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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 9/25/14

Gallup: 58% of Americans Want a Third Party. Maybe Senator Sanders?

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Only if Senator Sanders can clearly overcome arguments like that, would he possess even a chance to win the U.S. Presidency as a new form of Progressive Party candidate, because, otherwise, the moral and the practical issues will be just as unclear from him as they had been from Theodore Roosevelt in 2012. Furthermore, if Sanders runs as an independent without having first at least tried to win the Democratic Presidential nomination, then he will antagonize Democratic voters as an enemy and a "spoiler," much as Ralph Nader did; and, so, antagonizing both Democrats and Republicans, he probably won't get much more than the 2.74% of the Presidential vote that Nader did in 2000.

Thus, if Senator Sanders doesn't first at least contest for the Democratic Party's Presidential nomination, then it's unlikely that he would be a serious candidate at all for the Presidency; but, if he does try, and if Democratic voters reject him, then what would be the impact if he at that time starts a new Progressive Party, and contests against both the Democratic and the Republican candidates? It would probably be a repeat of what Teddy Roosevelt did in 2012: throwing the election to the opposite established Party, which in this case would be to the Republican nominee, whomever that would be. Sanders says he doesn't want to do that. So: if he is serious at all about running for the Presidency, and if he's honest, he will need to run for the Democratic nomination. Only if he fails to receive that nomination will a subsequent new-party run by him for the Presidency make any sense at all -- and, even then, it won't make any sense unless he clearly and convincingly articulates why his new party should become the new and better version of what today's Democratic Party is. That case can be made. Bill Clinton ended Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Glass-Steagall Act and other regulations of Wall Street; and Barack Obama has been working since even before he first entered the White House to weaken Social Security, and even to expand the use of fossil fuels. FDR would be appalled at both recent 'Democratic' Presidents.

So, today's 'Democratic' Party isn't FDR's, and certainly isn't progressive on some core issues. It's conceivable that Sanders could end up replacing the Democratic Party with FDR's progressive Democratic Party, but only if Sanders makes the case for doing that, just as Lincoln made the case for replacing the reconstituted Whig Party (Constitutional Union Party) by the Republican Party, as he did in 1860.

However, in order for Sanders to do this, he first needs to run within the existing Democratic Party, to reform it via taking it over as its Presidential nominee. Because, otherwise, he'll be seen only as an enemy by Democratic voters; and this would surely defeat (doom) his candidacy.

He won't be able to win the White House unless he gets strong support from Democratic voters all the way. He won't win the White House unless he either reforms the Democratic Party, or else replaces the Democratic Party. And that's a clear fact.

The Gallup Poll findings suggest that the 2016 Presidential contest could be very interesting, even more so than is normally the case. Bernie Sanders might restore FDR's Democratic Party. But if he doesn't do that, then 2016 will almost certainly be just more of America's continuing decline into plutocracy -- into the very thing that FDR warred against, both here at home, and abroad, when plutocracy was then commonly called "fascism." Sanders would need to make the case against it, and would need to bring the global-warming issue integrally into that anti-plutocratic case.

Such a case would be entirely true, and it might win. But who would finance the presentation of it? Only a new political movement could do that. First, he would have to build its core within the Democratic Party. Then, he would need to take that core with him into the general-election campaign. It might happen. Practically any other 2016 outcome would be no better than what currently exists.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010,  and of  CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that (more...)
 
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