The Final Call

Third Party Politics To combat Two Party Politricks?

By Barrington M. Salmon -Contributing Writer- | Last updated: Aug 31, 2016 - 12:11:02 PM

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Lux Mangore of Denver hoists up his sign as supporters of the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump demonstrate on the steps of the Colorado State Capitol, April 15, in downtown Denver. Colorado supporters of Trump were protesting the convoluted procedure that led Ted Cruz to sweep all the state’s 34 delegates to the national convention during the state Republican assembly in Colorado Springs, Colo.Photo: AP/Wide World photos

WASHINGTON—Throughout what has been a rough and tumble presidential campaign, it has probably never been clearer how hungry significant swaths of American voters are for something other than the pair of candidates offered up by America’s two major political parties.

Poll after poll reveals that a plurality of potential voters surveyed don’t want Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump to become the next president. Each brings with them enough baggage to give voters pause. Be it Clinton, a former Secretary of State and First Lady who has spent more than a quarter-of-a-century in the public eye, who excites as much scorn and derision as praise or support.

People say they don’t trust her, recoil at what they see as an impersonal, cold and calculating manner and she has been dogged since she jumped into the race by her mishandling of State Department emails on her private server.

Further, questions swirl about the efficacy of her dealings with the Clinton Foundation.

Meanwhile, Trump has animated a vile and brutish segment of White America characterized by angry, nativist, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim rants and the businessman has promised, if elected, to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico and make America more insular and isolated from the rest of the world.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders ran a populist campaign that caught fire with young people, progressives, liberals and independents.

His proposals to, among other things, rein in Wall Street excesses; provide free education for college students; and ensure that working class Americans are able to earn at least $15 an hour for their labors brought millions of passionate supporters.

They flocked to his rallies and donated enough money in average donations of $25 to fund a campaign that turned what was supposed to be a Clinton coronation into a protracted dogfight.

Sen. Sanders’ loss to Mrs. Clinton and his eventual support for her nomination angered many of his supporters who saw that as a betrayal, leaving about a third who’ve promised never to vote for Mrs. Clinton.

That, along with Americans’ disgust with politicians, the reality that Congress, more often than not, acts as a whollyowned subsidiary of big businesses and other corporate interests and the stagnation and hollowing out of the middle class has had prospective voters looking for viable third party options.

‘No hope under this current, predatory system’

The Green Party’s Dr. Jill Stein, running for president with human rights activist Ajamu Baraka, said she’s surprised but elated with what she and others describe as a “significant shift” in the American political and electoral landscape.

“It’s absolutely breathtaking and gets more so every day,” said Stein who spoke to The Final Call while she traveled to Baton Rouge, La., to survey recent flood damage.

“It’s wonderful to see the revolution up close. We were seeing an astounding level of support in Philadelphia (during the Democratic National Convention in July). There seemed to be rallies that never stopped. We found ourselves at the center of storm we didn’t create.”

“It’s transformative to see that as Alice Walker said, the power of the people will not be stopped. We have no way forward under this current, predatory system. We have the incredible power to build a world based on human rights, justice, tolerance and peace. We’re on one boat. All of us. It’s sinking and a lot of people are sinking with it.”

The type of disenchantment Stein describes aptly captures where local Washington, D.C. businessman Leo Alexander stands. A vocal and passionate Sanders supporter, Mr. Alexander has wavered between voting and just ignoring the presidential election on Nov. 8.

“You get nothing from Clinton or Trump. It’s ridiculous. It’s the first time both parties have had such low approval ratings,” Mr. Alexander said. “Trump is uncouth and he’s not an inside guy. And Hillary is just about getting paid and creating a legacy of money. This would have been the year for Bernie. He had the money and the support. It would have been the time for a Third Party insurgency.”

“I’m so disappointed in Bernie. I think he, for some reason, brought into the whole rap that if he didn’t get out of the race, Hillary wouldn’t win. He caved in. He should have told them to go f---k themselves. If Bernie ran as an independent, all those people would have gone with him. I don’t know what type of 30 pieces of silver he took. He’s gone and we’re sitting here with nothing.”

Mr. Alexander said he has grown disillusioned with politicians in Congress whose hyper-partisanship has produced gridlock, with promises made and not kept by slick, greedy politicians, and with a president he criticizes harshly for largely ignoring the needs of Blacks who have supported him in numbers well above any other constituency.

Third party options attack falsehoods

There are those like labor activist and union organizer Yasmina Mrabet who are just as committed as Dr. Stein and other third party supporters. They are committed to dismantling what they describe as an exploitive, predatory system that promotes greed and profit over human beings. It has tentacles in countries around the world siphoning off resources, perpetuating endless wars and destabilizing foreign nations, ostensibly, in Americans’ name, they said.

Dr. Jill Stein, presumptive Green Party presidential nominee, center right, poses for a photograph after speaking at a rally in Philadelphia, July 27, during the third day of the Democratic National Convention. Photo: AP/Wide World photos

“My take on third parties is that they’re about adding real and perceived ‘cons’ of the system. The two-party system isn’t a democracy and doesn’t represent the true expressions of the people,” said Ms. Mrabet, who is a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. “It discourages critical thinking about the ins and outs of public policy and other issues. Third parties are playing the role of awakening the masses and working against corporate owned capitalism which represses alternate points of view.”

“Third parties are taking advantage of populist dissent to break the illusion that either of the corporate-controlled parties act in their best interest. It’s one snake with two heads.”

As she goes around the country organizing, Ms. Mrabet said she sees the true face of the struggles ordinary Americans face.

Ajamu Baraka

“Among working class people there’s a lot of angst and fear about the state of the economy,” she said. “People are being exploited, wages are stagnant and free trade has brought access to labor to the U.S. but also meant that Americans have lost jobs too. Working people are trying to negotiate with their oppressors but the balance of power is not tipped in their favor. We have to break the illusion that there’s a good reason why people’s labor is being exploited.”

People are struggling to survive even as they sell their labor but a fixed system doesn’t allow for a living wage, she said. Individuals and families are living paycheck to paycheck, can’t pay their rent, are trying to pay off student loans and/or mortgages.

“Ultimately, this is unsustainable. It is the job of third parties to use periods like these to ask why Americans are wracked with student debt, can’t pay off these debts in our lifetime. We have to give answers that are truth. Ultimately, you have to confront the failings of this system,” Ms. Mrabet explained.

There’s a growing sense from those supporting third party efforts that the overall issues and challenges confronting working- and middle-class Americans, as well as the poor are so dire that it’s incumbent on everyone concerned to use this window of opportunity before it closes.

Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan has called for development of a Justice Party to make a clean break from the current stranglehold of the two party system.

“We are primed for a third party. We have an agenda that is applicable to our needs and world situation because our worldview is different than those in the Republican and Democratic parties,” said Dr. Robert Muhammad, the Southwest Regional Student Minister of the Nation of Islam based in Houston. “Our worldview demands justice, health care, education, and a just foreign policy. Ours is a totally different worldview rooted in our experiences and sojourn here in America. We need a third party that acts as a force to make both parties responsible for addressing our issues or running candidates who represent those issues.”

Dr. Muhammad said this party has to build from the bottom up.

“It has to be a people’s movement based upon the grassroots with people meeting, writing policies and executive orders and pursuing public policy. Then we must organize our money to support candidates and lobby like other interests do. Black people reared in America have a specific condition that disallows them from doing what appears to be logical in terms of the outcome in the political system. We’ve got it backwards. We fought for the right to vote but have no economic (agenda or foundation). Our politics should protect our economics.”

Gloria La Riva

Gloria La Riva and Eugene Puryear are running in this year’s presidential elections under the banner of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Ms. La Riva is running for president, while Mr. Puryear is her vice presidential running mate and they’ll appear on the November ballot in Washington State.

In addition, Ms. La Riva, who lives in San Francisco’s Mission District, is also running as the Peace and Freedom Party’s presidential nominee with legendary Native American activist Dennis Banks. The pair will appear on the California ballot in November.

Ms. La Riva, a labor, community and anti-war activist and proud Chicana, agrees with Dr. Stein that the political climate and the desire for change is at its height. 

Eugene Puryear

“This is an unprecedented opportunity for third parties,” Ms. La Riva said during a recent interview. There has been a 30-year war against the poor and working class with five to eight years of intensifying poverty. It’s so obscene. The Occupy Movement swept across the country raising people’s consciousness of the 1 percent … we plan to surround all centers of power in Washington, D.C., and Wall Street and shut them down. We will take the power from banks and the oil industry and return it to the people. It’s about taking over the means of production, eliminating landlordism and private property and provide homes and education while eliminating healthcare and education as commodities.”

Both Ms. La Riva and Dr. Stein say cutting the bloated budgets of America’s military would help finance the programs they advocate. Dr. Stein supports cutting the military budget by half, while Ms. La Riva advocates abolishing the military’s $1 trillion budget and using the money for free health care and education, affordable housing, to cancel all student debt and fully rebuild the country’s decaying water, transport and utility infrastructure. 

Angry people, new possibilities?

Dr. Stein, who ran as the Green Party’s 2012 presidential nominee, said at this moment, the old political equation has been rendered obsolete by the anger, frustration and impatience of a disenfranchised electorate.

“This is a populist revolt. As Woody Allen said, ‘half of life is just showing up,’ ” she said. “The curve has caught up to us. We see the collapsing of the economy, refugee migrations and the climate melting all around us. We’re in Baton Rouge talking to people. Blacks feel they are last in line for services and resources. We have to address the climate, workers’ rights and health care. One in three Americans can’t afford health care even with Obamacare. And an entire generation of young people is locked into debt. With their hands tied behind their backs, how can they be expected to succeed?”

“The bottom line is that the system that created this crisis will not fix itself. Big corporations and the media won’t stop it.”

Her running mate Ajamu Baraka concurred.

“Anytime you have the opportunity to have voices outside of two-party monopoly, it’s a good thing,” said Mr. Baraka, a longtime human rights activist, founding executive director of the U.S. Human Rights Network and coordinator of the U.S.-based Black Left Unity Network’s Committee on International Affairs.

“If we’re going to have anything that approximates a democracy, people have to have alternate places to go. In fact, we need four parties and more and a democratic process that’s open. We have to reverse Citizens United with its unchecked flow of money and we have to look at single member districts and the winner takes all system,” he said.

Mr. Baraka and Dr. Stein said that after months of trying, they had finally “penetrated corporate media.” They have appeared together and separately on CNN and on a CNN town hall, Fox News, and been interviewed by the BBC, The Guardian in London and news outlets in France, Spain and elsewhere.

Publicity, Dr. Stein told the media at a Aug. 23 press conference, will make a critical difference in getting the Green Party’s message out. At the same time, the duo is demanding that the Commission on Presidential Debates allow them entrance into the debates, open up the process and strike down the 15 percent threshold used to determine who gets in.

“It’s arbitrary and is put in place to undermine challenges to the two-party system,” said Mr. Baraka. We need the full participation of others to the two main challengers.”

Dr. Stein agreed.

“Bernie Sanders raised up a principled agenda. He was allowed to speak for a while, then he was relegated,” she said. “It’s a tilted playing field. People are disgusted and are looking for a new voice in politics. Ours is a critical voice that needs to be heard.”

“We’re trending #1 on Twitter and #2 on Neilsen even though very few people have heard of us or know what we stand for. Democrats represent the politics of fear. They need a moral compass, need an affirmative agenda. We could potentially win this race. It’s a crazy time. Anything could happen.”

In her Green New Deal, Dr. Stein details an agenda that tackles the interconnected problems of climate change and the economy.

A part of the plan is to create 20 million new jobs, including public works programs, creating a sustainable economy, and making a national transition to 100 percent clean energy by 2030.

Author, educator and political commentator Dr. Marc Lamont Hill rebuts any effort to frame this election as American voters choosing better the lesser of two evils.

“It is important at all times to make moral and ethical decisions. The dominant narrative is that you have two choices. The moral thing to do is to vote your conscience. If we’re driven by ethics and morals we will understand that keeping Trump out is important,” he said.

“When I look at the Clinton record on criminal justice reform, implemented by her husband and advocated by her, the overthrow of the government in Libya and sending predator drones to Yemen and elsewhere, I find these things to be equally reprehensible,” continued Prof. Hill, a distinguished professor of African American Studies at Morehouse College in Atlanta.

The academic and television personality said there is a moral position that must be upheld, as well as a long- and short-term vision that must center around justice and equality.

“Third parties provide moral alternatives, although not all of them. I ask what are we building long-term? I support the Green Party but I want a world without nuclear weapons, environmental abuse or White supremacy. I support Jill Stein.”

“We get caught up in a false narrative. (We should not) buy into the ideology that if we vote for a (third party) they can’t win. Why vote for people you don’t want, to get someone who won’t give you what you need and who doesn’t create freedom and justice?”