The Party #233
by Hank Silverberg
Three political groups have merged to fight what they call "America's increasingly polarized and gridlocked political system."
Democrat Andrew Yang, who ran for President in 2020, former Republican New Jersy Governor Christie Todd Whittman, and former Republican Congressman David Jolly are among the group's founders. They bill themselves as a moderate alternative to the two major parties, and according to their website website https://www.forwardparty.com/platform which appears to have crashed already, they want to treat people with "grace and tolerance."
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Here's what they call their Platform:
Free people: revitalize "a culture that celebrates difference and individual choice, rejects hate, and removes barriers so that each of us can rise to our full potential."
Thriving communities: Give new energy to "a fair, flourishing economy and open society where everyone can live a good life and is safe in the places where we learn, work, and live."
Vibrant democracy: Change "our republic to give Americans more choices in elections, more confidence in a government that works, and more say in our future."
https://news.yahoo.com/forward-party-3-political-groups-185543700.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall
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I will leave all that rhetoric alone for now. Instead, let's look at the potential impact of third parties based on historical data and practicality.
History proves they are often more intrusive to the political system than successful in their mission.
In the interest of brevity, we will skip the 1860 campaign when there were actually four political parties in an election that led to the Civil War. And we will skip some other 19th Century political parties which made waves but failed.
In the 20th Century there were better examples of the role of third parties and how they can shake up elections. Let's take 1912, when Teddy Roosevelt, already a former president, lost the Republican nomination to his old political friend and incumbent, President William Howard Taft. Roosevelt then formed his own party, the Progressive Party (aka Bullmoose Party). Roosevelt won six states in the general election, enough to put Democrat Woodrow Wilson in the White House.
Then there was 1968, a campaign I am old enough to remember. George Wallace set up the segregationist American Independent Party and ended up winning five states, probably handing the election to Republican Richard Nixon. It ended the Democratic party's strangle hold on the south and led the party away from its racist enabling past. That was a good thing. But it also brought us tricky Dick Nixon. (Ironically, the Republicans picked up the Wallace followers once he was gone.)
But since then, other third-party efforts have mostly failed to produce much change. John Anderson in 1980 and Ross Perot in 1992, were interesting but made very little difference. Ralph Nader's Green Party may have had some impact in the very close election of 2000, but probably not enough to make a difference in Florida, where the election was eventually decided by the Supreme Court case (Bush v. Gore).
What all these third-party efforts have done though, is shake up Democrats and Republicans into paying more attention to what the public is really thinking and being more informative on what their actual platforms are. If Wang, Whittman and Jolly can do that, then their efforts may be worth it.
White Nationalists Are No Joke
I have on numerous occasions made fun of people in this blog, like Congresswomen Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert. Their dumb quotes are often so outrageous they are entertaining.
But as the mid-term election approaches, it's time to get serious. Greene and Boebert call themselves
Here is a quote from Greene last weekend.
“We need to be the party of nationalism and I’m a Christian, and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists.”
Then there is Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for Governor in Pennsylvania who spoke at a campaign event last week and called the separation of church and state a "myth". He said:
“In November we are going to take our state back, my God will make it so.”
Note the "my god" emphasis.
His comments are even more vitriolic because his Democratic opponent, Josh Shapiro, is Jewish.
And in the same week, Boebert, speaking at a church in Aspen said:
“The church is supposed to direct the government, the government is not supposed to direct the church.”
This is not the first time in American history that such ugliness has reared its head. For those of us who are not White or not Christian, this kind of rhetoric sends chills down our spines, and perhaps that's what they want.
But for those of you who are White Christians, you need to ask yourself what kind of Christianity are they talking about? It's probably not what you learned in Sunday school.
15 Minutes of Fame
You may remember a story from Campaign 2020 about a Kentucky teenager who got a few minutes of negative fame after an encounter he had with another protestor near the Lincoln Memorial in D.C. Nicholas Sandmann, in the city for an anti-abortion protest with his Covington Catholic High School classmates, stared down Nathan Phillips, a Native American in town for The Indigenous People's March. The whole encounter was caught on video taken by a bystander who then gave it to the media. Sandmann and a number of his classmates were wearing MAGA hats, so it went viral fast. Sandmann appeared to have a bit of a smirk on his face, and it was interpreted by many as a contemptuous smile. There were no reporters present, so we had to take each side's description of what happened.
CNN and The Washington Post settled their suits in 2020 for an undisclosed amount of cash, probably just to get rid of it, but it took this long for the defamation suit against the others to work its way through the courts.
This past week a federal judge dismissed the suit against the rest of the media, calling Sandmann's claims "objectively unverifiable and thus unactionable." He thew the suit out of court. Sandmann tweeted after the decision that he is appealing it. I guess that's just to remind us who he is. The real losers though, may be the lawyers who thought they had a case. Defamation suits are very hard to prove.
No Mourning on This One!
I spent 40 years in broadcasting in both radio and TV. And normally a big economic downturn to one broadcast newsroom or the other would depress me. It usually means a lot of people would lose their jobs and it would tighten up the news employment market for everyone else.
But the decision this past week by Verizon to drop OAN (One America Network) from its channel lineup is actually a cause to celebrate. Verizon was the last major carrier to run the right-wing biased network and leaves OAN with almost nowhere to
distribute its reactionary propaganda. The network is already facing a huge lawsuit from Dominion Voting System over false claims made by the network that the voting machines were used to manipulate the 2020 election results. Verizon says the decision was based on economic considerations, while OAN says it was a political decision. Either way, it means millions of people won't be fed conspiracy theories and vitriolic pro-Trump propaganda anymore.
Verizon has about 3.5 million cable subscribers.
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| (Endangered species?) |
The big winners here may be Newsmax and Fox News, the other two right-wing networks who may pick up some viewers. But they also face that big lawsuit from Dominion.
As for the people who may lose their jobs because of this decision I have no sympathy. You got into bed with this group, so now you will have to live with it the consequences of malpractice.
https://news.yahoo.com/oan-officially-dropped-verizon-last-232413541.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall
Dumbest Quote of The Week!
I had promised myself that I was never going to quote Donald Trump again. But this quote is so dumb and so obnoxious, I am breaking that rule. Trump is using his Bedminster, N. J. golf course as a setting for a Saudi Arabia-sponsored tournament. It's less than 50 miles from ground zero in Manhattan, and some families' of 9/11 victims and survivors are not pleased.
When asked about that, Trump said:
“Well, nobody’s gotten to the bottom of 9/11, unfortunately, and they should have.”
Let's remind Trump that 19 of the people who hijacked the planes on that deadly day were from Saudi Arabia, and some had connections to the Royal Family. Oh, and then there was this guy named Osama Bin Laden who got some of his money from the Saudi Royal Family to start this group called Al-Quieda. It was his organization that attacked the United States.
Trump, who is known for the big lie, wants us to
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| (Ground Zero Memorial Museum) |
But here's a good note to end this week. Tickets for that golf tournament are selling for as little as a buck, and the event is attracting very light crowds.
(Your comments and suggestions are welcome.)
(My book "The Campaign" can be purchased at the links below. Or you can buy a copy by emailing me at:
HankSilverberg@gmail.com for instructions on how to get a copy at a reduced price and with my signature.)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084Q7K6M5/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-campaign-hank-silverberg/1126429796
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