Lies, Damn Lies, and Ineffectual Third Party Campaigns

Why campaigns designed to boost the establishment and who hire from within it have no chance at defeating it or even marginally mitigating it somewhat

Your shit sucks, and it’s weak

In this piece I’d like to nail a few crucial points that have been grinding in my gears for a while - years, in some cases. This piece is framed through the context of the United States domestic political world, and thus is not applicable to places abroad - though some lessons could be learned for effective organizing. Maybe it’s helpful. Maybe it’s just a spectacle.

I’ll try to keep it brief, witty, and interesting.

Foreword / Conflicts of Interest: I hold no financial stock or personal interest in any US political campaign. Not for the Senate, House, President or Judiciary, and not from any or no party affiliation. I personally find the whole thing to be a self-defeating process; one in which the participant enters idealistic and full of hope - and leaves defeated, subservient and little more than a faithful servant of empire. So, by nature of my skepticism, I’m not affiliated with any campaign nor is this article to be taken in support of any candidate or parties therein - let this be a critique of all of them, for the same reasons. I’m just a non-voting voter. Give me a good reason to vote and I might.

On with it.

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Do I really have to spell this out for you?

As it turns out, serving the establishment which upholds the empire does not get one to a point in which they are to be politically rivaled, let alone defeated. It is the most odious of sleight of hand - I think of it as sheep-dogging - in which the unlikely dupe is baited in with promises of meaningful policy or social reform, and by the time the general election rolls around, the “third party” “””throws their support””” behind one of two establishment parties, asking their supporters to donate to, campaign for, and vote for these establishment candidates.

This, frankly, is not an effective organizing method if one wishes to defeat these very parties, or even gain Federal funding to compete with them. If anything, this is simple fraud and collaboration - bait and switch, and at the end corral the sheep back into one of two approved (normally, a singular approved) pathway back to the slaughter. As we have seen in election cycle after election cycle, this approach is one destined for failure.

One only has to look at the DSA and their continued “settling for being second fiddle to the other Democrats” to understand why this move is destined to fail long-term. Not only does it not drive growth or instill confidence, it smacks of collaboration. It smacks of fraud.

But wait, there’s more dickfuckery afoot

[Photo via X/Jill Stein’s own words, time/date stamp shown]

And then there’s this asshole. Peter Daou. I did not think anything more needed to be said about this thin political shapeshifter and slime, who had a very convenient “Coming to Lefty Jesus on Twitter” moment in order to sell a book. I’m not sure why the community writ large takes this man as a serious good faith actor when he is not. No matter the thin mea culpas, it cannot make whole the damage Peter did during 2016 to people who did not deserve it, ruining any political ambitions of the broad-coalition left in the United States for a generation, perhaps longer.

Peter, a known neoliberal tool and quantity, has a resume that rivals Epstein’s Black Book of clients. The man was a UN lackey, a tool for the Clinton Global Initiative, and so on. To say that he is toxic to a serious left campaign independent of the political establishment is to go without saying - yet the former Presidential Candidate of the Green Party (2016) suggested he be hired by Cornel West as his CAMPAIGN MANAGER.

Words cannot begin to describe the political mis-calculus at foot here. Dr. Stein is flat-out wrong. Daou is a fantastic choice if one wants to give such a campaign a kiss of death, and make it as ineffectual as possible. If the goal was to shepherd likely radical types back into the DNC at the end, this is a great approach. I’m not saying this because I don’t like Peter, or think he’s incapable of change - far from it - but that I don’t believe he has changed. I feel he went ‘undercover’. I doubt his authenticity. I question his intent. Only time will tell if my skepticism was founded or not.

But maybe it’s me who’s just jaded in my cynicism..         

Though a leopard doesn’t change its spots, I am open to the idea that people can change for the better, and can become so enraged or embittered by sour dealings as to change their tune about-face. Peter certainly could make a logical case, in that he was all-in on Hillary to the point of working for her family charity of disrepute, and only came around after she had lost and after Democrats had shown how hopelessly ineffectual and fascistic they are, and how willing they are to collaborate with the GOP to do untold evil.

Unfortunately for him, the man he is tasked with overseeing the campaign of, feels that the Democrats are the lesser of two evils, and the voter has a civic duty to support them in spite of a man like Donald Trump, who himself was a lifelong Democrat and elbow-rubber with the Clinton family, because of his overt “racism and fascism” - something the aforementioned Clinton administration was accused of in times past.

Peter doesn’t exactly strike me as this sincere born again believer and methodical researcher of left theory and old Marxist tomes. If anything, he seems to exist still to carry the water of and make excuses for the Democrat party and the two-party establishment in general. One can reference endless Twitter debates with Peter over the years, where his position flip-flops between “third parties are necessary and a good to challenge the system” and “third parties are a spoiler and votes are owed to the Democrats to stop Trump”. This is not a healthy worldview nor does it show any moral consistency. It shows a man bad at political calculus, who only changes the answer on his test once it becomes so obvious as to be impossible to escape.

Where do we go from here, now that all of our idols are sellouts?

I don’t know. I wish I had an answer. As usual, my anarchist roots come raging back into life with “the state is only validated by such compelled support”, in that the system is only as valid as we accept it as. If we simply don’t participate, we don’t have the blood on our hands of any failed candidacy or rogue empire dreams. We have the most room to critique all of it, as we did not settle for a lesser evil and instead did not participate at all.

However, I know this is a bit of a catch-22, in that those who refuse to elect will be ruled all the same, and in the end participation or lack thereof is not likely to instill change in any direction, beyond apathy.

The ‘illusion of choice’, as George Carlin eluded to, soldiers on. Never in a US Presidential primary campaign have voters had so much illusion of choice between candidates. Many of them all striking the same core messages, advised by the same people, focus-grouped by the same PR teams and dressed at the same tailors. They are the Futurama joke of John Jackson and Jack Johnson.

[A gag from a television show, 23 years ago]

There is no choice. You are being given the same outcome with minor packaging changes and' ‘identity politics as a service’. Maybe one candidate cares about the key issue you believe in - but has a horrible foreign policy. Or perhaps another has a great foreign policy, but has no vision for domestic politics, and avoids uncomfortable truths. No matter what, in the end, you’re being let down somewhere, and in the end it’s getting people killed.

As it turns out, in the political debate between Pepsi, your own urine, RC Cola, Fanta, and Milk, they’re all laced with arsenic, “it’s all bullshit, and it’s bad for you”, if I can get away with just one more George Carlin quote.

How to co-opt third parties and make them absolutely useless           

As old as time, the political establishment has existed only to serve itself and carve the country up a little finer for itself and its extremely wealthy, landowning oligarchical friends. This is undeniable, and for evidence I simply motion to every act Congress has undertaken since 1929. There is no “common man” with someone looking out for him, only a ‘useless eater’ on the streets, to be quietly swept away into the shadows and eventually the dustbin. The political establishment and their extremely wealthy cronies know this and use this to drive further divides in our society; ala Divide and Conquer.  

If you haven’t noticed, not once has class come up during any conversation with any of these candidates. You may hear vague mentions of the working class or the middle class, but none of them feel comfortable talking about the wealthy. Maybe one or two mention specific industries or companies, but never the oligarch class as a whole. Why?

It’s very simple. They exist to spin and deflect such ‘attacks’ away from people of means and defend their perfectly innocent unlimited wealth and power. Even Brother West, for his radical roots and former support of campaigns like Bernie Sanders in 2016, has demurred in this campaign. He no longer has the fire or zeal against such ill-gained and sickening wealth disparity. He only discusses issues of race, of gender, of sexual identity and sexuality. He has replaced class and intersectionality with DEI-approved IdPol. This is no mistake or failing of message on Dr. West’s part.

This is a conscious and deliberate effort to make his candidacy unappealing to people who would otherwise support him. Marxists. Trade unionists. People who did not replace their class identity with a social identity. The blue collar average Joe type. These are no longer sought after - discarded by the wayside as “class reductionists” or “racists and sexists”, this group is now being politically alienated, and will no doubt be asked to vote for Joe Biden come November 2024.

This is how to co-opt: Simply misdirect the original message into something far more divisive and couture. Speaking to class speaks to a broad array of people. Speaking only of Queer issues or Black issues or Women’s issues does not speak to a broad enough coalition. It speaks to minority communities. It is not enough to make up a broad coalition or bloc.

Comedians in Garages getting Disappointed     

Which brings us to the culmination - Jimmy Dore, the seeming final boss of critical political interviews on the internet. In what seems to be the most disappointing six months of his life, Dore has repeatedly taken time out of his comedy/news show to interview (at length) multiple figures running for President, including Marianne Williamson, Cornel West, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and as far as I’m aware the show remains open to other candidates.

Each of these interviews was, for one reason or another, a total shitshow. With Marianne Williamson, he had to suffer unnecessary condescension from a woman better known for her strange fascination with geodes. Robert F Kennedy Jr? His campaign was basically an hour long press release from the Israeli Defense Force and Likud. Cornel West? Cornel West was a strange period of watching a man deny he has political advisors, the strangest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. No political campaign ever before has denied having advisors, or being advised. 

To have advisors is totally normal and expected. To see Cornel West deny this simple truth, and to assert that he is a “free thinking man” and not merely repeating garbage talking points handed to him by a campaign advisor, was just sad. He came off as defensive and taken aback that anyone would ever see him as being advised. Perish the thought. 

In the sad case of Jimmy Dore, sometimes the clown himself is the one that is made sad by the performance. It can be depressing to try and bring levity to such a hopeless situation, though he does it with good grace and humor every Monday, Wednesday and Friday as his touring schedule allows. I can’t say I’m a ‘fan’ of him though I watch regularly, I do enjoy his work even though we disagree on some things. He and I are in full agreement here. What is on display, be it third party, independent, or running as a challenger to a party incumbent, is not acceptable and is phony. Thin and fraudulent.

I’m sorry. It’s not me. It’s you. You need to do better. Ramaswamy? is a Ramaslimeball who will say and do anything it takes to get power. Another Trump, without the charisma or money. Nikki Haley? Jeb Bush - sorry, Chris Christie? Why? What for? What did we do to deserve this punishment?

And then on the side of the Democrats, you’ve got Good Ol’ Naptime Joe, who fell asleep in Maui during victims speeches - and a week later told an audience he was tired and going to bed. Or maybe Bobby Kennedy, who didn’t take the hint when Jimmy Dore told him that the Democratic party would use every dirty trick it has to stop an insurgent campaign, and it only dawned on him when they created a bullshit anti-campaigning law to stop his candidacy.

In the middle corner, a man being advised by a Clinton lackey, asserting he takes advice from no one - or as one last wild card, perhaps Doug Burgum, a man who will literally pay you $19 to solicit a $1 contribution from you, just to boost his numbers. What a wide array of garbage. Thank God we had such an illusion of choice.

Until next time.