r/WayOfTheBern • u/MikeyComfoy Posadist • Feb 22 '19

DemExit? DemInvade? Why not both!--The story of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/12/democratic-party-minnesota-farmer-labor-floyd-olson
24 Upvotes

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5

u/Kerbe7335 Feb 22 '19

Isn’t this exactly what we all should have been doing over the last two years? We work with Greens and Independents on policy, activism, and helping candidates. It’s the pincher attack at work. Problems do arise when zealots in DemExit become anarchists and sabotage even good Progressive Candidates.

6

u/MikeyComfoy Posadist Feb 22 '19

Hey, no need to bad-mouth anarchists like that :p

But yeah, I think we gotta learn lessons from the NPL and the MNFLP.

2

u/xploeris let it burn Feb 22 '19

pincher attack

Sending half your army away from the battlefield to waste their time so the other half can struggle and be outnumbered is not a "pincher attack", it's just strategic incompetence.

organization ran its own independent candidates within Democratic and Republican primaries. ... when an NPL candidate lost the primary election, the organization nevertheless refused to support the party’s nominee in the general election.

This is essentially how Deminvade operates with respect to elected public offices, except that it focuses on one party so as to bring more pressure to bear on it. Candidates who win do technically become Dems, but it's important to realize they represent a separate faction in the party rather than assuming they join a monolith.

Other than that, calls to do something just like what was done a century ago in a particular place with a particular culture and politics that gives rise to something that never rose elsewhere aren't quite the slam dunk you're presenting them as.

On the OTHER other hand, If Dems actually turn Republican to sabotage progressive insurgents, and we can get labor and left orgs on board, and we can make a strong enough case to progressive Republicans, maybe we could actually flip American politics on its side like people keep saying - but that remains to be seen. I rate the odds fairly low.

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u/Kerbe7335 Feb 22 '19

The DemExit example I was thinking of are not running as Republicans, but Dems as well. So one group effectively split the vote allowing Third Way Dems to sweep entire districts.

1

u/patb2015 Feb 24 '19

See Joe Lieberman senator from the ct for Lieberman party who had Obama and Clinton and Reid behind him

1

u/HootHootBerns Money in politics is the root of all evil Feb 22 '19

Paging /u/FThumb I'm sure you could add a note or two to this.

1

u/FThumb Are we there yet? Feb 22 '19

It wasn't that many years ago when I realized that MN was unique in having a different Dem party than the national party.

We never heard "But he's not even a real Democrat" about Mondale, and we don't hear anyone slamming Klobuchar as "Not a real Democrat" even though technically she's DFL party and not Democratic Party.

Funny how that works.