> An independent leftist party would enter elections not with any hope
> of winning at first, but with a view to gainig a platform for its
> ideas and changing the nature of mass politics over the course of
> years and decades. Such a party may also consider that the road to
> change doesn't run exclusively, or even primarily, through electoral
> politics. There is no quick fix for the mess we're in. Even continuing
> economic slide and further Iraqi disasters won't propel people
> leftward without a left political pole, and maybe not even with one.
> But definitely not without one.
No doubt there is no quick fix (though I hope things get better in the next 2-3 decades, since that's about all the time I have left). And what you call a "left political pole" would be a good idea.
But there already are left "third" parties, Greens and others (actually, to be mathematically precise, I would call them "2+n" parties). Why haven't they had any beneficial effect on the political situation, and why should we hope that a new third party would do any better? What do the new third party advocates suggest to make this an improved model?
Also, don't forget the 1930s. The parties to the left of the DP did play some role in bucking up the left wing of the DP, but there was plenty of work for leftists to do in the DP, too. If all the left wing of the DP had deserted it, what would have been the result? Throwing elections to the GOP?
Drawing lessons for the present from the 1930s of course assumes that there will soon be a depression as bad as that one. I doubt that that will happen, though history can always come up with surprises. But even without such a disaster, the left can do a lot better than it has recently if it comes up with a message that ordinary U.S. people can understand and resonate with.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A sympathetic Scot summed it all up very neatly in the remark, 'You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk-dancing.' -- Sir Arnold Bax