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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 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.
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
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
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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