Free Republic

President Trump wants to create a new political party after leaving office, says the Wall Street Journal. According to the report, “President Trump has talked in recent days with associates about forming a new political party, according to people familiar with the matter, an effort to exert continued influence after he leaves the White House.” According to sources, President Trump says he would want to call his new political party the “Patriot Party,” but the White House refused to comment. It is not known just how serious Trump is about starting a new political party. As the WSJ notes, to...

I recommend that you all watch this long monologue by Tucker Carlson. Note especially around the 20-minute mark, where he calls out the cowardice of Republican officials. I remind you that after Obergefell, the Republican Congressional leaders did not a single thing to protect religious liberty. They were too afraid of being called bigots by the press.recommend that you all watch this long monologue by Tucker Carlson. Note especially around the 20-minute mark, where he calls out the cowardice of Republican officials. I remind you that after Obergefell, the Republican Congressional leaders did not a single thing to protect religious...

Two weeks ago in this column, I asked what is to blame for the weakness of the heads of government here and in Western Europe, institutional failure, voter fecklessness, leaders' personal weaknesses or some combination of all three? This week, let's look at one of those institutions: political parties. How have they contributed to current woes? How can they perform better? There are those who would ask, "What would you expect from parties? They're nasty, grubby, selfish, inward-looking institutions, in which intellectual dishonesty is the norm. Why not be done with them and have a virtuous, nonpartisan democracy?" One quick...

A new political party is rolling out in America. It’s tiny, unfunded, understaffed, and it’s not really a party at all, at least not yet. Sounds promising — right? There’s more. Its name is stodgy, akin to blowing dust from an old tome in a Philadelphia attic: the Federalist Party of America. What’s next? Powdered wigs? And if the party ever draws real breath, everyone who’s anyone in Washington will try to strangle it in its crib. How can it miss?

The usual cycle of political disillusion is compressing. We can now have our illusions eroded almost instantly, no waiting. This election year is unusual in a myriad of ways — not just the surprising success of an avowed socialist on the Democratic side and a billionaire businessman leading on the other, with the socialist never having had a substantive private sector job, and the businessman never having even run for public office before. Both parties’ current front-runners for the presidential nomination — Mrs. Hillary Clinton and Mr. Donald Trump — are actively disliked by a majority of Americans. We seem...

I've seen a photo copy posted on FR threads that purports to prove that Donald Trump has been a Republican since 1980. "Smoking Gun" has reported that Trump has often changed parties citing the same source - New York City Board of Elections. I don't know if this New York City Board of Elections information sourced in this article has been added to the mix [showing party affiliation changes on forms signed by Donald Trump] so I'll add it here for discussion. ".......According to the New York City Board of Elections, Trump has changed his party affiliation five times since...

"Immigration reached a level five times greater than a decade earlier.....new arrivals... crowded into the tenements of large cities. Crime and welfare costs soared..." Anyone who reads this excerpt from Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson, may think he was describing today's Europe or United States. Actually, he was talking about the United States in the mid-1850s and the "new arrivals" referred to newly arrived German and Irish Catholic immigrants. By the mid-1850s, the U.S. received a large influx of immigrants, including two million German immigrants and over one million Irish immigrants. The City of Boston was called the...

At last count there were about three dozen potential candidates for president on the Republican side. Although Hillary Clinton is the expected Democratic nominee, should she falter, there are probably about a half dozen people ready to take her place. Without knowing who the candidates will be and without knowing who will win the election, can we say today with some confidence what difference a Republican or a Democratic victory would mean in 2016? Paul Krugman asked this question the other day in The New York Times. His answer: parties matter a lot more than candidates, and if a Democrat...

Republican, Democrat — and Maverick? We already know that Americans are weary of Congress, the White House, gridlock and government. Now that ire has inspired voter defections: The number of self-described ‘independents” is at a record high level says substantive new Gallup research. “An average 43 percent of Americans identified politically as independents in 2014,” says analyst Jeffrey M. Jones, who also reports the number is the highest since the pollster began tracking the phenomenon in 1988.

IÂ’m a republican. YouÂ’re a republican. It used to be that most Democrats were also republicans. Today, IÂ’m not even sure that most Republicans are republicans. But IÂ’m hoping you are, whether you vote R or D or something else. Or donÂ’t vote at all. This is not an essay in political latitudinarianism. Or its opposite. Actually, IÂ’m trying to argue against anarchism. Let me start again. A republican is someone who upholds the idea of a republic, of a people-initiated government with limited powers and purview. This notion brewed in early Roman times, and the history and demise of...

More discussion on the topic of pragmatism and politics is critical. If conservatives decide to take their marbles and go home rather than fight to the bitter end because they feel their principles have been compromised, they will needlessly subject future generations to untold misery. Voting for someone who agrees with you 90 percent of the time is far superior to voting for someone who disagrees with you 100 percent of the time. This is exactly what will happen if people refuse to exercise their civic duty and boycott elections because they feel betrayed. Personally, I am not supportive of...

Anyone who doubts that the Republican Party can attract black voters needs only look south to Louisiana. At a conference held in Baton Rouge at the end of May, called @Large and aimed to attract black conservatives, black Democrat Elbert Guillary, a member of the state legislature, announced that he was switching party and becoming a Republican. Less than two weeks later, just up the road in Central City, Louisiana, black Democrat city councilman Ralph Washington – who attended this same @Large conference, made the same announcement – he’s becoming a Republican. It’s really not such a mystery. The mystery...

It has become an accepted truism in American politics that both Democrats and Republicans want the same things: a prosperous America, a strong America, an America true to principles of freedom and liberty. Perhaps 50 years ago that was true. Today, it no longer is. The fact is that the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are no longer arguing over means; we are arguing over ends. Democrats know that economic prosperity for the broad swath of the United States cannot be bought with higher taxes; even Bill Clinton recognized as much in the 1990s, which is why he lowered...

Americans Elect, after qualifying for ballot in 29 states, won't nominate a third-party presidential candidateAmericans Elect qualified for the presidential ballot in Oregon and 28 other states, but the group on Thursday said it is abandoning its effort to field a third-party presidential candidate this year. The well-funded group developed an elaborate online process aimed at attracting millions of voters who would nominate a candidate for president.  But the group said that no candidate managed to get enough voter support to participate in an online convention in June. "We will not hold a June convention," Ileana Wachtel, the group's press...

OCCUPIERS CAN SAVE AMERICA--REALLY. With all the complicated proposed political fixes out there, WebToday would like to propose the one of the simplest solutions of all: Encourage the Occupiers to start of 3rd Party that embodies all their angst. But doing so, they could save America. Not by winning, but by losing. More specifically by splitting the Democrat vote. The outcome would look something like this: Obama: 35% Occupiers: 13% Virtually any GOP candidate: 52% Do, do the patriotic thing: Donate some time, talent or treasure to the Occupy Political Party! Original article: http://888webtoday.com/articles/viewnews.cgi?id=EFkkkVlpAlWmnfSwpr

It is painful to even consider the possibility that America is moving into its Sixth Party System, as a new, conservative political party emerges to, eventually, replace the Grand Old Party.  Yet events suggest this may be in the cards. We've seen third party candidates like Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, and, for those older among us, Strom Thurmond.  Earlier still, there was Teddy Roosevelt playing the Bull Moose.  But personality-based political movements have been short-lived anomalies, with marginal long-term impact on the body politic.  Today, conventional wisdom labels the notion that a third party can become a major long-term...

So nearly half a million Americans finally "took to the streets." Moms pushed baby carriages. Men and women skipped a day of work (some of their kids skipped school). Some entrepreneurs closed down their businesses. Almost half a million Americans had a multitude of tea parties and the mainstream media either ignored them or misrepresented them. So where does this leave us? The most important thing that should emerge from this tea party movement is fresh political leadership. If a person can organize, on short notice a political protest attended by thousands of people in a small town or medium-sized...

Ok. Lets just stipulate that most of us are disgusted with BOTH of the Political parties offered us. Question: Should we start our own? The Free Republic Party. If we can raise enough to keep Jim's servers up every quarter, why not take it a step further? Honestly I am SICK of the two party system; for sure I do not relate to the Libertarians or any of the others that are offered. If the best and brightest of the GOP are as disgusted as I am, and I have to believe that a LOT of those in the GOP...

Polls show that fewer Americans are calling themselves Republicans or Democrats and the number of Americans unaffiliated with either party has reached an all-time high — good news for Libertarians, say officials of the nation's third-largest party. The Libertarian Party has had an 18 percent increase in membership since January, said Shane Cory, executive director of the Libertarian National Committee. More Americans are joining the Libertarian Party because they are "disillusioned with typical party politics and are looking for a change," Mr. Cory said. "What we're seeing recently is Republicans and Democrats are only interested in maintaining their own power,"...

Greetings, fellow South Park Conservatives. I have been seriously considering our options as a legitimate and viable political party. The other parties, well, we just don't fit in with them. Dems: Self explanatory. Socialist weasels that go against the very grain of everything we believe in. Repubs: Ever-moving to the left. Currently outspending the most liberal of Democrats on everything except defending our borders, which is what their (the Federal Government's) job is supposed to be. They also want to legislate morality and tell us what we can and can't do/watch/say here in this "free" country. They are also just...