Meta level: strong upvote, because I strongly endorse this kind of thinking (actionable-ish, focused on coordination problems); I am also very excited that we are now showing signs of being able to tackle politics reliably without tripping over our traditional taboo.
Object level: I wonder if you’d consider revising your position on the not-a-party point. Referring to your comment else-thread:
Instead, the proposal is to organize a legible voting bloc. More like “environmentalists” than “the green party”.
Environmentalists are a movement, and not an organization; the proposal is for an organization. They are a single-topic group that tackles a narrow range of policies; the proposal shows no intention of isolating itself to a narrow range of policies.
What you have proposed is an organization which will recruit voters, establish consensus within the organization on a broad range of policies, with the goal of increasing their power as voters, and you intend to compete directly with the two major parties in their values. Finally, there are no environmentalist kingmaker organizations precisely because there are lots of environmental organizations, which means the positions of individual environmental organizations are not particularly meaningful in elections; this means the organization will need to compete with, or co-opt voters from, other organizations with similar values/goals.
I put it to you that the most natural fit for what you are proposing is a new political party which chooses not to put candidates on the ballot.
This is an ingenious strategy, in my view: by not advancing candidates, the organization is liberated from the focus on winning campaigns, and it is the focus on winning campaigns that drives most of the crappy behavior from the major parties. At the same time, creating a legible block of voters does a marvelous job of avoiding direct competition while capitalizing on the short-term incentives direct competition creates.
This looks to me very much like a political party that takes the short-term hit of not directly holding office in exchange for the freedom to place longer-term bets on values and policy overall. As you observed with third-party viability, winning office is unlikely and so not even trying is not much of a hit, and the potential upside is big.
I put it to you that the most natural fit for what you are proposing is a new political party which chooses not to put candidates on the ballot.
It does seem necessary to settle the terminology better; I agree that the terms I’ve been inconsistently using so far seem inadequate (voting bloc, platform, movement, group, …?). I’m still not convinced “party” is the best term. But I have some sympathy for your points.
I would much prefer that people call the group “the new center” or “neocentrists” or whatever, as opposed to “the new center party” “the moderate party” etc.
Alas, running (or even starting) a party/whatever sounds incredibly time consuming. :(
If you were to go to the national level, absolutely. But I expect that a local-level experiment could be done entirely part-time on a volunteer basis. I expect this because the local-level major party apparatus is usually a part-time volunteer operation. Further, the threshold for success is much, much lower: you can achieve kingmaker status in a lot of locales by forging a bloc of a score of votes.
Meta level: strong upvote, because I strongly endorse this kind of thinking (actionable-ish, focused on coordination problems); I am also very excited that we are now showing signs of being able to tackle politics reliably without tripping over our traditional taboo.
Object level: I wonder if you’d consider revising your position on the not-a-party point. Referring to your comment else-thread:
Environmentalists are a movement, and not an organization; the proposal is for an organization. They are a single-topic group that tackles a narrow range of policies; the proposal shows no intention of isolating itself to a narrow range of policies.
What you have proposed is an organization which will recruit voters, establish consensus within the organization on a broad range of policies, with the goal of increasing their power as voters, and you intend to compete directly with the two major parties in their values. Finally, there are no environmentalist kingmaker organizations precisely because there are lots of environmental organizations, which means the positions of individual environmental organizations are not particularly meaningful in elections; this means the organization will need to compete with, or co-opt voters from, other organizations with similar values/goals.
I put it to you that the most natural fit for what you are proposing is a new political party which chooses not to put candidates on the ballot.
This is an ingenious strategy, in my view: by not advancing candidates, the organization is liberated from the focus on winning campaigns, and it is the focus on winning campaigns that drives most of the crappy behavior from the major parties. At the same time, creating a legible block of voters does a marvelous job of avoiding direct competition while capitalizing on the short-term incentives direct competition creates.
This looks to me very much like a political party that takes the short-term hit of not directly holding office in exchange for the freedom to place longer-term bets on values and policy overall. As you observed with third-party viability, winning office is unlikely and so not even trying is not much of a hit, and the potential upside is big.
It does seem necessary to settle the terminology better; I agree that the terms I’ve been inconsistently using so far seem inadequate (voting bloc, platform, movement, group, …?). I’m still not convinced “party” is the best term. But I have some sympathy for your points.
I would much prefer that people call the group “the new center” or “neocentrists” or whatever, as opposed to “the new center party” “the moderate party” etc.
Alas, running (or even starting) a party/whatever sounds incredibly time consuming. :(
If you were to go to the national level, absolutely. But I expect that a local-level experiment could be done entirely part-time on a volunteer basis. I expect this because the local-level major party apparatus is usually a part-time volunteer operation. Further, the threshold for success is much, much lower: you can achieve kingmaker status in a lot of locales by forging a bloc of a score of votes.