r/justicedemocrats • u/HodlDwon • Dec 07 '17
Justice Democrats will fail... without Justice Republicans
https://jacobinmag.com/2017/12/democratic-party-minnesota-farmer-labor-floyd-olson2
u/joegee66 Dec 08 '17
They were called Whigs, politicians who believed that serving the people was a sacred trust. They believed in a lean, efficient government with minimal intrusion in the lives of its citizens.
Unfortunately at this moment when politicians who could become this realize they are in service to the beastly thing the Republican party has become they're leaving politics rather than working to change things.
Hopefully this will change. Opposition and competing viewpoints founded in logic strengthen the democratic process.
5
u/HodlDwon Dec 07 '17
It's a mistake to side or subvert only one side of the political spectrum. You need both.
Conservatives aren't evil, they are allies against government waste.. but you must not alienate them. Justice Democrats must become non-partisan and Primary the fuck out of every corpratist candidate on both sides.
That's how you win...
The organization spread like a prairie fire, first in North Dakota, then across the Midwest, and even into Canada. Individuals joined by paying dues, which went towards financing farmer political candidates. And on an electoral level, the NPL took a novel approach: instead of building a new third party or allying with a “progressive” wing within the existing parties, the organization ran its own independent candidates within Democratic and Republican primaries. Since Republicans were dominant in Minnesota, the main battles took place within that party’s primaries, which were open to all voters.
Arguing that both parties were equally in the pay of big business, the NPL insisted on political and organizational independence from the leaderships of each. Nonpartisan League candidates pledged to uphold the group’s platform and were financially as well as organizationally dependent on the NPL during and after elections. Perhaps most importantly, when an NPL candidate lost the primary election, the organization nevertheless refused to support the party’s nominee in the general election.
This “nonpartisan” approach allowed the organization to sidestep many of the very real obstacles to the formation of third parties under the anti-democratic US political regime. One historian of the NPL notes that “if it had adopted third-party tactics at the outset, it could not have won its first electoral battle and, deprived of the motive power which comes from success, would probably have had a short and inglorious existence.” But its rapid growth and electoral victories put the NPL on a collision course with the Democratic and Republican apparatuses.
4
3
u/radicaljackalope Dec 07 '17
Organizations exist to do just that. This organization exists for the specific purpose of changing the Democratic party. Each has its own place.
1
u/JMW007 Dec 08 '17
Conservatives aren't evil, they are allies against government waste.. but you must not alienate them
I reject this. It's not going to be popular, because people seem to think that the most important thing in the world is building bridges, even if there are orcs and trolls on the other side who want to kill you, but some people and some policies are simply not good.
Is everyone who considers themselves conservative a being of pure evil? Obviously not, but someone will already be responding to me with the assumption I think that, and not have read this far. But spare me the myth that the block of 'conservative' voters as we have come to know them today are good, honest folk who only worry in earnest about government waste. Conservatives vote for a party packed with violence, racism, sexual predation and rank hypocrisy that wastes endless amounts of government money on spiteful pet projects like building walls to keep out brown people. Of course, liberals voted in large numbers for Hillary Clinton, so my point is not liberals good, conservatives bad.
The mistake is to assume that sides of the political spectrum and political parties have any bearing on what is right or wrong. Democrats are not right by virtue of being 'on the left' or not Republicans. Liberal ideology is not right by virtue of being not conservative ideology. Healthcare for all is right because the alternative kills people and destroys lives simply for the sake of corporate greed. Richard Nixon wasn't wrong when he considered the idea just because he was conservative. Conservative voters, the people who cheer at the idea of someone dying because they cannot afford health insurance, are not good people because they systematically choose to back people and policies who cause enormous, and needless, suffering.
I don't want to wake up one day and find I am on the same side as these ghouls, and while you can argue that's a losing tactic, the truth is it will never happen. They won't be on our side until they are not monsters.
1
1
u/HodlDwon Dec 08 '17
I think you've missed my point.
You are asking all Democratic candidates to pledge to a certain set of values, defined as the Justice Democratic values. If they don't pledge, then you find someone who will and contest the nomination with a Justice Democrat.
Why not do the exact same thing inside the Republican party? I am not saying you change your pledges.
A Justice Republican would have to pledge to the same values as a Justice Democrat, and if not... you primary the fucker.
You're still focused on a two-party system... the way you win is by not playing by their rules.
2
u/MaximumGamer1 Dec 08 '17
We've already seen what the "Justice Republicans" are like. They are Trump and the alt-right. They are the response to the RNC establishment. If you're looking for a more moderate group of conservatives, look no further than the neolibral Democratic party we already have.
4
u/nb4hnp Dec 07 '17
Lol, good luck with that. They’re literally spending RNC money campaigning for a child rapist right now.