One of the odd things about the voting system used in all but a handful of American elections is that it is capable of taking account only of ordinal and not of cardinal preference. The vote of a fanatically devoted partisan who is willing to sacrifice time and money to support his or her preferred candidate counts for exactly as much as that of an apolitical individual who, on a whim, decides to goes out to vote on election day. One of the consequences of this fact, which is of course understood by all political professionals but is for the most part forgotten by television commentators, is that it is usually much more efficient to devote your time and resources to turning out those who will vote for your candidate then it is to try to persuade supporters of your opponent to change their minds.
I have from time to time on this blog invented little
numerical examples to illustrate this fact. For example, suppose that a
congressional district is, according to polling in previous results, a 52/48
Republican district in which, in an ordinary presidential year, perhaps 400,000
people can be expected to vote, breaking for the Republican candidate 208,000
to 192,000. Suppose also that there are
an additional 150,000 eligible voters who do not vote, and that they also break
down 52/48. There are two ways in which the Democrats can win the seat: by
persuading 8,000 Republicans who are planning to vote to vote Democratic, or by dragging 16,000 of the 72,000 nonvoting Democrats to the polls. In most cases, the latter is clearly the preferable alternative.
It is for this reason that I find most of the commentary on
television unhelpful. It is also why the issue of abortion is, I believe, what
will give the Democrats a victory in 2024. There is now a great deal of
state-by-state evidence that abortion access drives people to the polls more
than either hatred of Trump, love of Biden, or the various economic issues that
commentators place such great emphasis on.
I should also point out that all the talk about the
impossibility of a president reversing a decision by a state court is
irrelevant. If Trump gets the presidency in 2024, that will be the end of the
American Constitution as we have known it, with all its manifest flaws.
45 comments:
Some things to be worried about: The fact that there are many polls that show Trump and Biden are virtually tied (this was rare in the 2020 race). This might change due to the trials. Another is that despite the big gap in the popular vote, Biden barely won the race due to the electoral college. Lastly, the Democrat elites in my view are so incompetent and are not doing what is necessary to ensure a victory, they are rather smug. These are the people that lost to Trump in 2016.
Dear MAD
I've had a beef with the democratic leadership too.
I feel they are emotionally tone deaf and condescending and behave that the elections are won simply by being right and making that obvious.
A little Machiavelli would do.
I think we're likeminded on this
typo, sorry
behave like the elections
Trump is kind of like Caesar but without the charity & the great deeds. Plus Caesar rejected the grass crown that Antony presented to him. With Caesar everyone was in suspense. With Trump everyone knows if he gets elected again he'll become a Dictator in defiance of the Constitution.
BTW, just out of curiosity. If Trump gets elected again I'll try to cover my tracks by erasing everything I said bad about Trump. I don't think he cares but you never know. Anyone else going to do that?
Michael Llenos,
I won't worry about it if I were you.
Fuck Trump.
He's not going to be Hitler. There will be rigged elections every 4 years, I'm fairly sure. The same Constitution will be in effect, but they'll find ways to get around it.
There will be free speech in the sense that you can say whatever want in a blog like this, but the major media will be pro-Trump.
It will be a very Amerikan type of dictatorship, lots of freedom as long as Trump and his pals keep the real power. It's a "free" country. That's my bet.
So once again, fuck Trump.
Your argument here, Professor, I believe to be largely, though not absolutely, true. For example, in the 2022 primary, an extreme right-wing Republican, Joe Kent, beat Jamie Herrera Beutler in Washingtons's rural 3rd Congressional district. Herrara Beutler had voted to impeach Trump. In the general election, Kent faced Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a so-called moderate Democrat and auto repair shop owner. Almost all the experts who noticed the race decided that Kent would win. The DCCC did not support Gluesenkamp Perez, and even the state Democratic Party was slow to support her. Nonetheless, because she had a strong showing in the primary and because some notable Republicans openly endorsed her, many of us believed she could win and materially supported her campaign. When she did win, by roughly 2500 votes, pundits said that no one could have predicted the upset. Obviously, this wasn't true, because she had many small donors and a small army of volunteers who knocked on doors for her. Anecdotal evidence, based on the number of Republicans who openly supported her campaign, suggests that flipping voters in WA-3rd actually made much of the difference. Of course, this is the kind of phenomenon where locals are more apt to see the potential of an underrated candidate than professionals at the DCCC or even the state Party.
By contrast, and in support of your argument, I would point to the 2022 governor's race in Oregon. That year there was a three-way race between a liberal Democrat, a so-called moderate independent and a Republican. There was real danger that the independent, former state senator Betsy Johnson, would draw enough votes from the Democrat, Tina Kotek, to throw victory to the right-wing Republican Christine Drazen. However, Oregon led the nation in turnout in 2022. Key to that turnout was young people, who voted in relatively strong numbers in an off-year election. Tina Kotek owes a lot to 18-29 year olds, who helped her to win by roughly 65,000 votes. Oregon voters 18-29 were tied for third in the nation for voter turnout, at 35.5%.
The model for youth turnout (and for women voters) in 2022 was Michigan. Not only was the incomparable Gretchen Whitmer on the ballot, so was abortion. Michigan had the highest youth vote in the nation, at 36.5%, up 3.8% from off-year 2018. In addition, women voted in much higher numbers than men in all age categories, but especially young women, especially women 18-21 years of age.
Abortion is an issue that arguably turns out young voters. So does climate change, which was why it was unwise of the Biden administration to permit the Willow drilling project in Alaska. That has been noted by young voters. One of the keys to a Democratic victory will be turning out younger voters and women, as in Michigan, but also traditional Democratic voters and independents in swing states, including North Carolina!
S.W.
Wow! Reading your post made me feel braver and more courageous! The last time I felt like that was when I saw Mel Gibson give his speech to the Scottish Army in the movie Braveheart. If there are people like you around, s.w., I'm pretty sure there will be no lack of people in defiance of Trump.
Ludwig Richter,
If young voters note the Willow drilling project but don't note the climate change measures in the I.R.A. (Inflation Reduction Act), there's something wrong...
Michael Llenos,
Dictatorships don't change the basic sociology and social psychology of a society.
Amerikans love "freedom", not social justice, not fraternity, not equality.
So any dictatorship in Amerika will not limit your daily freedoms much: you'll be free, above all, to buy whatever you want, to have sex with whomever you please, to pollute as much as you feel like it, to sleep in the streets and die from lack of medical care, to say whatever you want as long as you have zero power to put your ideas into practice.
Fuck Trump!!!
Michael Llenos wrote:
"If Trump gets elected again I'll try to cover my tracks by erasing everything I said bad about Trump. I don't think he cares but you never know. Anyone else going to do that?"
Well, I'm certainly not. The First Amendment will remain in effect irrespective of whether Trump is elected.
You should go over to the Lawyers Guns & Money blog and see the language they use about politicians they don't like (including, but not limited to, Trump). Do you think they're going to erase as much as a single comma of any of their posts? Of course not. The idea of erasing whatever one has written about Trump if Trump is elected in 2024 is, frankly, ridiculous.
Trump is not going to institute a "dictatorship." At most the U.S. will veer toward a version of "competitive authoritarianism," which, while bad, is not a dictatorship.
It's great that you've read the classics, Michael Llenos -- and I'm not being sarcastic, it is great -- but you might want to add a bit of contemporary social and political science to your reading diet. You can't make complete sense of 21st-cent. politics solely on the basis of Plato, Shakespeare, Xenophon, St. Augustine, etc.
Where I live you'd be in a very small minority if you weren't echoing s. wallerstein's 'fuck Trump'. I wouldn't think that would will change if/when Trump is re-elected, or rather 're-elected': so blog comment away. For reflection on actual courage in the contemporary world, one might reflect on the lives of the hundreds of journalists, labor activists, and environmentalists who are assassinated every year. And currently we could consider (and do whatever little we can to help) Boris Kagarlitsky: https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/08/17/letter-from-prison/
"If Trump gets the presidency in 2024, that will be the end of the American Constitution as we have known it, with all its manifest flaws."
Our host is quite right.
What Trump lacked last time was the institutional support due to the normal inertia present in a large bureaucracy. Had Justice been constructed bottom up to support a Clark takeover that could have happened. Clark was willing to see Trump use the Insurrection Act but Milley, the JCS, etc. weren't having it. Attempting to implement Schedule F and purge Homeland Security and the SecDef came too late.
The pollyannas are in for a shock. Trump and his MAGAt minions won't make that mistake should they have a second bite. For example military commands from the JCS down have terms of one to four years. While they serve at the pleasure of the president, firing an entire command structure would be way messy and likely to receive way too much opposition.
Senator Tuberville, the Florida resident who is somehow the junior senator from Alabama is currently using a ridiculous Senate rule to hold up the confirmations of three JCS positions (with a couple more to come) and quite a few flag and general officers who are being promoted to some serious commands. As with the Garland nomination, I suspect a plan as Trump being able to promote MAGAts would be useful in ending our constitutional order. Of course, this is treason but I guess none dare...
LR, there was this:
"They said that instead they were limited by the law that governs NPR-A and the leases that ConocoPhillips has held since long before the Biden administration took office. The law gives a company with such leases the right to develop, and strong legal standing to fight the government if it tries to block that work. If rejected, ConocoPhillips could have sued, potentially won billions of dollars at taxpayer expense, and still been able to develop the project anyway, legal experts have said."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/03/17/willow-project-alaska-oil-drilling-explained/
Given the current Supreme Court and Texas being in the Fifth Circuit as well as the made up Major Questions Doctrine and Chevron being a target, its likely Willow winding up in court wouldn't have worked out well. The Warren Court is way over; some folks just haven't gotten the message. Biden didn't have the last word on Willow; it's likely Neil Gorsuch would have.
s.w., this may be of interest:
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2023-08-25/coup-chile-cia-releases-top-secret-9111973-presidents-daily-brief
Driving up turn out seems more important in an election where the people and issues on the ballot aren't themselves maximizing turn out. If abortion and Trump are already going to get your people to the polls, it seems safer for a campaign to focus resources on trying to win away a few independent or Republican votes.
aaall,
Thanks. That's been covered by the Chilean media.
aaall,
Just to be clear, I'm not a "pollyanna" about Trump. I think his re-election wd be a very bad development.
What makes the U.S. constitutional "order" cumbersome in terms of getting things done also makes it somewhat resistant, or so one cd hope, to takeover by a bonkers executive. Still, that's not all that comforting.
"Amerikans love "freedom",,,"
Even if it's slavery. If one reads the various antebellum slave codes, it becomes clear that Blacks lived in a totalitarian polity while whites willingly lived in an authoritarian one. This continued to a greater or lesser extent to the present.
A few years ago I was cruising across the Arizona strip and pulled into Colorado City. It was night and there wasn't anything but large houses but I soon picked up on a weird and scary vibe. Turns out its a polig community with quite a history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_City,_Arizona
No one had to put up with that but folks adapt way more easily then renting a U-Haul. While a woman with an ectopic pregnancy in Texas lives, in effect, in a different nation then a geezer in coastal California. Federalism and inertia (as well as the calendar) will save me but NSM for those in some other states.
aaall,
I put "freedom" between quotation marks because it's a complicated notion.
Amerikans love the freedom of the supermarket.
Trump and his pals are going to roll back the what's left of the New Deal and of the Great Society, but they're not going to abolish the supermarket which you live in.
If you don't understand what "supermarket" stands for, you need to spend a lot more time away from Amerika.
As I said above, dictators or authoritarian rulers (to follow LFC) cannot do away with the basic facts of sociology and social psychology.
LFC,
FWIW, the New York Times had this story on the reactions of young voters to Willow:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/24/climate/willow-biden-climate-voters.html
A quote from the article:
"A March poll from Data for Progress, a liberal research group, saw a 13 percent drop Mr. Biden’s approval ratings when it came to his climate agenda among voters aged 18 to 29 in the aftermath of the Willow decision."
Young voters should remember the IRA, but, I'm told, young people can sometimes react hastily. In any case, the Sunrise Movement has not given up on Biden, calling on him to declare a climate emergency. He should. The basis for that would apparently be the 1976 National Emergencies Act. I suppose Joe Manchin would have a fit, but if Biden wants to win, he should do it.
(I think of Joe Manchin every time I see trains rolling through town, carrying car after car full of coal bound for Asian markets. The coal comes from Wyoming and Montana, and is shipped out of Canadian ports. Or I read.)
L. Richter,
Agreed he should declare a climate emergency.
LFC
Although I am not as educated as most of you here, I did get a History degree from U.H. West Oahu many years ago. My senior project was on General George S. Patton of WW2. I've learned about the American Civil War among others, modern Korean & Chinese History as well as many other subjects etc. Although I can barely remember such things. And yes I've read many classical philosophy and history books. Classics have always been my most harmless vice. People may think I've learned nothing important from classical books but I believe I have learned many important political truths from them.
But if I seem slow it is because I am slow. When people talk to me most of the time I cannot figure out what the heck they're saying to me. And maybe I'm a nerd as well. I don't really care. All I know is I hate the fact that I'm not living in a Star Trek paradise. I was born in the wrong era. I believe we are still living in the Dark Ages. One of the reasons I'm attracted to this blog is there are open minded people here. Especially Professor Wolff the blog host.
I must confess that I can hardly translate many of the comments written here, due to the very high number of acronyms.
But when it comes to the possible re-election of Trump, I feel the need for some time to point out to the U.S. citizens among the commentators of this blog that the U.S. is no longer an island, as it certainly was when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941.
The last term of this crook has ended only 3 years ago, which leads to the fact that serious and sustainable analyses of the consequences of his foreign policy have hardly been carried out until today and one can only heuristically estimate how the chains of effects unfold that were triggered by his administration.
Another term of Trump would encounter changes initiated by his first. Here are some key words:
Iran and the nuclear bomb, the Middle East, Israel, etc.
The Russian war in Ukraine, Russia's open destabilization attempts around the globe, e.g. Africa.
The conflict with China, Taiwan, South China Sea, North Korea.
Each one of these scenarios can lead to a geopolitical tsunami that far outweighs the domestic consequences of another Trump term.
Of course, I realize that only the U.S. voter can prevent this from happening at all, and that geopolitics will certainly play little role in their voting behavior on election day, which is nevertheless a mistake.
Michael Llenos,
I'm sure you've learned important things from the classics. That's why I said it's good that you've read them.
L.R., is it possible that the risks outweigh the benefits wit Willow?
What exactly would declaring a climate emergency and using the 1976 NEA (50 USC Chapter 34 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/chapter-34) mean? What happens? Given the freakout over the COVID declaration what might be the downsides? The president can create National Monuments, he can't change law or abrogate contracts.
In a world with Chinese and Russian imperialism as well as the Indian authoritarian drift and BRIC fantasies how does any unilateral US action solve the problem (doesn't mean the US/EU or any other nation shouldn't do things that cut carbon)? Perhaps Russia and China see global warming as a fat hog to cut, so there's that.
Also, there are those time when a window isn't enough.
s/b times, of course.
aaall,
Here's what Politico says the president could do by declaring a climate emergency:
"Experts say Biden could invoke the 1976 National Emergencies Act to give himself the power to order the manufacture of clean energy technology, deploy renewables on military bases, block crude oil exports or even suspend offshore drilling — though that would require compensation to the owners."
Whatever Biden chose to do under the act would be relatively modest compared to what is needed. I don't see Biden blocking crude oil exports or even suspending offshore drilling. However, a directive to increase clean energy production and to deploy renewables on military bases doesn't sound beyond the realm of possibility.
The Sunrise Movement lists the following that could be accomplished under an emergency declaration:
* Responds with the full force of the federal government to climate disasters as they occur,
* Redirects funding to building cleaner energy systems, resilient infrastructure, affordable housing, and good and efficient transit,
* Halts crude oil exports, stops oil and gas drilling, ends the practice of leasing public lands and waters for fossil fuel production, and transitions our economy off of fossil fuels,
* And uses over 100 other statutory powers to stop the climate crisis.
Again, I don't see Biden doing all the things on this list. However, it would have enormous symbolic value if he declared an emergency and began to implement some of the measures listed above.
I don't think I'm the only person who is very tired of and a little worried about our regular wildfire smoke seasons in the Pacific Northwest. I can see a future where we live with smoke from June to November. Right now it's mostly August to October, but the rapidity with which the situation is getting worse is remarkable.
Some time ago the NYT devoted much coverage to wildfire smoke when New York City was inundated with it. I remember that in the comments section, quite a number of us wrote in to say: welcome to our world. We--all of us--are facing a series of accelerating crises of one sort or another. Many young people know this, and counseling them to appreciate the blessings of the IRA isn't good enough. Biden needs to be seen as doing more. Undoubtedly there are risks in invoking a Climate Emergency. I would argue that the risks of not doing so are greater.
Senators who have called on Biden to declare a climate emergency have specified that his administration could do the following:
* Establish rules and policies to reduce carbon dioxide, methane, and other pollutants from coal-and gas-fired power plants, cars and light trucks, heavy-duty vehicles, and oil and gas facilities;
* Promote updated social cost of carbon and require its use throughout government decision-making, including in areas where it can be particularly effective, such as in establishing procurement standards and royalty rates;
* Limit carbon pollution from fossil fuels produced on public lands and waters, and update various energy efficiency rules and promote the deployment of energy-efficient technologies that will reduce carbon pollution and save consumers money;
* Maximize the adoption of electric vehicles, push states to reduce their transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions, and support the electrification of our mass transit;
* Transition the Department of Defense non-tactical vehicle fleet to electric and zero-emission vehicles, install solar panels on military housing, and take other aggressive steps to decrease its environmental impact; and
* Investigate the fossil fuel industry for its decades of lying about its products and consider bringing a civil suit against the industry the way it successfully sued the tobacco industry.
Their full letter can be found here:
https://www.merkley.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/imo/media/doc/IRA%20Next%20Steps%20(FINAL).pdf
Between 2016 and 2020, voters 18-29 increased in turnout by 11%, from 39% to 50%, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (Tufts). Turnout increased in all states for which there are data, except Louisiana, where it remained flat. In Arizona, the youth vote increased by 18%; in Georgia by 14%; in Michigan by 12%; in Pennsylvania by 7%. If the youth vote drops in 2024, Biden will lose.
To Ludwig Richter:
These are all wonderful and long overdue policies.
However, the US Supreme Court would rule them unconstitutional in a nanosecond.
Such is the US "constitutional republic."
"If the youth vote drops in 2024, Biden will lose."
Indeed and that is why "10,000 Useful and Wonderful proposals," no matter how beneficial they might be, make for a less then useful basis for organizing a movement. Declaring a "National Emergency" has it's limits. We are not going to reorganize the economy by executive fiat.
You might recall Clinton's attempt to do healthcare resulted in fatal opposition and passing the ACA required Reconciliation and Nancy Pelosi. The political result (TARP + ACA) was the idiot Tea Party and a Republican wave.
So are you saying the ACA should not have been proposed or passed?
LFC, he should have realized from the start that being able to work with the Republicans on something that might make folks' lives better was a non-starter. Oh, and not hire Emanuel, Geithner, and Summers.
He didn't have an appropriate Senate majority, so there's that. It didn't help that Roberts was able to gut the Medicaid expansion. We can thank Nader for that.
We can thank Nader for everything bad which occurred after he foolishly and wickedly ran for presidennt in 2000. We will not thank Nader for everything good which occurred after his foolish and evil presidential campaign.
aaall,
The ACA had its flaws and didn't go far enough, but it was better to have passed it than nothing. I assume you agree with that statement (?).
s.w., while I'm not aware of any goods (feel free to help me out), let us review the evil:
1. The coup by the Gang of Five Supremes.
2. 911 - The Clinton Administration took terrorism seriously while Bush and Cheney weren't paying attention so a not insignificant chance it never happens.
3. 911 happens - Afghanistan (letting OBL and the Taliban escape, nation building).
4. Irag.
5. The ruinous Bush/Cheney tax cuts..
6. FEMA - Brownie.
7. Roberts and Alito are Supremes.
More but I'll wait to hear what good you may have.
LFC, of course it was better to pass it but Obama wasn't ready to be president and he realized way too late that the fever wasn't ever going to break.
Nader made a notable contribution to environmental and consumer activism in his life. His 2000 presidential campaign undoubtedly inspired lots of young people to follow in his footsteps.
If I drew up a list of important leftwing activists in the U.S. in the second half of the 20th century and the first decades of this century, I would certainly include Ralph Nader.
No one has ever shown that people who voted for Nader in 2000 in Florida would have voted for Gore if Nader had not been in the race. Most of them probably would have stayed home.
Blaming Ralph Nader for all the ills of the Bush administration is just ridiculous.
We could just as well blame Gore for not campaigning better and thus letting Bush win.
Your arguments are typical of mainstream Democrats whose only interest is to discredit anyone to the left of them.
aaall writes:
"911 - The Clinton Administration took terrorism seriously while Bush and Cheney weren't paying attention so a not insignificant chance it never happens."
Actually the Clinton administration did not take al-Qaeda very seriously, or at least didn't counter it effectively. After the '98 embassy bombings in Africa, Clinton fired some cruise missiles into Sudan, iirc, hitting a pharmaceutical factory, not a terrorist site. Missile strikes into Afghanistan were quite ineffective.
The basic problem, or one of them, was lack of coordination and communication btw CIA and FBI, and that wd have been there whether Gore or Bush was in office.
Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower, is good on all this.
s.w., I will note that all you got is that Nader "must" have inspired some folks. What he did decades earlier is mixed and irrelevant. The reality is that by 2000 Nader had long passed his sell-by date. If Nader was the cause of Bush then of course he gets the blame. One of the problems with the far left is the bubble mentality where their idealism is clean and pure with absolutely no possible downsides. Let's do politics without considering the politics - whatever could go wrong.
Is it possible that a few hundred folks out of 90,000 might have voted for Gore out of inertia? Doesn't seem unreasonable.
Actually the responsible left thing is to blame Nader and the Greens for irresponsible behavior and also blame Gore for running a bad campaign (and Clinton for not growing up).
I would have thought that your nation's recent experience with far left pie-in-the-sky would had led to some recalibration.
The far-right in the US marked their prospects to market and decided that a little fascism was the only way to succeed. That part of the left not on some payroll is still living in a fantasy.
LFC, they did catch the guy who wanted to blow up LAX and it was at least a concern. Cheney was too busy doing deals. Also recall that at the time there were some train station bombings, etc. in Europe - bad if one was wrong place/wrong time but nothing huge. I've always considered it a possibility that Cheney wouldn't have minded a smallish bit of terrorism to justify the Mid-East war neocons wanted. Not a hill I'd die on but still...
Undoubtedly, there are people on the far left who are out of touch with reality, just as there are in the mainstream, but from what I can see from 60 years of experience with what you would label "the far left", the majority of people in that category are trying to build an alternative to neoliberalism and patriarchy, which is a long slow process of changing hearts and minds, of educating young people and even older people insofar as that is possible.
That project may fail, there may not be a light at the end of the tunnel, but it seems worthwhile trying.
I've said previously (for the record, before you jump on me) that since the Republican candidate is likely to be Trump, Greens should not run a presidential candidate in 2024.
On pp.384ff. of The Looming Tower, Wright describes a June 11, 2001 mtg in NY betw a CIA supervisor and FBI agents on a terrorism task force -- there was key info that the CIA person cdn't (or thought they cdn't) tell the FBI agents that wd have led to the conclusion that the al-Qaeda hijackers were already in the U.S. (p.386) One photo in particular, showing the mastermind of the USS Cole attack standing next to the future al-Qaeda hijackers in Malaysia, was withheld -- by withholding that photograph, "the CIA blocked the bureau's investigation into the Cole attack and allowed the 9/11 plot to proceed." (386)
"The June 11 meeting was the culmination of a bizarre trend in the U.S. government to hide information from the people who most needed it.... The Justice Department promulgated a new policy in 1995 designed to regulate the exchange of information between [FBI] agents and criminal prosecutors, but not among the agents themselves. FBI headquarters misinterpreted the policy, turning it into a straitjacket for its own investigators. They were sternly warned that sharing intelligence information with criminal investigators could mean the end of an agent's career... [The FISA court] became the arbiter of what information could be shared -- 'thrown over the Wall,' in the parlance of the Court. Bureaucratic confusion and inertia allowed the policy to gradually choke off the flow of essential information to the [FBI] I-49 counterterrorism squad. The CIA eagerly institutionalized the barrier that separated it from the bureau [FBI]." (386-87)
So there were walls betw FBI and CIA, and w/in FBI betw intelligence agents and criminal investigators.
Obvs the complete picture is complicated, but this was a big part of it.
p.s. by "intelligence agents" above I mean FBI agents involved in intel gathering but not directly in a criminal investigation. (It's confusing, and was obvs a bureaucratic mess.)
"...the majority of people in that category are trying to build an alternative to neoliberalism and patriarchy, which is a long slow process of changing hearts and minds, of educating young people and even older people insofar as that is possible."
No problem there but running for high office with a boutique party isn't that. It is some combination of ignorance, delusion, ego, and grift with a possible soupcon of subversion.
We live in a world of constraints, individual and institutional. Third parties in presidential systems with legislative districts and FPTP will either be irrelevant or counterproductive.
It doesn't matter who the Rethuglican candidate happens to be, any third party - left or center - will help the Rs and hurt the Ds (accelerating the contradictions pushes folks to the - often herrenvolkish - right).
aaall,
Granted the Republicans have gone off the road map in recent years.
This is going to sound weird to you, but why not an anti-fascist coalition of the Democrats with the Greens, not the Democrats absorbing the Greens and destroying them, but a partnership with the Democrats as the senior partner.
In Chile, a very different reality for sure, but maybe with a lesson or two for you, President Boric (imagine Bernie Sanders in office, having to adapt to the realities of political life and economic pressures) heads a coalition which ranges from the PPD (more or less like the mainstream Democrats, but much smaller in electoral weight) to the Communist Party on the left (more electoral weight than the PPD) and so far the coalition works because everybody in it gets something, ministeries, some say in political decisions,
key government positions, etc.
s.w., my impression is that third parties in the U.S. mainly attract low information idealists and grifters. The grifters, as is to be expected, rise - see Simema, Kyrsten. This is an assumption based on limited personal experience, of course, but still.
I follow Jill Stein on Twitter. When the most prominent member of a party is deeply unserious and the apparent nominee next cycle is a clown, I'm not sure how your proposal would happen.*
I would also assume that foreign policy would be a problem.
*Even once serious folks can beclown themselves - one can only skate on ones past for so long.
BTW, how does one seriously consider themselves a "communist" in 2023 - after all the twentieth century did happen? Oh well, I guess if Integralism and libertarianism are still things...
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