patients and offer services outside what the government plan covers. For insurance plans (as opposed to out of pocket), the specifically private network would be smaller because the general care government plan would cover almost every provider, and the private plan is just adding on a few on top.
I believe Medicaid (for certain low income people) unfortunately has much higher barriers to coverage than Medicare (for over 65s), but any insurance is going to have a denial rate. No system has infinite money to cover every service, and setting expectations for coverage like what Medicare provides today is realistic.
Sadly, I don’t believe it is true that Americans broadly want universal healthcare coverage. The idea that people less healthy and poorer than citizen X deserve nothing from the society they live in is really widespread. Even if the efficiencies of having a one payer system are brought up (so much money is currently spent navigating the multi-labyrinth of our multitude of different insurance companies), there is some feeling that less healthy people who can’t afford care deserve to suffer. I encounter this occasionally even in liberal spaces like lemmy, and it is pervasive if I lurk in more conservative platforms.
About 70% of Americans are overweight or obese, why should healthy people be penalized more because of them?
Penalized… how? Do you think overweight people getting healthcare harms you somehow?
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How is Medicare funded? Healthcare costs are a lot higher for obese and overweight people.
Health insurance costs mostly come from profiteering. The cost savings of not having middlemen more than makes up for needing to pay for people with special needs.
That’s why it’s always always cheaper in countries with public insurance.
Sure but we are very far from being able to have a nationwide public insurance system.
Okay, but we’re talking about having a nationwide public insurance system.
The fact is, even if you don’t do anything to encourage healthier lifestyles, public insurance is cheaper. You’re being penalized right now by your private insurance carrier who is profiteering off of you. Abolish those middlemen and you save money, regardless of public obesity.
If you follow U.S. politics, you know that’s not happening anytime soon.
You’ve heard of an ouroboros?
What about it?
If there are so many people thinking this way, then where are they? Where are the mass protests about rights being trampled, services being taken away and converted into money for the rich?
The current two party system doesn’t represent what the majority wants. Both parties work for the super wealthy. Until we get rid of the Democratic and Republican parties nothing good will happen.
Then fucking vote like it
Our entire US system is set up to make it so that it is essentially (literally) impossible for a third party to win. This article gives a decent basic overview of why: https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4947662-why-a-third-party-presidential-candidate-can-never-win/
How we vote is controlled at the state level. We don’t need federal reform to change how we count votes to make 3rd parties able to participate without a spoiler effect.
Alaska has passed these reforms, so can your state. Unless of course your state representatives don’t support democracy.
Electoral Reform Videos
First Past The Post voting (What most states use now)
Videos on alternative electoral systems
as long as you don’t start passing anti FPTP voting laws in democratic states first, you’ll be fine, you do it in democratic states and you lose votes, overwhelmingly.
Alaska is better than the rest of the country in that regard for sure. Not sure it is good enough to fix the problem entirely but definitely definitely better than how the rest of the country does it and certainly worth watching to see how it impacts things. Article did not mention more 3rd party representation but even just the racial/ gender balancing is a big improvement
I think you need to somehow get money out of politics or these majorities will continue to be divided.
Which will never happen unless at least 1 of the 2 major parties is co-opted and taken over by people who specifically want to eliminate Citizen’s United, put a strong, enforceable cap on private political donations, and block corporations from donating to campaigns.
A 3rd party is never going to be successful enough to accomplish any, let alone all of that. Republicans will never get money out of politics because it benefits them too much. It hurts the Democratic Party overall, but it directly benefits the Vichy wing of collaborationists leading the party, so they won’t back campaign finance reform unless the Democratic Party is wholly overtaken.
Then why didn’t they fucking vote for it?
Because people don’t vote on policy, they vote on personality and vibes. It’s how it’s always been. This list of policies is (mostly) just a copypasta of the Democratic platform. But people have never voted that way. The Democrats put forth the crypt keeper, then replaced him with one of the most boring public speakers to come out of the Democratic Party in a generation. And they were running against someone who is a horrific fascist, yes, but also has stage presences and charisma and knows how to play to an audience. As much as he’s one of the worst people on the planet, Trump knows how to make himself entertaining to watch.
That’s what drives votes for politically disengaged people who don’t pay attention to politics until the middle of October every 4 years. They listen to who is more entertaining and pretend like that candidate is telling them what they want to hear, regardless of whether or not he is.
This list of policies is (mostly) just a copypasta of the Democratic platform.
Not in this universe
Either this poll is wrong or people just didn’t vote hard enough. I hope it’s the latter
The data in the poll is correct, but people don’t vote on policy. The problem is that OP is framing voters as hyper rational people who sit down to form a long list of their policy preferences, then examine each candidate and select the one that best aligns with themself.
Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, votes like that, and they never have. They look at the candidates and pick the one that’s more entertaining/has better vibes, then justify their support by either changing or disregarding their personal policy preferences, or (more often) convincing themself that the candidate supports whatever they support, regardless of the candidate’s stated positions.
Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, votes like that, and they never have.
Lol I do. Every time I vote I look up each candidate to see what they’re about.
You think you do… And it probably contributes heavily to your decision making, but you’re still human, and your subconscious does influence you on the other factors.
How do you vote for judges? They don’t have any political affiliations so you kinda have to go based off of their rulings and whatever it is you see online.
Imma press ‘x’ to doubt…
Because none of this was an option. Genocide Joe didn’t do shit about any of this and kamalacaust promised the exact same thing.
I’m not sold on this 3rd party idea. I think that’s what it’s going to take, but I dunno.
I just want a universal basic income, medicare for all, an end to trickle down economics, and everyone gets a free puppy or kitten. I don’t think any 3rd party that supports of that would get traction because everyone who lacks empathy will make sure that doesn’t happen.
I appreciate and agree with the sentiment, but I think a call to form an entirely new political party demonstrates a naivety with regards to how the American political system works. It’s just not going to happen. A third party will NEVER displace one of the two major parties without massive changes to the electoral system that would likely require a Constitutional Amendment.
Our system and political culture is just not structured to allow for 3rd parties. What’s more, the 2 major parties have ingrained themselves into the system so much that they have MASSIVE institutional advantages over a 3rd party.
This will never be a successful effort. I think a better goal would be to co-opt and take over the Democratic Party, booting out all the Vichy collaborationists like Schumer, Jefferies, Newsom, Adams, Pelosi, etc, and remaking the party.
With a new 3rd party, best case scenario is it has 0 impact. If it does get any votes, it’ll just divide the anti-fascist vote with the Democrats (and any other 3rd parties) making it even more difficult to win.
“Democracy will just never work, the king won’t allow it”
That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying play the game to win. Don’t start with a losing strategy.
What I’m saying is that you shouldn’t lose sight of the big things that need to change in order to work with compromises. Take gerrymandering for example, or better yet the whole Electoral College concept. That is one of those things that will require massive changes including to the constitution. So what? Everyone know it’s an obsolete oppressive fucked up system, and that it has no reason to exist today except for the fact that it benefits those who have the power to change it. Isn’t proper representation in government a big part of American identity? Are you going to fight for it, and be the beacon of freedom for the rest of the world you always want to be?
The voting for any third party is bad because it “steals” votes from the “real” parties argument just ensures that this two-party system never changes. As long as every American keeps repeating this, it will be true.
Time has passed since 1789. The world is slightly different from then. The Constitution has already changed to keep up with it - and there’s no reason it shouldn’t again.
Again, you’re missing the point. I’m not debating the overall end goal. I’m talking about the strategy to achieve it.
Just saying “the Electoral College is bad, so let’s get rid of it” is fine, but it’s not a strategy to make it happen. That’s a goal. What is the strategy to make it happen?
Likewise, just listing off a set of popular policies and saying “let’s make a new party” isn’t a strategy to actually achieving those goals. I’m not saying that voting for a 3rd party is bad because it “steals” votes from a major party. I’m saying it’s bad because it’s an effectual strategy to achieving the goal of enacting the policies in OP’s post.
You’re absolutely right that the 2 party system sucks and that the Democrats are awful. But, again, that’s not a strategy to achieve your goals. Like it or not, but none of us will ever break the 2-party system by forming a new party or complaining about how bad it is.
If you compare, say, the Democratic Party of the 1920s to the Democratic Party of the 1960s, they’re drastically different, almost diametrically opposed to each other on nearly every policy. Likewise if you compare the GOP of the 1950s to the GOP of the 1980s. Or the Democratic Party of the 1970s to the Democratic Party of the 200s. Or the GOP of the 2000s to the GOP today. How did those changes happen?
In every single instance it happened not by a new 3rd party forming or outside agitators pushing the parties. It happened because a fringe element of the party enacted an organized push in the primaries to co-opt the party, won a convincing general election victory, then strongarmed the rest of the party into ideological compliance. That’s how parties change in the US, not by being supplanted by a new party. You want a real, left-wing progressive party? Get behind a massive push to primary key Democratic leadership (I call them the Vichy caucus), win a general election, then strongarm the party into compliance.
I’m not missing your point, we just have different perspectives. I’m just an outsider, I’m not talking about strategies to get there - which I guess is my fault for not noticing what community this was posted in :)
Call me an idealist if you want, but to me the sentence “none of us will ever break the 2-party system by forming a new party” just honestly doesn’t make any sense. How else are you going to do it? It might be “none of you” in the sense of regular Joes, but “fringe elements” have been transforming history since forever. I’m just saying, don’t stop dreaming, start from the future you want, then be realistic and make compromises on the way there. Don’t be fooled into thinking systems are immutable and eternal :)
The system isn’t immutable, it just has protected itself very well from any third party breaking the system as it is. We will get a third party, or more, and end things like first past the post and Citizens United much faster by taking over the Dems than by trying to get a third party to have plurality support. It’s simply unrealistic to keep bashing our heads on a wall that is more likely to continue to cement the system against us, instead of changing the system in an achievable way.
AOC, Bernie, and a great number of the young Dems are ready to take over the party. There is broad support to kick out the appeasement supporters and change the party to start making changes. The harder we try to gain third party support right now, the more entrenched the current establishment gets. We’ve seen this happen for decades. The support for ending the two party system and things like Citizens United is bipartisan, but mostly Democrat voters, meaning Republicans will change more and more rules and make the system more and more unfair. We don’t have the generations it will take to bring third party support to where it would need to be. That’s generations of Republican power subverting the system. We need to change it now.
I don’t think systems are immutable. That’s exactly my point. They are, but you have to have a strategy that can actually accomplish it. Systems aren’t changed by people just dreaming of a better one. They’re changed by motivated people executing a successful strategy.
I think we have the opposite going on here - the conservatives are breaking the system in such a way, that it must change. This is the big chance for a 3rd party to destroy the old guard, simply because the old guard is being incredibly dumb and greedy with their own overhaul.
It is simply a question of who can offer the better future. The wealthy dudes who are going to kill grandma by taking away her medicine and money, or the nice lady who wants granny to live a long and decent life?
I would argue it isn’t a losing strategy at all though.
If people start campaigning and supporting a third-party right now, there’s actually a shot to win some house seats and local elections next year. That would also be the best time to try, since Repubs have majority of every branch anyways.
After winning local, then they can think senate. Remember that capitalism was only controlled in the 1950s because it feared communism. If you do not pose any threat (even if it is an empty one), they simply will not listen.
If people start campaigning and supporting a third-party right now, there’s actually a shot to win some house seats and local elections next year.
No, there isn’t. We’re heading into a midterm where a lot of the typically disengaged public will be afraid and in strong opposition to the incumbent party. That’s going to draw a lot of people towards the Democrats, and there will be a strong “Blue no matter who” push to convince people to vote strategically. The Democratic establishment will be fighting even harder against any third parties they might see as spoilers than they will be against the GOP.
You’re right that the upcoming midterms present a great opportunity, but it’s not in a third party. It’s in a primary push. Rather than talking about a 3rd party that has almost no chance at materializing and even less chance at winning, all our effort should be put towards convincing people they need to show up in the primaries and vote for the most anti-establishment, most left-wing Democratic primary candidates they can.
That’s where the real opportunity lies. Primaries get such an incredibly small voter turnout that a relative handful of voters can swing primaries. Then, once a real leftist progressive wins the primary, the whole force of anti-fascist electoral politics will be behind them in the general. It’ll be easy to paint any Republican as a fascist, which will make it easy to frame any Democrat as a rational choice, regardless how far left they may be. When that progressive is the ONLY alternative to GOP fascists on the ballot, they’ll have a much easier time of winning.
Get people who don’t normally vote and who hate Democratic leadership/establishment to vote in the primaries. Run progressives in the primaries. Take over the party. That’s the only way this could work.
I think this is a “walk and chew gum” situation. We can do both.
For the sake of transparency, I am not a Dem. But I do find it beyond criminal that Dems (even if it’s grassroots) has not whipped up an organization to both threaten a third-party AND primary Dems.
This also gives Dems diversification in strategy. The opposition will now have to counter two potential threats while protecting home-court. It really makes too much sense.
But unfortunately Dems are allergic to winning. This is not even to shit on you (you are probably not a Dem whip), but just an observation I’ve had. It’s always 0 or 100, and highly telegraphed strategy. No precision, no timing, no urgency - just losers.
I think trying to both primary Vichy Democrats and run a 3rd party bid at the same time would be enormously counter-productive.
Is it naïveté, anymore, if we keep having to reiterate this fundamental facet of our political structure going on 3 decades, now?
Naïveté or willful ignorance. Either way, a new 3rd party won’t accomplish anything useful.
Entirely agreed.
This is pretty much the Green Party platform. Problem is Americans are too brainwashed to vote for a third party. “You’ll just be wasting your vote.”
Can working families be that?
Wfp
These numbers are bullshit.
Who in their right mind actually believes Americans prefer gun control to: abortion care, legal weed, gay marriage, higher minimum wage, and home ownership.
Like regardless of what you or I want for America, that’s an actual load of shit. Too many people love their guns, there’s literally more guns than people here.
Too many people love their guns, there’s literally more guns than people here.
Loving their guns and wanting better gun control laws aren’t two opposite things you know. They can easily go hand in hand. See Canada to the north. Lots of guns, and better gun control laws.
I’ve made an argument in favor of pretty much the most basic form of gun control, having a license that proves you know how to operate a firearm (kinda like you need a drivers license to prove you know how to drive a car). Even that gets push back. Whoever that mythical person is who is both loving guns and wanting better gun control laws, they’re a minority of a minority.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/26/politics/cnn-poll-gun-laws/index.html
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23141651/gun-control-american-approval-polling
It’s not some mythical person that wants it.
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We all know that won’t be the end of gun control if we had free training for new gun owners to get licensed. I took Hunter safety before I could hunt as a minor, it was immensely helpful to have such good fundamentals.
Also, should we make people get licensed to vote? Or to be able to say what they want? To practice their religion? How about a “EZ pass” license to avoid random searches in your home? We already normalized it in airports… why not your home to? Don’t worry, it’s for the greater good.
I’m here to prove your point.
You really want a historically racist government with a history already of using concealed carry permits and pistol purchase permits to disproportionately deny black people and other POC their right to protect themselves to have the power to do it more, and right when we elect the guy everyone calls “Hitler 2: This time it’s personal?” The similar laws that already exist are already abused and not in a way you’d agree with (mostly, there are some states who use those same impediments to just deny everyone their rights instead of targeting POC, except for the rich of course because they’re better than us peons and deserve to protect themselves, if you die you just add to the stats, they don’t care, but if a CEO dies they’ll have to find a replacement, and that could effect donations! But uhh…is that “good?”)
Two things.
One, I would get a gun and find a trustworthy community if I were a leftist or minority American.
As much as I despise guns, if shit gets Gilead bad, you’ll probably be happy to have it.
As for community, if you don’t have one yet, I would recommend joining either a socialist club or a progressive/traditional (i.e. not racist) Christian church. A black church (think MLK), or a pride flag flying liberal Church (think John Brown).
When Nazi’s invaded my country, these were the two communities that actually resisted, by fighting back and helping people hide and escape. In times of slavery, socialism wasn’t yet a thing, so the abolitionists and underground railroad people were progressive Christians. Jesus was the OG socialist and these communities live it.
Totally agree, and fucking thank you for the shout out about progressive Christians! Underground railroad, temperance movement, anti-war protests, civil rights, etc, progressive Christians have always been a driving force for good and that has totally gotten overshadowed by the evil of white evangelicals in recent years
Be all that as it may, but sweet fuck all percent of you actually vote, so what difference will it make?
None of this was an option in the voting booth. Genocide Joe didn’t do shit about any of this and kamalacaust promised the exact same thing.
People here talk about republicans being delusional but the dems are just as bad.
I believe this will achieve exactly nothing. The whole system is rigged against the people, neither the republicans nor the democrats (aside from a few sore thumbs) work for the interest of the people. And you can bet you’re bottom dollar if there ever was a new political party the democrats and republicans will work hand-in-hand to prevent this new party from taking power.
