A New Third Way/No Labels Movement - A Coalition Between Progressives and the Alt-Right?

Maybe this Third Way/No Labels coalition might actually stick.

Heck, they even will have their respective secessionists with the Far Right demanding that Texas Secede while some folks on the left might push for California secede:

http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-russia-separatists-snap-story.html

Moscow welcomes the (would-be) sovereign nations of California and Texas

The speaker was calling for California’s independence from the United States.

Alexei Gavrilko nodded approvingly. A burly, bearded, camouflage-wearing separatist from eastern Ukraine, he said he had come to the posh Moscow hotel just outside the Kremlin to “communicate with colleagues” representing separatist and secessionist groups from the United States, Europe, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union.

During a conference dubbed the Dialogue of Nations, Gavrilko listened carefully to Louis Marinelli, head of the Yes California group that is determined to hold the Golden State’s “independence referendum” in 2019.

“For the first time in history, we, the people of California, who were conquered and annexed by the American military about 170 years ago, will have a chance to express our voice to either remain a state in the American union, or instead, to pursue a path toward a nationhood,” Marinelli said solemnly.

Right now the Kochs and others who want to destroy government as we know it are investing in making this union happen by promoting radical left politicians to right wingers.

Hope you have your flamesuit on

when everything was simple. Gorbachev was the antichrist and little girls were writing passionate letters about not wanting to be blown up. Now it's all about secret dealings and cyber warfare. And our politics is caught up in a tangle of Russian intrigue that seems to have no beginning or end.

Hoover was trying to get MLK to commit suicide, etc.

And keeping our grandchildren alive by scrabbling for any available food and carrying pails of drinking water home (there are rivers several hundred yards to perhaps a quarter mile away, both all uphill coming back but the latter much more gradual) after a cyber attack seems a lot more doable than trying to do the same through a nuclear winter. (The first would allow people to hope for relief to arrive from outside zones of devastation also.) I think I call that an "advance"...

I'm still standing by my contention that the lines were a lot more clearly drawn in our relationship with the Soviets. They were the enemy. Now we have imposed massive sanctions because of Crimea and the military buildup on the Ukrainian border, but, at the same time, we have Tillerson making plans for a joint oil drilling adventure and tRump calling for warmer relations. It's just weird.

the lines in the post Cold War world, currently pretty implacably too: Democrats and liberals, as well as others farther left, are the new evil axis they must save America from.

I'd say they're effectively crazy, not just a weird situation, but we didn't arrive in this dangerous mess by accident. There IS a vast right wing conspiracy, but it is obviously against the American electorate as a whole, very much including right-wing voters. We have been divided and are in great danger of being conquered.

Makes me tired just thinking about it.

Wait a minute.. ed Schultz on the "left"?! Wasn't he the first speaker at the cpac?

Fucking Idiot trump is still using Hillary to distract from his FAILURE as being Rigged in by the Russians.

At one time Ed Schultz had a show on MSNBC where attacked Trump, the Russians and claimed to speak for American workers. On Russia Today, he is still featured as progressive commentator.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/434731/ed-schultzs-russia-today-tv-show-he-loves-limelight-loses-principles

Crowley begins and ends his piece with a close study of none other than Schultz. You see, when Schultz lost his show at MSNBC, he cast about for a new broadcast job. He found it on Russia Today’s American channel RT America, the newsy faç​ade of Russia’s global propaganda machine.

At MSNBC, there was no praise of Hillary Clinton too effusive and no slander of Republicans that was too extreme. Schultz often spent his days spewing out such statements as: “This is what the Republican party stands for, though: racism. I think Donald Trump is a racist.”

In 2011, when Trump was reportedly thinking of running for president (again), Schultz wrote in the Huffington Post: “When it comes down to the devil in the detail of dealing with the issues . . . and making real change, Trump, you don’t have it. You’ve never had it. Money is not a measure of a man’s character or success in the arena of public service.” Now, I happen to agree with that second bit. The interesting thing is, Schultz doesn’t — anymore.

The man who once mocked Putin, now cashes his checks, as a pundit on his network, lending aid and comfort to the Kremlin’s pro-Trump PR campaign. Schultz recently told Larry King, his RT colleague, that Trump was like Ronald Reagan (he meant it in a good way). Trump, Schultz explained, “certainly has shaken up the Republican Establishment, and I think he’s done it by talking about things that people care about.” Schultz now says Trump is a great and decisive decision-maker.

Anyone of any political persuasion can criticize "elites". The difference is that far right claims of a "globalist" conspiracy have their roots in anti-Semitic notions about Jews controlling the global economy. The "alt-right" is anti-Semitic, while the populist left includes Jews.

That one is critical of corporations and trade agreements or skeptical about elections does not make one in alliance with the far right.

Frankly, the left has done a much better job of exposing and opposing the far right than mainstream corporate Democrats.

I'm an unapologetic leftist and have never considered voting for Jill Stein. A good leftist is a good anti-fascist.

Here is a web site that criticizes right-wing populism and explains its origins. It is a left-wing website:

http://www.politicalresearch.org/#

The last thing I want to see is a resurgence of McCarthyism on DU.

as of late and that is an effort among some on the left most portions of our party and beyond objecting to "identity politics" and suggesting we should jettison them.

Support for measures to protect women, LGBT, POC, Jews, Arabs etc are a major obstacle in terms of the far left working with the far right. And here we see efforts to remove that obstacle.

There is no room for racism, anti-semitism, homophobia, anti-Islam, or misogyny in progressivism.

...as selling out for not going all-in on attacking the integrity of U.S. elections:



Likewise, here is the Sane Progressive attacking Russian election interference claims as being motivated by a desire for war.

&list=PLs3WCRog6vhxYTudOyJ-3CLBZFCbLrZNc&index=8

So, you have progressives both insisting that there are rigged elections by Democrats, but then defending Russia against claims that they are trying to rig elections.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/05/09/history-lesson-more-republicans-than-democrats-supported-nafta/?utm_term=.367a704a822a

In both the House and the Senate, more Democrats voted against NAFTA than for it — a signal that the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party was strong even then. Clinton held a signing ceremony for the implementing legislation on Dec. 3, 1993, flanked by former presidents and congressional leaders of both parties. But that’s not the same as negotiating and signing the treaty with Mexico and Canada. The trade agreement went into effect on Jan. 1, 1994.

Were the Democrats who opposed NAFTA - including many unions - in bed with the far right? Some people need to learn the history of criticism of trade agreements. People on the right and people on the left oppose them for different reasons. Opposition to NAFTA or any other trade agreement doesn't make one a fascist.

I am sure we could also easily find similar attacks on NAFTA from the left as being a deal that is leading to a race to the bottom with demands that the U.S. renegotiate these rigged deals, which only benefit the global elite. In other words, the Alt-Right and Far Left not only oppose deals like NAFTA and TPP, but they use the same anti-global elite rhetoric.

http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/donald-trump-and-getting-out-of-nafta

NAFTA is government-managed trade. It's regional protectionism and a forced-trade agreement between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.

A real free trade agreement (if Americans really thought it were necessary) could be written in a couple of sentences. The monstrous NAFTA runs over 1,000 pages and is loaded with cronyism, regulations, production codes, and government bureaucracy that prohibits free trade.

When NAFTA was passed, Henry Kissinger wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “What Congress will have before it is not a conventional trade agreement but the architecture of a new international system...a first step toward a new world order.”

NAFTA is a globalist scheme, and not "free trade" as the servile American media likes to refer to it. The media tells us that NAFTA and free trade doesn't work. That's incorrect. Only NAFTA doesn't work. Free trade would work if it were allowed to exist.

Apparently only "progressive" lefties oppose them.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/1/1/1255736/-NAFTA-at-20-An-Unhappy-Birthday-and-a-Look-at-the-Roll-Call-Votes-on-Free-Trade-Deals

7 of the NAY votes are still in the Senate: 6 D, 1 R.
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL)
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA)
Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)
Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI)
Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)
9 of the YEA votes are still in the Senate: 6 R, 3 D.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
Sen. Tom Harkin (R-IA)
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS)
Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT)
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA)
8 former Representatives who voted NAY are now in the Senate: 5 D, 2 R, 1 I.
Mike Crapo (R-ID)
Bob Menendez (D-NJ)
Chuck Schumer (D-NY)
Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
Jim Inhofe (R-OK)
Jack Reed (D-RI)
Tim Johnson (D-SD)
Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
7 former Representatives who voted YEA are now in the Senate: 5 D, 2 R.
Dick Durbin (D-IL)
Pat Roberts (R-KS)
Ben Cardin (D-MD)
Ed Markey (D-MA)
Rob Portman (R-OH)
Ron Wyden (D-OR)
Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
NAFTA passed the House 234 to 200. House Democrats voted against it 156 to 102

I suppose Chuck Schumer is a "progressive" in bed with the alt-right now, since he opposed NAFTA.

Indeed, America First, is Trump's motto. This could be the roots of a new Third Way/No Labels coalition between the Alt-Right and Progressives.

http://www.salon.com/2017/03/19/the-global-history-of-the-alt-right/

Since Putin’s goals were to roll back values-based institutions like NATO and the EU that might threaten his rule (and possibly undo the Russian Federation), he had to find useful assets that could corrode those institutions. NATO and EU values are rooted in neoliberalism: free trade and open borders through the EU and human rights protected by hard power through NATO. By supporting parties that undercut these values, Putin sought to undermine both the NATO and the EU.

We now know about Putin’s Facebook and Twitter bot army and Russian financing of Alt-Right parties throughout Europe. The accusations that the Kremlin did something similar in the United States is gaining credibility. Russian spy tradecraft provided discipline to movements that were otherwise too prone to fracturing.

But that would have been irrelevant had neoliberalism’s cracks not begun to show. Even as early as 2000, it was obvious that free trade deals were widening the wealth gap and benefiting only the upper classes. The battle of Seattle, the anti-globalization protests that took place in 1999, were just a harbinger of the energy that would be mobilized against neoliberalism.

The world realized the emperor had no clothes, however, in the wake of the Financial Crisis, when all the inequalities of neoliberalism were laid bare. Years went by with both American and EU leaders trying to cobble together formulas to save the system without addressing any of the problems caused by it: during that time, conservatives began to drift away from economic freedom and free trade and towards the protectionism that had long been espoused by the Alt-Right.

Most recognize that quote from Hillary Clinton. Lately I am just as tired of Democrats allowing the term "progressive" to become identified with some far left extreme as I was of Democrats allowing the word "liberal" to become identified with some far left extreme before. Republican used to intimidate us into that.

That's my complaint with your OP title. The discussion itself isn't objectionable to me.

Ed Schultz for example describes himself as follows:

https://www.rt.com/shows/news-with-ed-schultz/

Ed Schultz, one of the best-known and most well-respected progressive commentators in America, has joined RT to host his primetime news program at 8 pm EST weeknights. The political journalist is discussing the most controversial issues affecting Americans and gives a platform to diverse voices, stories and perspectives to viewers.

Likewise, Glenn Greenwald has been described as left-wing and progressive. That being said there are folks who claim to be progressive who push for the following goals, which overlaps with many of the goals of the alt-right:

* A desire for better relations with Russia.
* A belief that U.S. elections are not legitimate and are rigged.
* Attacks on trade agreements as victimizing the U.S. economy.
* A resentment of "establishment" Democrats and Republicans who are only seeking to promote the interests of global elites.
* A belief in a conspiracy by a shadowy deep state that is working to promote the interests of global elites and seeking to promote a war with Russia.

I can post any number of examples of "progressives" and "alt-right" commentators espousing these talking points. This is why I wonder whether a new Third-Way or No Labels movement will be created to attack and undermine "establishment" Democrats and Republicans with claims that the U.S. Democracy is irreparably rigged and that the media is inherently corrupt and prone to the distribution of fake news.

I will not run away from proud Democratic labels just because the wrong people try to redefine them. Been there, doe that, it doesn't end well.

Back when the Republican and Democratic parties were completely reversed on the matter of civil rights, the Democratic party actually didn't field a presidential ticket that year, but backed the "Liberal Republicans." The Liberal Republicans were a splinter group dissatisfied by the corruption-related controversies of various Grant administration officials, but also sought to end Federal Reconstruction efforts.

Heck, the Liberal Republicans even nominated a contrarian, progressive newspaper editor as their presidential candidate (Horace Greeley). Now that would be a bizarre world. Imagine Hillary Clinton won last year, but in 2020 faced a challenge from the "Justice Democrats" fielding Glenn Greenwald backed by the Republican Party.

One end meeting the other and consuming itself.

Because when the topic of a "global elite," (particularly in finance and banking) is broached, that's exactly where the alt-right's beliefs go. To them, the terms are code for Jews, Zionists, non-whites, etc. Good example of "saying it with out really saying it":
http://honoranddaring.com/who-are-the-globalists/
"...Globalization destroys culture. Distinctive culture needs homogenous societies to develop in. Globalization increases diversity which throws cultures together into a hodge podge. The result is that the only common culture is consumerism..."
Historical perspective on "globalism":
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/16/hitlers-world-may-not-be-so-far-away
"...By presenting Jews as an ecological flaw responsible for the disharmony of the planet, Hitler channelled and personalised the inevitable tensions of globalisation..."

Breitbart "goes there" frequently, with a few cosmetic tweaks to buffer the insanity. Many on the alt-right are avowed white nationalists; some actually envision a "White Empire" stretching across North America, Northern Europe and Russia.

I'm so fucking sick of this divisive bullshit. I want no part of it.

This and more "I'd rather go down with my Third Weigh Anchors than give the pro-labor liberals even one crumb of our platform" hilarity.

What is truly dismissive is ignoring strong overlap between Trump's white working class supporters and those on the left with respect to the issues identified. Why be afraid of acknowledging such common ground on issues such as:

* U.S. Elections are rigged.
* The media is fake and corrupt.
* Trade deals are designed to protect the bankers and the global elite.
* Establishment Democrats/Republicans have turned their back on the working class.

Instead, I see folks on the left who strongly adhere to such views dismiss members of the Alt-Right as being insincere in their belief, which strikes me as being condescending and elitist.

Why does it bother some folks that they share many of the basic, foundational views of members of the Alt-Right?

Also, given that moderates in the past tried to push a Third Way/No Labels coalition in the past, why not members of the Far Left and Far Right given how partisan politics has become. There are no moderates now. Perhaps the most likely coalition will be on the extremes.

If I have to roll my eyes any harder, I'll have to chase them down the street.

Jill Stein is most definitely not a Democrat. For that matter, I seriously doubt that Glenn Greenwald would consider himself a member of the Democratic Party.

Seems like we have a long history in the Dem party of being progressive.

The Sane Progressive was widely posted as progressive voice during the primaries. Yet, here she is thanking members of the "right" (presumably the alt-right) for opposing strikes against Syria:



Now, many Democrats, including Cory Booker, Nancy Pelosi, etc., have opposed such unilateral military action by the President without Congressional approval, but here you have the Sane Progressive thanking members of the Alt-Right.

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/04/alt-right-donald-trump-syria

ALT-RIGHT GOES “APOPLECTIC” OVER TRUMP’S DECISION TO BOMB SYRIA

In fact, Trump imbibed the pro-war Kool-Aid that is the drink of choice in elite circles even faster, to the alt-right’s disappointment. When Trump condemned Assad’s chemical weapons attack on his own people, which killed dozens of children and emergency workers, several of his fringe supporters screamed that he was being duped into a war by a “false flag” operation. “The Syrian gas attack was done by deep state agents,” tweeted alt-right agitator and the Trump administration’s favorite blogger Mike Cernovich. “The fake news media (which works for them) wants you to ignore basic logic and 101-level game theory and strategic thinking to reach an illogical conclusion. Stay vigilant!” Infowars, the site run by extreme conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, took it a step further and blamed the attack on Democrat billionaire George Soros.

Now, I am not making these videos or articles from progressives up. I am simply pointing out that there is a lot of overlap.

Finally, this is not about the Democratic Party. Indeed, many of the progressives I reference would not call themselves Democrats.

But, that being said, just because Progressives and the Right are both thinking unilateral strikes are bad, doesn't mean there is overlap. The reasons for thinking it is bad are very different.

...from the "left" using talking points and positions that share a lot with the alt-right. The biggest overlap is the attack on Democratic Party "establishment." What is common is an attack on the institutions that our Democracy is based on such such as the media and elections as being irreparably rigged.

You want there to be a "horseshoe" where there is none.

Democrats lost 2016 because they never saw various red flags:

* The 2010 Congressional loss
* The 2012 Presidential election narrowing (Barack Obama won, but not as much over Romney as McCain)
* The 2014 Senate loss
* The Republicans taking over a majority of state legislatures
* The Republicans taking over a majority of governorships
* Questionable managing practices by Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, who seemed rather adamant about the insanity of thinking the milquetoast Clinton Blueprint is going to work each and every time.
* Denial of a groundswell receptive to the progressive message

Rather than re-evaluate why the milquetoast Clinton Blueprint did not work, you seem to want to blame this imagined powerful "progressive left" (and maliciously/hilariously equate them to the Alt-Klan) for why Hillary lost. The fact is, the message most all of us want and need to be attached to the Democratic party is that of the Second Bill of Rights . . . . a platform we can all agree would help EVERYone, especially in a time where the social safety net is going to need to be expanded in the face of winner-stomp-everyone Capitalism.

Most of America doesn't even LIKE Jill Stein, as a candidate or a person. She doesn't know shit about shit, and by lumping all progressives into the Stein side of the Venn, brushing them off as Putinist whackjobs no different than Milo Yiannopolus or Alex Jones, you're seriously shooting yourself in the foot when it comes to getting more votes. I don't think trying to get more moderates while decrying progressives as lost causes is the best of strategies.

If you lose the labor of this country because you want to fully keep wealthy Capitalists in power and not make things even one atom speck less comfortable for them, you have no one to blame but yourself. Young people of this country are starting to realize they have no path to retirement. X-ers and Seniors are starting to realize we're never going to get Universal Health care in this country (something the USA needed last DECADE). If we're nothing but a go-along-to-get-along party, just throw our hands up and say "Sorry, but that's just the way it is" . . . . DON'T BE SURPRISED WHEN YOU LOSE TO FUCKS LIKE SCHTROUMPF.

there wasn't anything to vote for.

You can't count them as people who would make policy

of the 2 groups be called.....the Third alt Reich?