While I agree that things may not be as bad as they seem right now (although reading an article about how Bannon of Breitbart fame might be named the White House Chief of Staff didn't help much), it's important to remember that 31 state governments are in majority control of the Republicans, and they'll be looking to their Republican President for leadership.Z-Man wrote:LGBT rights and environmental protection certainly won't progress nationwide under him. But hey, you still have state legislation that can try to pick up the slack.
The Democrats, as an opposition party, are at the weakest point they've ever been. The infighting for the DNC chair has already started, and it's looking like it may very well be Howard Dean vs Bernie Sanders.
Sinewav and I were talking in irc last night about an idea I had. I'm still sitting on it, thinking about it, making sure I don't jump in high energy and fizzle once again, but here's the idea:
We form an Independent Party that has no candidates and no platform. Instead, we maintain a database of independents who vote, as well as independents who don't vote because they're not excited about the candidates. We keep demographic data on them, their individual positions on various issues, what issues they care about (even if they're not in the news), etc. We make aggregate reports from this information available to the two major parties to use when working out their policies and setting up their candidates. Basically, we give each of them a roadmap as to how they can win over independent voters. Had Hillary had such a roadmap, maybe she could have turned out more voters?
There's a lot more to the idea, but that's the core part of it. The Independent Party would stay true to its name and be completely non-partisan, offering no candidates and no platform and no internal unity of its members other than their dedication to vote for candidates they like. The Party itself would represent all of its members to the major political parties and the public as a whole.
We'd keep members informed on what their politicians are doing/saying, what the various branches of government are up to (at least federal and state levels, but with enough people actively participating we could go down to county and city levels as well), etc. We'd encourage them to network with each other (maybe occasionally throwing actual parties to get people together), learn more about each other, and vote vote vote. Also, vote in the primaries (registering for the party whose primary you want to vote in as needed), make your voice heard. Maybe one side is clearly favoring a candidate you like, so you vote in the other side's primary for the candidate they have that you like the most in the hope of seeing those two go at it in the general election.
There are enough independent voters to influence the election, it's just that nobody's listening to us. Well, Bernie and Trump both did, and we saw how that went.