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John,
Four days
and 15 votes later, we finally have a Speaker of the House. The
spectacle it created was lapped up by the press and political insiders
alike, and C-SPAN became must-see TV. But most Americans are not
entertained when the politicians we’ve entrusted to lead our country
opt instead to become a sideshow.
Twenty elected officials preventing a
435-member legislative body from conducting the people’s business is
not “what democracy looks like,” as some have claimed; it’s further
evidence of a completely broken system in which two entrenched parties
have no incentive to cooperate—let alone help the other
govern.
Republicans
chose to allow the most extreme wings of their party to completely
control the Speaker’s election, and with it, control the Speaker
himself. These are the same bad actors who choose to spend their time
promoting the Big Lie and spreading disinformation, rather than
sincerely governing. Speaker McCarthy is now both indebted to and
undermined by this radical faction who gave him the
gavel.
Democrats, for
their part, had no political incentive to come to the table. Instead
they closed ranks, operating in lockstep from the sidelines to
highlight the chaos of their rival party rather than even attempt to
find a bipartisan alternative. Democrats touted their intra-party
unity as strength, but that strength was used to prop up a failing
system rather than try to negotiate for concessions that would improve
the functioning of the People’s House.
The losers in all of this are the American
people, who are waking up to the reality that the closed politics of
the last 100 years has put us on this dark path—that we need to try
something new. That’s why we’re building a new kind of party, one
where innovation, collaboration, and problem-solving are prized above
pyrrhic partisan victories. We must succeed in building this new
political home, for the sake of our future.
Elected officials in both parties are coming
around to this reality as well. Throughout this process, leaders of
the Forward Party, including our grassroots leaders, have been in
touch with our colleagues and allies in the House. These folks are
seeing what we’re seeing: That partisan politics dominated by a
zero-sum “burn it all down” mentality is not working. They’re looking
for answers, and our response is simple: Until systemic reforms open
the U.S. political system to more choice and more unifying leaders,
scenarios like this will continue to play out, and Americans will pay
the price.
As Forward
Party co-chair Christine Todd Whitman said, “Republican and Democratic party
leaders would like you to think that there is no better way than the
status quo. But America is waking up from that deterministic thinking.
Many things define a Forward Party member, but perhaps the most
fundamental trait is that we won’t stop looking for a better way to
get things done.”
Needless to say, we have our work cut out for us in 2023, team!
We’re so glad to be in this with you.
Best,
The Forward Party
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