> By the way, I was reminded on The
> Nation cruise that it's easy for
> us to minimize the diff between
> the parties, but a lot of people
> in the USA don't have that luxury.
Effective, lasting, sustainable social change can only result from large masses of people in motion with a political compass. That's why, regardless of our desires, the most likely way for a radical alternative to emerge in the U.S. is through a long series of struggles *within* the DP. A credible third party -- I mean one capable of changing things for good in the country -- is not likely to emerge out of radical-propaganda clubs, no matter how persuasive their doctrines, ingenuous their methods, and committed their individual members. Most likely, it will result from the split of the DP, after a protracted battle for the hearts and minds of the U.S. workers (in the broad sense of the term "workers"). The "third party" alternative will require a long period of gestation as a wing of the DP.
For the time being, while the two-party system remains effectively unchallenged in the U.S., the political distance between Republicans and Democrats and the effective political agenda of the DP will both be functions of the degree of unity, organization, and self-education of the U.S. workers. The distance between Reps and Dems and the radicalization of the Dems will depend on that unity, organization, and self-education, since *at first* that unity, organization, and self-education can only find political expression in whatever political vehicles happen to exist. In this case, they will manifest themselves in the conflict between Republicans and Democrats, and in the conflict between the right-wing and the left-wing of the DP.
Just to be clear: In the political surface, even in the short run, a credible "third-party" force in presidential elections is not impossible. Whatever we may think of Bloomberg, he could -- in principle and given circumstances -- accomplishing something like that. Money is a social power. But, even in that case, and assuming that a "third party" of this kind dislodges and steals the popular base of the DP nationally and gains national coherence (big ifs and something that can only happen over many years), that party can only be some mixture of actually-existing Rep-ism and Dem-ism. If that hypothetical "third" party ever crystallized and, as a result of underlying social forces (why else?), happened to be more Dem than Rep, then the serious radical left will have to start its Sisyphean torture "anew" within this other political formation.
Yes, there's feedback, but in the main causality runs from class unity (or lack thereof) to distance between Reps and Dems and to the effective political positions of the DP (and/or any other existing or imaginary political formations). That's why the "third-party" way is the no way towards class unity. People familiar with Marxism will recognize that Marx and Engels codified thoughts like these in the Communist Manifesto (if one reads it in the context of the political configuration of 1847 pre-revolutionary Europe). M&E saved their sternest warning against sectarianism. The communists -- they wrote -- don't organize themselves apart from the workers, as sects or propaganda clubs. Instead, in and through whichever imperfect political vehicle the workers happen to be using concretely to advance their immediate interests, they (the communists) will seek to act as the wing most mindful of the broad, overall, long-term interests of the class.
At its historical birth as a view of the world, Marxism itself was the left-wing of democratic liberalism in south-western Germany. It was born in a battle of ideas against bourgeois liberalism, Hegelian philosophy, and political economy -- the prevailing ideologies of the time. But for the emergence of a new view of the world, no matter how radical, "all" you need is a few individuals changing their minds... and making a convincing case! In the emergence of a political force capable of transforming for good the U.S. (the richest, most powerful, most dangerous, most wasteful, most degrading in human history), you need very large masses of people in motion. You need a lot of minds (and behaviors, habits, attitudes, etc., individual and collective) changed.
The starting point for advancing in the unity and political mobilization of workers, pre-requisites of that change, is not for individual activists and propaganda grouplets to choose. It's a given.