DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Former Republicans and Democrats form new third U.S. political party

https://www.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-former-republicans-democrats-form-223654665.html

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Dozens of former Republican and Democratic officials announced on Wednesday a new national political third party to appeal to millions of voters they say are dismayed with what they see as America's dysfunctional two-party system.

The new party, called Forward and whose creation was first reported by Reuters, will initially be co-chaired by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang and Christine Todd Whitman, the former Republican governor of New Jersey. They hope the party will become a viable alternative to the Republican and Democratic parties that dominate U.S. politics, founding members told Reuters.

Party leaders will hold a series of events in two dozen cities this autumn to roll out its platform and attract support. They will host an official launch in Houston on Sept. 24 and the party's first national convention in a major U.S. city next summer.

The new party is being formed by a merger of three political groups that have emerged in recent years as a reaction to America's increasingly polarized and gridlocked political system. The leaders cited a Gallup poll last year showing a record two-thirds of Americans believe a third party is needed.

The merger involves the Renew America Movement, formed in 2021 by dozens of former officials in the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Donald Trump; the Forward Party, founded by Yang, who left the Democratic Party in 2021 and became an independent; and the Serve America Movement, a group of Democrats, Republicans and independents whose executive director is former Republican congressman David Jolly.

Two pillars of the new party's platform are to "reinvigorate a fair, flourishing economy" and to "give Americans more choices in elections, more confidence in a government that works, and more say in our future."

The party, which is centrist, has no specific policies yet. It will say at its Thursday launch: "How will we solve the big issues facing America? Not Left. Not Right. Forward."

Historically, third parties have failed to thrive in America's two-party system. Occasionally they can impact a presidential election. Analysts say the Green Party's Ralph Nader siphoned off enough votes from Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore in 2000 to help Republican George W. Bush win the White House.

It is unclear how the new Forward party might impact either party's electoral prospects in such a deeply polarized country. Political analysts are skeptical it can succeed.

Public reaction on Twitter was swift. Many Democrats on the social media platform expressed fear that the new party will siphon more votes away from Democrats, rather than Republicans, and end up helping Republicans in close races.

Forward aims to gain party registration and ballot access in 30 states by the end of 2023 and in all 50 states by late 2024, in time for the 2024 presidential and congressional elections. It aims to field candidates for local races, such as school boards and city councils, in state houses, the U.S. Congress and all the way up to the presidency.

`THE FUNDAMENTALS HAVE CHANGED`

In an interview, Yang said the party will start with a budget of about $5 million. It has donors lined up and a grassroots membership between the three merged groups numbering in the hundreds of thousands.

"We are starting in a very strong financial position. Financial support will not be a problem," Yang said.

Another person involved in the creation of Forward, Miles Taylor - a former Homeland Security official in the Trump administration - said the idea was to give voters "a viable, credible national third party."

Taylor acknowledged that third parties had failed in the past, but said: "The fundamentals have changed. When other third party movements have emerged in the past it’s largely been inside a system where the American people aren’t asking for an alternative. The difference here is we are seeing an historic number of Americans saying they want one."

Stu Rothenberg, a veteran non-partisan political analyst, said it was easy to talk about establishing a third party but almost impossible to do so.

"The two major political parties start out with huge advantages, including 50 state parties built over decades," he said.

Rothenberg pointed out that third party presidential candidates like John Anderson in 1980 and Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996 flamed out, failing to build a true third party that became a factor in national politics.

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interesting stuff. let's see what happens moving....forward?

This will have quite the counter-current against it, but good grief do I hope it succeeds. No more of this two-legged stool garbage. It's killing our country.

There are at least a dozen other parties out there. None of them ever take hold. Yang seems desperate to gain political power at times. I can't decide who this will hurt more if it does gain some steam, Dems or Republicans.

I would certainly love a legitimate third party. But as of now they have no platform established. No policies set in stone. I'll have to wait until I see what it is they actually believe and stand for before I make any determination about what I think of them.

That's a good question. It would have to be fairly evenly split in order to actually have a positive effect on the current system. If it's slanted, it'll just hurt one party and give too much advantage to the other, which could actually make things worse, which is hard to believe.

Yep, imagine independents and moderates going there in droves, but not enough to compete with the main two parties. Those sane votes could go for somebody with no chance to be elected and take away a victory for the good guys while the next Oompa Loompa slides into the oval.

Forward??? lol... They don't even have a name...

Centrists, Moderates, Franklin's, whatever, all better than Forward.

If it can becoe legit. The problem is they usually aren't. They usually just screw up elections causing someone to lose an election. As the article mention in Gore Bush, but even more so the Clinton election over George Sr. was more prominent.

Basically you end up with someone winning with a low 40% of the vote, dividing the country even more. I get and agree with the electoral college vote and how that can tip an election to someone with less of the popular vote, but it needs to be somewhat close.

Talk about the possibility of rigging an election. All one would need to do is put forward a candidate who would likely pull votes away from one candidate over the other in order to get their person elected.

How is that rigging an election? We have had parties with no chance of winning doing that for decades now. There is a process to qualify people to run in these elections. If those legal guidelines are followed, that isn't rigging anything.

Unless and until someone can actually come up with a legitimate third party, which may or may not favor one of the existing parties, the system is rigged by the two party system if anything is rigged.

You don't think a new party that gets people elected won't fall into that same cesspool? Unless we remove money from politics, that will never happen.

I think it would make both parties rethink their strategy. Right now the loudest voices on on the extremes. That 40 percent could take the White House and return things to more normal. It becomes 70 percent, if the centrists decide where they want to vote.

Never Trumpers would be interested. It could drive the Republicans down. Moderates on both sides could have a greater say.

There is a lot of structural things that are inappropriate. The whole gerrymandering, closed primaries, voting restrictions and other equality based challenges with the 2 party system could be crumbled.

Voting on topics would be based on individual merits of bills versus the blocks in totality that are for or against.

But change the silly name.

I would probably be a member.

The difference between this party and the other "3rd parties" is that this seems like it is trying to be a legitimate middle party. The other attempts were never true attempts at a middle of the road party. They were all fringe parties.

There is no party that I like currently. Tell me what I am lol

I want universal healthcare for all.
unlimited free education
flat tax for people and businesses
religion and politics left out of school
energy independence while not killing the environment and it won't be a one size fits all solution but one that has many branches from the same tree.
roads that are maintained and safe
adequate police and fire departments
a strong military but not one that spends ten times what the world spends
an end to prison slavery work and instead i want prisoners getting a fair wage for their work
i'm fine with abortion being an issue decided by your state instead of at the federal level
I'm fine with all violent criminals, pedos, and violent rapists being executed because they never reform anyways and the money they cost could be used to send young folks to college or trade school to save the next generation.
I would ban seed patents and let farmers grow whatever they want. I love farmers and farms and think we should do what we can to stop the corporate farms like monsanto from destroying small farmers.
I would also support a limit to how much land can be owned by one person and a cap on personal income. I'm sick of billionaires using their wealth to screw over the competition and buy out all the politicians from both parties.
You are not getting my guns unless I am dead.
I won't change how I speak to avoid offending people but I will try to use some tact when I can.
While I don't like religion being taught in schools I strongly support people's right to follow their own faith and do whatever they want provided they are not hurting others out of malice. I mean with somethings you are just going to agree to have to disagree and move on. I don't think it's ok to hate people and wish them harm just for having different beliefs than you.

I'm a strong supporter of States being able to have different cultures and laws from one state to the next if they don't violate federal law because people are not all the same so by allowing states to be different it gives people with different views different places to live and be happy living their own way instead of trying to make everyone the same from one state to the next when we are a country of sooooooo many different cultures.

I have no idea what party I fit into since I hate both parties. I am strongly conservative on some issues and strongly liberal on other issues.

I applaud that. People should develop their own beliefs and make the politicians prove that they’re each the best suited to achieve those goals.

Unfortunately, we’ve gotten to a point in society - probably one of several things that the history books will discuss about decline - where most people are letting the politicians tell them what they should think.

You are a hybrid independent with both right and left extreme and moderate views. You are not allowed to exist, both parties would cancel you if they knew, so you must be an independent.

Been there done that, as I slowly went left eventually becoming progressive. But I also have moderate left and right-wing views on some things. I don't really think many fall 100% into one box. But when choosing who to vote for, I prioritize my vote by who will do the most common good for all of us. I feel like this, I can handle my life just fine. I have enough money, food, medical care, etc. But I worry about where we are headed and what it will mean to my kids, grandkids, other family, friends, community, and country. My biggest thing is a strong social safety net. We believe the same about education and IMO it all starts there. The same on healthcare and it is urgent IMO. I'm not ok with an automatic death sentence, because the system makes mistakes. A 19-year-old should not go to prison or be killed for sleeping with a willing 15-year-old he was dating. I know there is some sort of 4-year exception now (not sure if it's codified), but I also know the story of a young black man that is still doing time for just that. Parents wanted him in jail, the prosecutor got the W, and kids' life is over. Under what you are saying he would have been put to death. I could go on, but you get the gist. I'd say right now, you are the average American.

That’s a good viewpoint. I’d also like to add that my goals can change depending on the state of the country. I am a rather fiscally conservative person for the most part. However, the system has been so corrupted by unbridled, crony capitalism that I do think more progressive economic policies need to be put in place to undo so much of the rigging that has happened.

ditto

This is a prisoners dilemma problem that benefits conservatives/ republicans more than liberals/ democrats.

As a voter for either side you have to trust that something like an equal number of the other party is going to peel off and commit to the new movement. Conservatives, even the moderate or “sane” ones are not inclined to do that. Or at least they’re less likely to do so in large numbers. Or very quickly. There’s much more of a natural tendency for lock-step, party line voting as a matter of principle and overall strategy. There’s much more willingness to adopt a strict utilitarian, ruthless win at all costs mindset. Also, there’s just fewer moderates than at any time in my lifetime on the right.

Conversely democrats and the left have always been a herd of cats. There’s a sizable portion of moderates that would ditch the “nutty” end of the liberal wing tomorrow, grander strategies be damned. There’s in-fighting on the right certainly but nothing like on the left. Some would say that’s actually what makes the modern left better, that their built-in internal differences and willingness to go after each other keeps them relatively honest and unable to stray too far afield all at once. There’s at least some checks and balances. There’s precious little of that on the right and those that serve as check/balance are ruthlessly savaged. But the left does love to shoot each other and themselves in the face on the daily. Good times.

Add to all that the fact that most of the issues they’re focused on addressing are currently in conservatives favor. Even if a pro choice republican were inclined to go with this new moderate party on abortion they’re less likely to feel as strongly as a moderate left voter on it and they’re less likely to align on all the other positions this new moderate party wants to address.

Of course it’s something I would love to see if we could snap our fingers and for it to immediately become viable and strong but the reality is that it would take time to build and in that build time, the left would split, the right much less so and the right would eat the left’s lunch. The only way this could work in the current climate is if were a center right movement with center right issues from the start. And with some catalyst that could ensure something like equal adoption. I can’t even imagine that happening. Right wing media and culture would immediately seize upon it and it would be rendered as lifeless as Liz Cheneys future by sundown.

This also highlights once of the central problems with hyper polarization. It becomes increasingly difficult to ratchet down in intensity without some disaster or crisis, either natural or man made. Trust and humanization of the other side is exactly what’s needed most and, not so ironically, what’s in the shortest supply. I guess the good news is that I suspect we’ll get that crisis in one form or another in the next few years. Yes, by “good news” I’m joking.

I would expect that type of response from Carville. He bleeds blue.

But the simple fact is that a moderate third party would marginalize D's and R's and would likely include a lot of never Trumpers (aka Lincoln Project members).

It is a threat to the status quo. The kind of threat that could be significant if properly implemented.

Remember the Tea Party movement of 2007? It was "absorbed" by the Republican party only to realize that it ate [became] the Republican party. What is called the Republican party of today is essentially the Tea Party of 2007.

It was like the old movie "Invasion of the Body [Party] Snatchers" scenario.

I know this political party is what they call Forward and no matter who they would nominate it would most likely tend to impact the voting of one party more than the other. I just wonder if the outcome in Wyoming may lead Liz Cheney to seek their party nomination and if this would provide Republican voters who aren't extreme as well as Independent voters who lean right to what they may see as an alternative choice while accomplishing her goal to prevent trump form reelection should he win the Republican nomination?

I'd vote for Liz any day of the week. Over many and most Democrats. She has been impressive.

I took her out of the Dick category, but she's still a Cheney, so even though I give her props for standing up to Trump, I don't want her in the oval or as VP. I will say this, when it came down to it, she did what was right for the country over what was right for her. But she also voted with Trump on most issues.

I think it would detract from dem votes and be very dangerous with all the die-hard Trumpers still out there. Andrew Yang either has his head up his ass or just plain doesn't give a damn if Trump is reelected. I'll vote for dems until Trump is no longer a threat. But if he's in jail or disqualified, then I'm going with the most progressive candidate that wants to help the working class, regardless of party. I think the dems are going to lose a lot of progressives when Trump is no longer a threat. The Bernie crap and how they cut all the most progressive things out of Biden's legislation has progressives pissed. Biden has however passed several things progressives wanted, but Manchin and Sinema watered them down to the point that everything remaining is corp friendly except the 15% minimum tax. And corps will take the lion's share of all the funds for Biden's spending legislation in contracts for infrastructure, etc.

Amen.

Carville bleeds Clinton Blue, he despises progressives and has cost us elections with his mouth several times. He is the kind of guy the party doesn't need, a pure establishment corporatist DINO. He's married to a die-hard Republican and it shows.

Anything short of giving everything away you consider a "a pure establishment corporatist DINO." You are the very type of progressive that would lead people to vote for Cheney in a third party if a far left progressive gets the Democratic nomination. If you were to reign in your far left slant we might agree more. I can see that in describing Manchin and Simema, but man, if any democrat doesn't want to give everything away you think they're evil. Sad.

That's a stupid comment and you know it. You are like a propagandist for establishment politics. As if centrist politics didn't put us where we are today, Pfft.

Sure, sure. Always the victim.

If the majority of the GQP stands with trump and his mob, then a third party of independent conservatives will need to come forward to offset the insanity of the present state of the Republican Party. Makes sense.

I actually wish both parties would split.

You are hilarious. When Bernie was leading in 2020, you cried like a child. That's when I realized you bow to the corporate gods. And you were just as bad as the Trumpians screaming socialism. Centrists are fake as hell. Fake Dems.

I do too, but that could lead to another Trump admin or worse. DeSantis I think would be every bit as bad and probably worse because he has a political mind, while Trump doesn't. He's fascist as hell.

If progressives split from centrist dems, they (centrists) would never win again. They always come begging progressives to help them win, then treat us like the proverbial redheaded stepchild after. They control the DNC and the party so they get away with ruling as the minority (like Trumpians of the left). And since 2016 progressives outnumber centrists in the house as the majority of the left, but centrists and GOPer-lites like Manchin and Sinema maintain control of leftwing legislation in the Senate. I think progressives will be the majority of the left in both branches of Congress before 2028. Clinton era "moderate centrist corporatist" dems are facing extinction.

I would love to have a true Progressive Party, just not at the cost of losing democracy.

Fake news. All I said was bernie couldn't get elected. There's not enough of your fringe to elect a president. Sadly you'll probably end up finding out the hard way and it will cost us all.

And that's the best you have...

That's all I need. Unlike you i don't need to put on some personal attack to tell the truth.

Oh I would. But in this instance I had no need to.