Gerald Celente, the CEO of Trends Research is predicting a new 3rd party will indeed emerge by the 2010 elections and possibly even push big time for the presidency by 2012. He is referring to this party as “Progressive Libertarianism” for lack of a better term.
I am thinking that this new party will espouse alot of the ideals that many of us here on TMuscle hold pretty highly.
I think a few of these ideals will be:
To stop government encroachment upon the right’s of individuals and their liberties. (Repealing the Patriot Act!!!)
To let the free market work the way that is supposed to (No more bailing out of the Goldman Sachs Gang or the Bear Stern’s Bandits)
To end these pointless, fruitless, destructive conflicts across the globe and to bring our troops home for good. (That means EVERYWHERE!!!) No more Empire America
To bring back the importance of Main Street and abandoning Wall Street ( Fuck quantity and bottom line, we need quality and care)
I would like to hear some more input from you guys. More specifically I would like to know if you would support such a party? I mean let’s be frank here, the Republicans and Democrats are essentially a two headed monster on the same body. They don’t diverge from each other very much at all.
Sounds great as long as people get behind the best candidate and platform. I tend to think things will have to get quite a bit worse before your average voter will pay attention enough to see the value of a third party candidate.
[quote]dhickey wrote:
Sounds great as long as people get behind the best candidate and platform. I tend to think things will have to get quite a bit worse before your average voter will pay attention enough to see the value of a third party candidate. [/quote]
If the dollar does what I think it is going to do next year, they are going to get a lot of attention.
So it’s rather like Libertarianism with reactionary fear instead of principles, but many shared conclusions.[/quote]
Pretty much, but these reactionary fears will become principles very rapidly.[/quote]
This is all very ominous, but I am of the opinion that a third party can never become viable.
People who conduct constant focus groups, surveys, and assemble new slogans on napkins are not as resistant to change as you would like to believe. As soon as a niche in the voters becomes dissatisfied, the two established brands of the American political system–market–will implement a calculated change to reflect the shifting zeitgeist. Campaign promises are nothing more than salesmanship anyways, so why not beat the upstart political movement at its own game–pummeling it with brand loyalty and mass media exposure.
Not to quell an uprising or fulfill some international conspiracy by staying in power, but because they believe the ends justify the means.
So it’s rather like Libertarianism with reactionary fear instead of principles, but many shared conclusions.[/quote]
Pretty much, but these reactionary fears will become principles very rapidly.[/quote]
This is all very ominous, but I am of the opinion that a third party can never become viable.
People who conduct constant focus groups, surveys, and assemble new slogans on napkins are not as resistant to change as you would like to believe. As soon as a niche in the voters becomes dissatisfied, the two established brands of the American political system–market–will implement a calculated change to reflect the shifting zeitgeist. Campaign promises are nothing more than salesmanship anyways, so why not beat the upstart political movement at its own game–pummeling it with brand loyalty and mass media exposure.
Not to quell an uprising or fulfill some international conspiracy by staying in power, but because they believe the ends justify the means.[/quote]
Before the internet, a valid third party was unlikely. Now I believe it is inevitable.
The potential problem is that instead of 49% of the bumper stickers saying “I didn’t vote for him” now it will be closer to 65%.
So it’s rather like Libertarianism with reactionary fear instead of principles, but many shared conclusions.[/quote]
Pretty much, but these reactionary fears will become principles very rapidly.[/quote]
This is all very ominous, but I am of the opinion that a third party can never become viable.
People who conduct constant focus groups, surveys, and assemble new slogans on napkins are not as resistant to change as you would like to believe. As soon as a niche in the voters becomes dissatisfied, the two established brands of the American political system–market–will implement a calculated change to reflect the shifting zeitgeist. Campaign promises are nothing more than salesmanship anyways, so why not beat the upstart political movement at its own game–pummeling it with brand loyalty and mass media exposure.
Not to quell an uprising or fulfill some international conspiracy by staying in power, but because they believe the ends justify the means.[/quote]
Then let them deal with this:
But the second possibility is that it will be the Republican Party, not the Democrats, that is torn apart trying to deal with its own internal contradictions. Thatâ??s what happened in the disastrous but portentous 1964 election: The GOP stood up for principle in its platform, and fell down at the ballot box.
There are already a number of signs that the 1964 outcome is a real possibility. The special election in New Yorkâ??s 23rd Congressional district pitted a RINO (Dede Scozzafava) against a Democrat (Bill Owens). But the â??real conservativesâ?? of the district (which has been reliably Republican since 1993) rose up to smite the RINO with an equally real conservative alternative (Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman).
Scozzafava was knocked out of the race by the backlash. Which meant the Democrat won! And the folks on the right saw it, and said that it was good. Several different polls, most recently by Rasmussen earlier this month, show that a majority of people who call themselves â??conservativeâ?? now prefer to vote against Republicans who do not share their values. And they persist in this opinion, even if it means that Democrats win elections.
All a third party will do is fuck the repub party once again like it always has. The only sensible thing that will work is to band together and vote conservatives in where all of these “moderate” repubs sit now. A third party has always been and will continue to be a loser for the right. Please don’t forget that Ross Perot gave us Bill Clinton…twice.
[quote]denv23 wrote:
All a third party will do is fuck the repub party once again like it always has. The only sensible thing that will work to band together and vote conservatives in where all of these “moderate” repubs sit now. A third party has always been and will continue to be a loser for the right. Please don’t forget that Ross Perot gave us Bill Clinton…twice. [/quote]
Well this is very different then Ross Perot, remember its not only conservatives that will join this party, it is the anti war left that will join this party too. If we don’t pull out of Iraq next year, or send private contractors over in place of the military the anti war left will become fed up with the democrats.
I don’t see how any libertarian 3rd party could succeed now. The American people always want government to ‘do something’, whether it be to provide jobs, old age pensions, and so forth. They don’t believe in freedom as they have deemed it to be the government’s function to wrest resources from those who produce and distribute those resources to voters.
A third party might arise that is uncompromising in its principles and simply crushed the democracy/republic. If it restored order and provided jobs, healthcare, old age pensions, schools, and so forth, then most Americans would be quite content: “Finally, people who know what they’re doing!” would be heard everywhere.
It most definitely WON’T be libertarian. Most people don’t want that.