Posted on 07/29/2017 9:08:32 AM PDT by LS
On Twitter I just did a thread about how a new party that would replace the Republicans might come into being.
1. I don't think this can happen by 2018. Not enough prep time.
2. It should not copy the Reform Party and try to start, de novo, all at once.
3. It needs to begin within the GOP but (unlike the Tea Party) ALWAYS with the intention of going solo.
4. A candidate in 2018, for example, would run as an R but affix an "AmericaFirst/MAGA" affiliation. Start getting the brand out. This is key to name recognition on ballots.
5. At the same time, said candidates need to be talking very frankly with donors saying, "Next time I run, it will be with the AmericaFirst/MAGA Party" and I'll need your help more than ever.
6. When possible, FLIP the "R" and "AmericaFirst/MAGA") to "AmericaFirst/MAGA" THEN R. (This is exactly what the "Democratic Republicans" of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison did in 1800-1810 until all that remained was the "Republicans."
7. In 2020, make the jump.
8. Trump should endorse CANDIDATES, but not specifically the AmericaFirst Party until 2020.
10. My thought is that HE would have to remain an R in 2020---it's still going to be relatively close in pop votes in a number of states, even though he likely will win more electoral votes than today.
11. As soon as he wins in 2020, he makes the registration change and from that point for the next four years it's all "AmericaFirst/MAGA."
12. This won't be easy. It will be brutal. MANY good candidates will lose due to confusion, Rs putting up multiple decoys, etc. We have to be ready.
13. It's all about name recognition. See Lisa (the COW) MurCOWski and how she screwed Miller by running as an independent with her superior name recognition.
But it can be done. I think this is our best shot in years. Someone said, "The Rs would just coopt it like they did the Tea Party." Well, that wasn't exactly what happened to the TP. In many cases, people just quit after the election thinking they had done their job, and not realizing that politics these days is 24/7. Toomey is a great example. After he got elected, no one held his feet to the fire.
Second, the Tea Party did not understand that winning is about GOVERNING, not just winning the election. I know personally of a county in OH that kicked out a reasonably good GOP chairman and replaced him with a TP guy who would "bring in more TP types." Except they guy couldn't fundraise, couldn't speak to the old-line GOP, so the party lost serious ground & he had to resign.
We shouldn't think (as I'm sure most of you don't) that just cause they are AmericaFirst/MAGA they are political stars. Some will be good, some will be losers. Sorting all this out is a difficult process, but it is a process and everyone has to be willing to stick it out.
I agree that they are all talk and no action.
However, I think all but a very few don’t even consider themselves conservative and basically they spend all their time on the phone dialing for dollars.
When do they ever talk about debt? the deficit? Reducing spending? reducing size, scope, reach of government?
Crickets chirping!!
America First Party (AFP) based on constitutional brinciples where there is a boundary of responsibility at the federal and state level. If California wants to do single payer then let them but not at the federal level. JMHO.
Great ideas. My 2 cents:
* Start in 2018!
* Federal office-holders only - Focus!
* Start with the 10-point agenda in Trump’s “Contract with the American Voter”, page 2 (see https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/_landings/contract/O-TRU-102316-Contractv02.pdf)
* Make it a binding contract. They will be sued for their campaign funding dollars, and their party funding is pulled forever, if they ever:
— vote against any ONE of those items
— vote for a budget in which the deficit goes up
* Agree on a new 10-point agenda every two years
* Add Presidential candidates in 2020 [not that I think it’ll be an issue in 2020]
So they would run as something like R party MAGA caucus...R (MAGA) ?
LS, your ideas have merit. Is it too pessimistic to feel it will take years, perhaps eons, to find honest, intelligent, patriotic individuals willing to take a stand and fight?
Something must be done - and soon. PDJT will be around only “X” amount of time before he is called home. THAT worries me, his work begun but yet unfinished when he answers the last call. Sorry about the morbid thoughts, but it is something that must be considered.
Thanks for your 2 cents.
Thanks! One thing that people on our side seem to overlook is that the President is always the defacto LEADER OF HIS PARTY, regardless of whether the ‘party elders’ voted to give him that title.
In Trump’s case, it DOUBLE THAT! Trump hasn’t even started drying out his powder...but when he does, he’ll simply start showing up in states and districts where there is primary opposition...and getting those candidates SERIOUS 6-figure takes. Just watch and see...
Emailed to our county chair...thx..great ideas...need to focus on building farm teams from lower elected offices also, ie city councils, commissions, etc
>> Anyone pushing a 3rd Party for Trump supporters strikes me as a Democrat enabler, regardless of their personal intentions <<
Shame on you for trying to spoil this thread by injecting reality.
There is no other option in a two party system. Anything else it's a split. Winner take all.
1. Say what you do
2. Do what you say
3. Document and prove it
Banning paid political advertising is a first step. It's insane to market politicians the way one would market toilet paper or hemorrhoid ointment. (The choice of products is not accidental.) Let the candidates get free air time to debate. I don't mean debate in the current format, which is nothing more than a joint press conference anchored around pre-rehearsed sound bytes. I mean genuine cross questioning and rebuttal, akin to what Lincoln and Douglas did in 1858. And let's keep the moderators on a short leash.
For presidential debates, I would do what PBS did in 1980, which so frightened the two parties that they did not permit it again.
In 1980, PBS held debates in which the advisors and future staffs of the three candidates debated in a true debate format rather than have the candidates themselves posture with sound bytes. Each team had a captain who would decide which team member would speak or rebut. For the domestic policy debate, Art Laffer was captain of Reagan's team, and one of my treasured memories is Laffer eviscerating Mitch Rogovin of Anderson's team on economic policy. In the foreign policy debate, Al Haig was captain of Reagan's team, and I remember how he sent Paul Nitze in to crush Paul Warnke of Carter's team on Soviet policy.
We need to break up the six companies that control every network, cable channel, newspaper, book publisher, magazine and movie studio in this country. Until their megaphones are removed, it will be difficult to inform the citizenry.
We need an electorate that is outraged, politically active and properly informed about what is really going on behind the curtain. Until we do, a new party, however created, will only permit the Democratic and Republican parties to double-team the people.
It is amazing how many other people (besides me) are talking third party/transforming the GOP. Given the state of the two current parties, the time is right for a realignment of the political scene. Trump has the opportunity to do this by constantly fighting the Beltway Party and the deep State. If he expands his coalition by bringing in more people who are disillusioned with the current party arrangement (especially blacks who are not on the Democrat plantation), then one part of the realignment is his. The question becomes what will happen on the other side? Right now, there are a few traditional Democrats, people dependent on the government, people who vote that way because of identity politics, and the far left and their special interests. They will need to choose between the Beltway Party, going far left with the likes of Fauxcahontas, or bolting for the Trump Party. The key is making as many voters as sick as possible of business as usual inside the Beltway and force the Democrats even further to the left. Stay on the offensive, do end runs around the media, and make elections a choice between the status quo, going wacko left, or fighting back with Trump.
This is sheer nonsense and is ignorant of how politics works. The Republicans are not acting like the Democrats. What is going on is that the Republicans have a faction of “moderates” (”Neo-Cons”, “RINO’s”, etc.), led by John McCain, who are more hawkish. This faction may want to repeal Obamacare but to get what they want on foreign policy issues, they have to shoot down Obamacare to force concessions from Trump on foreign policy issues they are pushing for. So the real question becomes: would you be favorable to Trump making concessions on foreign policy to repeal Obamacare? Or would you rather live with a modified form of Obamacare and keep Trump foreign policy intact? Remember, in politics we can only rarely have our cake and eat it too. Some of this thinking about a third party is by those who want to divide the Republicans and give the Democrats a shot in 2020. To get what you want you may have to log roll - referring to many people who differ in their politics pushing on a huge fallen redwood tree to roll it. If you don’t form a coalition to push the log there will be a legislative “log jam”. This goes by the name of “REALISM” - the attitude and practice of accepting a situation as it is and prepared to deal with it. Realism also goes by another name: “COMMON SENSE”.
There’s this guy named Rience that’s looking for a job.....
I would call it the Constitution Party and invite anyone who truly believes in the Constitution and our founding fathers. Simple platform, God and Country.
“Give me LIBERTY (not another political party) or give me death.”
No, we don’t want to have another political party. We want to have our Free Constitutional Republic restored to America
If not a new party or a true conservative party with the ideas and patriotism of our President, many of WTP would be sitting at home on election day watching the soap suds bubble and twiddling our thumbs.
Fact is, I no longer will ‘vote for the man, not the party’, due to the fact there is no man yet standing that warrants the privilege. There is much ground work to be laid if we wish to see DJT’s path that is being cleared of the debris. He arrived with many, how can they be persuaded to stay now or after the battle (win or lose) A true leader of the right quality must be found Just as DJT was neither democrat or republican..it’s not the party it is the QUALITY OF MAN. Good luck with that, not that it is impossible, just unlikely such could be found. Look around at the possibilities. We search for a man with “The Right Stuff”
As long as the GOP stands, it occupies a political space and it cannot be ousted from that space, even by a supposedly better proposed party. With the GOP now holding the Presidency and Congress, the realistic and attainable goal is not to try to whip up a new party but instead to fund and organize an effort to recruit and elect better GOP candidates with a populist, pro-Trump slant. My guess is that to change the national political landscape, such an operation would take several hundred millions of dollars as a first year start, with more needed each year to support staff and candidates.
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