John --
No one likes to be the bearer of bad news. Okay, maybe some folks do (more on that in a minute), but generally speaking, most of us like to accentuate the positive. It’s a quintessentially American thing to do. So it’s no surprise that most of us breathed a sigh of relief last week when the midterm elections saw some of the most flagrantly extreme candidates turned away by voters at the ballot box. We also saw voters widely affirm reforms that would make future elections more open and fair. These victories deserve celebration.
But now that the dust has settled a bit, the big picture is still murky. Will Republicans learn the big lesson of this election, namely that extremism is a losing path, and deservedly so? Given that the kingpin of bad news has already thrown his hat in the ring <[link removed]> for 2024 under the Republican banner, that’s unclear. Will Democrats misread their overperformance in the midterms as voters’ support for a far-left agenda and refuse to work with a Republican House to pass bipartisan legislation? That too remains to be seen.
What is clear is that the duopoly is still firmly in charge for at least the next two years, and that means we can expect more division and dysfunction from them ahead. As our first president once said in his farewell address, “However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”
George Washington was prescient. He saw how parties could become corrupted over time and work against the people. The two major parties have proven Washington’s wisdom time and time again. We have a chance now to go in a different direction, to un-party our politics and completely change the landscape for the better.
- <[link removed]>Former president makes announcement —Radical Reports <[link removed]>
- <[link removed]>Will this time be different? —The xxxxxx <[link removed]>
- <[link removed]>What will the parties learn from the election? —Brookings Institute <[link removed]>
- <[link removed]>Andrew Yang moves Forward on third parties, ranked-choice voting —The Stanford Daily <[link removed]>
- <[link removed]>Forward Party and Students for Open Primaries chat [video] —YouTube <[link removed]>
OTHER NEWS & VIEWS
For Democrats, it’s all about Trump
“Democrats quickly went on the offensive Tuesday night as former President Trump announced his 2024 presidential campaign, portraying him as unfit to serve following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and the former president’s promotion of unfounded claims of election fraud. President Biden released a video on Twitter firing back as he faces the potential of a rematch with his predecessor. ‘Trump failed America,’ the video concludes after attacking Trump on abortion, the economy, and Jan. 6. Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison wrote on Twitter, ‘Donald Trump was a failure as president; that’s why he lost in 2020 and it’s why he will lose again.’ Harrison in a separate tweet noted that Fox News broke away from Trump’s speech before it concluded, saying it is evidence that Trump’s announcement was ‘low energy.’” —The Hill <[link removed]>
Taylor: Why disillusioned Republicans need a third party
“Last week’s midterm elections are proof that Donald Trump has completed his ruination of the GOP. The Party of Lincoln has been overrun by low-quality candidates, rampant conspiracy theories, and a vile culture of intimidation. As the twice-impeached, disgraced ex-president prepares to announce his candidacy again this week, conservatives of conscience should quit the party and join a new one. A third party may not seem like the obvious solution. Indeed, American history is littered with the tombstones of party experiments that never gained popular support. But the environment has changed dramatically. For the first time in history, roughly half of Americans now say they are political independents, rather than Democrats or Republicans. Nearly two-thirds of voters report that they would vote for a third party. And a movement is underway across the nation to enact political reforms—like ranked-choice voting, open primaries, and anti-gerrymandering—that will make it easier for third-party candidates to win. It’s time to give voters somewhere else to go. If not, common-sense GOP voters risk staying in a party that is aiding and abetting the return of Donald Trump and the perpetuation of his destructive movement.” —Miles Taylor in The Boston Globe <[link removed]>
We have a choice before us: same old, same old politics (literally, in certain cases), or an opportunity to build a truly people-centered political environment that focuses on getting sh*t done rather than on giving the other side sh*t. We’d like to think that even the Father of Our Country himself would walk Forward along with us.
All the best,
The Forward Party Team
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Forward Party - PO Box 9172, Fredericksburg, VA 22403, United States
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