How to set up a third party in the USA

We're living in interesting times.

That's part of an old Irish curse, to be living in interesting times. And after 3 years of this crap, I'm starting to understand why. Interesting times are usually interesting because of how much is possible, but that doesn't mean it's all positive. Usually we talk about how many things are breaking and how this may not be repairable, etc etc etc, and that no one is going to be held accountable. It's depressing as hell.

But today, let's talk about a possible positive, something that we have a unique opportunity to do because of all of this "interesting time." I think the time is here for a third (or more) party in the USA.

This is a dream shared by many, that the "Land of Opportunity" might give us an opportunity to choose between more than two warring groups. As one of the last developed nations to have more than two parties, the USA is watching everyone else pull ahead while we become more and more bitterly divided, and more people are chased to the extremes by necessity and passion. I myself, while not being a Democrat nor an outright liberal, do not have a choice anymore when it comes to voting. I don't like what the Democrats do (or more to the point, how they do it) but I cannot vote for a corrupt and immoral party like the GOP. So in essence, I have no choice left.

But is that really true? How many people feel like I do? How many people are sick of the either one or the other battle, unable to actually talk about solutions because we're too busy fending off the attacks of the "other?" How many people are sick of the argument that we cannot act on something for fear of driving people to the "other side?" And how many people are sick of politicians promising that they'll fix what the last guy broke, only for the other politicians to say the exact same thing, while both break the whole thing over and over again?

It must be exhausting to try to deal with such a bi-polar nation. I pity any diplomat having to deal with the USA.

Maybe there is more support than ever before, but we're all so tired of fighting each other that we don't see the opportunity before us. Maybe it's time to change that.

Right now there are three large constituencies that I think can make a strong third party:
1) Young people disillusioned by the decades of fighting and lying
2) GOP members pushed out by an increasingly unstable cult
3) Moderates who haven't given up and joined the Democrats

I'm going to go through all three in a series of posts and explain who they are and how we can get them mobilized for a third party.

1) Young people

This group is often the most coveted and hated demographic, because while they have the passion, the time and the attention to dive into politics, they rarely show up when the archaic institutions need action. They like to make noise, and state what they believe, but they rarely show up to vote, rarely volunteer to help register people or run for local offices, and they rarely have discussions of compromise and negotiation, because they are the "front line warriors" of the message for their particular brand.

They also make up 27% of the electorate.

The Democrats want to increase the number of young people who vote, because young people tend to be progressive and against conservative ideals (having no attachment to the way things were, they are less likely to feel threatened by change, rightly or wrongly). The Republicans want to decrease the number of young people who vote for exactly the same reason. So they get stuck in the middle with one side pushing them out and another frantically asking them for help, while at the same time the GOP tries to reach out to them and the Dems chide them as lazy.

No wonder they don't want a home in either party.

They are missing one thing to make them a viable political force: unity of purpose. They are so passionate about so many things that when one has to make a choice to prioritize, they often cannot do it. So instead of forming a viable political force, they split into many action groups, many of which conflict with one another. A group advocating for freedom of the press may run into an anti-hate speech group, and while they might agree on 90% of everything else they are suddenly enemies. They have been trained from birth that there are only two positions: with them, or against them.

To get them into a cohesive force, you have to be ready to mediate. Bring the disparate groups together and have them bring that passion in one space. Inform them that the purpose is not to get their passion project through, but to grab anything of worth that comes out of the mixing of ideas. It's not win or lose. It's the creation of things bigger than our own ideas when great ideas come together. It's not giving up on your cause, it's connecting your cause to the greater whole.

Treat it like a separate government. Let them show how a government could function, and then use that model on our actual government. But they must show it first, not to us, but to themselves. Only when they realize how ideas can be harnessed for action can we really expect them to trust anything will change at all.

This also makes it more diverse. The ability to gather different ideas and mix them into good policy used to be the backbone of the Democrat party. While I don't think that's completely gone, the young of our nation do. So let them take up the mantle and form a group that uses it again.

Keep in mind that in the last election, 23% of the voting populace (not even the eligible voters, just those who actually registered and voted; the eligible percent makes it a paltry 12%) decided on Clinton, and the 22% who voted for Trump won.

If even half the young eligible voters vote, that's 13%. That's more than either candidate got. That's enough to force a third party in.

But they don't have to go it alone, and we'll discuss potential political allies in the next instalment of this series.

Discuss below!