Corrente is trying to figure out how we get around the do nothing Democratic party, so is Violet.

The only way this can ever work is if all the marginalized factions who will makeup this party agree- we float together or we sink apart. The sinking apart thing is how they keep us down. Think about abolition and suffrage. They went together, hand in hand, in women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton. But when push came to shove, black men got the vote first (technically) and shoved women of all colors under the bus for the right. But Jim Crow laws made it near impossible for them to exercise that right. I wonder if Jim Crow laws would have been as easy to enact if suffrage was universal at the time?

The kyriarchy does that to marginalized groups whenever it’s structure is threatened. It gives one group the appearance of gain in order to squash the demands of another group. Think about the EDNA (employment non-discrimination act) that sold out trans folks. Think about health care reform that leaves women out and punishes sick people for having a pre-existing condition with mandates and tax penalties but gives insurance companies an extra year before pre-existing conditions are made moot. And I can’t even start to point out the millions of ways poor people are routinely shoved to the side for any reason. A stiff breeze is enough for people to sell the poor out.

We float together or we sink apart.

This new party, whether it’s outside inside or third party or a mass sign up for the Greens, has to require us, all of us, to make a promise to each other. We will not sell out one group for the gain of another. If we don’t make that promise and keep it, then this new thing is really just another flavor of the old thing and it won’t work.