Amer­i­ca needs a New Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party.

The leftist debate on electoral activism is depressingly reductive. It’s either be the “left-wing of the possible” within the Democratic party or immediately form a third party, as if we are not capable of sorting out complicated solutions for complicated times. We have a historic opportunity. Whether one realizes it or not, we are in the midst of a profound political realignment that could make a third party conceivable.

No, I don’t mean a Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty made new by a restored com­mit­ment to lib­er­al ide­al­ism (although that would be use­ful, too). I mean an Amer­i­can ver­sion of Canada’s NDP: an explic­it­ly social­ist par­ty that can win on a region­al basis, cred­i­bly com­pete on a nation­al basis and actu­al­ly win on issues that matter.

The left­ist debate on elec­toral activism is depress­ing­ly reduc­tive. It’s either be the ​“left-wing of the pos­si­ble” with­in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty or imme­di­ate­ly form a third par­ty, as if we are not capa­ble of sort­ing out com­pli­cat­ed solu­tions for com­pli­cat­ed times. We have a his­toric oppor­tu­ni­ty. Whether one real­izes it or not, we are in the midst of a pro­found polit­i­cal realign­ment that could make a third par­ty conceivable.

The right-wing realign­ment and its pull on the Democrats

A polit­i­cal realign­ment hap­pens when the two main par­ties sig­nif­i­cant­ly alter their ide­ol­o­gy and cam­paign appeal and in so doing shift their region­al bases of sup­port. They are rare. One hap­pened when Roosevelt’s New Deal effec­tive­ly wooed urban pro­gres­sives away from the GOP, while pre­serv­ing the Democ­rats’ tra­di­tion­al base of south­ern sup­port (large­ly by avoid­ing black civ­il rights demands). For the next 36 years, the Democ­rats won sev­en out of nine pres­i­den­tial elec­tions, and con­trolled the House and Sen­ate for much of the period.

Nixon’s ​“South­ern Strat­e­gy” tapped into reac­tion against the civ­il rights, women’s rights and anti-war move­ments and pro­duced a new realign­ment. With the for­mer Con­fed­er­ate states now solid­ly in the GOP col­umn, and white work­ing-class vot­ers increas­ing­ly will­ing to cast reac­tionary votes for the par­ty in the north, Repub­li­cans won sev­en out of 10 of the next pres­i­den­tial elec­tions and have, since the mid-1990s, tend­ed to con­trol the House.

The Repub­li­cans’ cri­sis, and our oppor­tu­ni­ty, is that the par­ty has been so cap­tured by its base that it is cir­cling the drain of nation­al via­bil­i­ty. The hate­ful, racist, misog­y­nis­tic, xeno­pho­bic and just plain real­i­ty-deny­ing rhetoric that the cur­rent crop of their pres­i­den­tial aspi­rants must use to pan­der to their troglodyt­ic base makes them sim­ply une­lec­table in a nation­al contest.

Look at the demo­graph­ics, as the Pew Research Cen­ter did ear­li­er this year. The GOP alien­ates the major­i­ty of women vot­ers, the vast major­i­ty of black and Lati­no vot­ers and has all but lost the so-called mil­len­ni­al gen­er­a­tion — vot­er groups that are an increas­ing pro­por­tion of the electorate.

More impor­tant­ly, look at the so-called ​“big sort,” the geopo­lit­i­cal trend of peo­ple mov­ing into or out of com­mu­ni­ties in order to be sur­round­ed by more like-mind­ed neigh­bors. Researchers James A. Thomp­son and Jesse Sus­sell found that the ​“big sort” is sig­nif­i­cant­ly con­tribut­ing to the polit­i­cal polar­iza­tion of Con­gress. Repub­li­can vot­ers have cre­at­ed for them­selves an echo cham­ber that goes beyond Fox News to include their like-mind­ed neigh­bors. This con­tributes to the GOP rein­forc­ing and dou­bling down on its extrem­ism. It’s hard to imag­ine how the GOP can break this cycle any time soon.

Repub­li­cans can win — and win big — on a region­al basis and imple­ment awful poli­cies. And to be sure, the Left should be con­cerned with keep­ing the Repub­li­cans out of nation­al office. But the Repub­li­cans are going to do a good job of that themselves.

Mean­while, the ​“big sort” leaves viable pro­gres­sive majori­ties in our large urban cen­ters and even entire states like Cal­i­for­nia, Mass­a­chu­setts, New York and New Jer­sey for the most part trapped in a Demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty that will also con­tin­ue to move to the right unless we do some­thing about it. This realign­ment is push­ing mod­er­ate and even con­ser­v­a­tive vot­ers into the Demo­c­ra­t­ic camp. There are, after all, plen­ty of stock­bro­kers and cor­po­rate exec­u­tives who sup­port gay mar­riage and immi­gra­tion. The GOP is no longer a com­fort­able home for them — the Democ­rats are.

These pro­gres­sive enclaves are increas­ing­ly a one-par­ty polit­i­cal sys­tem, with the GOP’s car­cass lying around as an emp­ty ves­sel for what­ev­er rich white guy wants to run a vam­pir­ic van­i­ty cam­paign. And, sure, Repub­li­cans like Bruce Rauner and Chris Christie can win fluke elec­tions when vot­ers are so dis­gust­ed by the lazi­ness and cor­rup­tion of monop­o­lis­tic Demo­c­ra­t­ic machines that they stay home – or vote for neb­u­lous ​“change” — in protest. But for the most part, there is a huge vac­u­um on the left in these pro­gres­sive enclaves that should trump any tired lib­er­al objec­tions about ​“elec­tabil­i­ty” and ​“less­er evils.”

An inside/​outside strategy

What the Left needs is an inside/​outside elec­toral strat­e­gy vis-à-vis the Democrats.

Inside the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, engaged in pri­ma­ry cam­paigns to push pro­gres­sive can­di­dates and caus­es, because cur­rent elec­tion laws as well as fear of play­ing the spoil­er mean that this is where we must focus out elec­toral ener­gy for the time being if we are hold togeth­er the broad­est pos­si­ble coalition.

But out­side in terms of being clear­ly delin­eat­ed as some­thing more spe­cif­ic: more crit­i­cal of cap­i­tal­ism, more inde­pen­dent of cor­po­ra­tions and more account­able to its base of sup­port­ers than being just anoth­er Demo­c­rat. And out­side in terms of hav­ing a real plan to break with the Democ­rats and become a ful­ly inde­pen­dent third par­ty when the oppor­tu­ni­ty comes.

Inside/​outside elec­toral strate­gies have long been incu­bat­ed in New York state, where the law allows — and polit­i­cal real­i­ties demand — that can­di­dates run on mul­ti­ple bal­lot lines. Since 1998, the Work­ing Fam­i­lies Par­ty has been the pre­em­i­nent inside/​outside exper­i­ment on the Left. The WFP has an impres­sive track record of endors­ing insur­gent pro­gres­sives ear­ly and back­ing them in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic pri­ma­ry, as well as occa­sion­al­ly run­ning a can­di­date in the gen­er­al elec­tion against the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nee — a strat­e­gy that has put scores of new pro­gres­sives in office across the state, cul­mi­nat­ing in the elec­tion of NYC May­or Bill DeBlasio.

The Work­ing Fam­i­lies Par­ty has expand­ed to five more states plus the Dis­trict of Colum­bia, although the inabil­i­ty to run a can­di­date on more than one bal­lot line makes the party’s efforts in those places some­what less vis­i­ble. In Illi­nois, unions like SEIU and the Chica­go Teach­ers Union have formed an inde­pen­dent polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tion called Unit­ed Work­ing Fam­i­lies, which sup­port­ed Jesus ​“Chuy” Garcia’s insur­gent chal­lenge to Rahm Emanuel in Chicago’s tech­ni­cal­ly non-par­ti­san may­oral elec­tion. In Ver­mont, Bernie Sanders’ long run of suc­cess­ful inde­pen­dent runs for office has led to the cre­ation of the Pro­gres­sive Par­ty, which rep­re­sents over a dozen local, state and fed­er­al offices — a viable third par­ty if ever there was one.

Add to that the var­i­ous pro­gres­sive cau­cus­es in leg­is­la­tures and coun­cils — pro­gres­sive Democ­rats and inde­pen­dents who work togeth­er to press their agen­da with­in the larg­er Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus — and you have, essen­tial­ly, an unde­clared, dis­unit­ed par­ty with­in the party.

It is time to unite and declare it so.

What’s in a name?

What you stand for mat­ters, but hav­ing a label and an iden­ti­ty of stand­ing for the right caus­es mat­ters per­haps more. Thanks to the realign­ment that is expand­ing the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty and turn­ing it much more con­ser­v­a­tive, a ​“Demo­c­rat” can be any­body from Rahm Emanuel and Andrew Cuo­mo to Eliz­a­beth War­ren and Kei­th Ellison.

What the hell is a ​“Demo­c­rat” and what do they stand for? With­out a clear dis­tinc­tion, a vote for a Demo­c­rat might as well be a vote for war, for police bru­tal­i­ty and mass incar­cer­a­tion, for demo­niz­ing teach­ers and slash­ing pen­sions, for ship­ping jobs over­seas and keep­ing the min­i­mum wage low. An untapped con­stituen­cy remains alien­at­ed from a pro­gres­sive move­ment that suf­fers from guilt by asso­ci­a­tion with the cor­po­rate Dems.

Fur­ther, a pro­gres­sive Demo­c­rat — even one who runs with a Work­ing Fam­i­lies-type endorse­ment — is sus­cep­ti­ble to all of the pres­sure from par­ty lead­er­ship for the cor­po­rate agen­da that any oth­er Demo­c­rat faces, with lit­tle account­abil­i­ty to a base of sup­port­ers that comes from pub­lic iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with a move­ment. Most peo­ple read­ing this can think of some mad­den­ing state leg­is­la­tor or alder­man who’s only pro­gres­sive when it doesn’t count.

Bernie Sanders jokes about how often he hears from sup­port­ers and con­stituents, ​“We always know how you vote, Bernie.” Because Sanders, famous­ly, insist­ed on being reg­is­tered in Con­gress as an ​“Inde­pen­dent,” even while he cau­cused with the Democ­rats, C‑SPAN had to cre­ate a third ​“Inde­pen­dent” cat­e­go­ry for vote tal­lies, and so, yes, we all know how Bernie votes on an issue. As a result, Sanders’ vot­ing record has been the most sec­ond-guessed and debat­ed by the Left for a quar­ter cen­tu­ry (even though there have been mem­bers of the House who were arguably to Bernie’s left).

By stand­ing out as an ​“I,” Bernie was held much more account­able to the Left on a nation­al lev­el than any oth­er Demo­c­rat. Work­ing Fam­i­lies pub­lic offi­cials need to stand out and cau­cus and have their votes record­ed as ​“W,” not ​“D.”

Whether we set­tle on the name ​“Work­ing Fam­i­lies,” call it the ​“Pro­gres­sive Par­ty” or bor­row ​“New Democ­rats” from our friends to the north, we do need one name that stretch­es from can­di­da­cy to office-hold­ing to every­day activism. And we need one par­ty, coast to coast, that peo­ple join and pay dues, that has a nation­al com­mit­tee and that gets peo­ple in a room togeth­er in meet­ings, teach-ins, con­ven­tions and trainings.

What holds us back?

There is a regret­table deficit of trust when it comes to any sort of left uni­ty effort. Move­ments uni­fy when they are on the ascen­den­cy, which is not a posi­tion that the Left is used to being in. Plus, there is a long his­to­ry on the Left of dis­sen­sion, dis­cord and split. Going big­ger and broad­er brings the poten­tial for the project to get out of con­trol. And these efforts — Unit­ed Work­ing Fam­i­lies, the Pro­gres­sive Par­ty, the WFP — seem to be self-con­scious­ly designed to be small and manageable.

Unit­ed Work­ing Fam­i­lies is a good case in point. The orga­niz­ers toyed with form­ing a chap­ter of the WFP, but ulti­mate­ly decid­ed to orga­nize inde­pen­dent­ly with com­ple­men­tary — yet dis­tinct — brand­ing. The WFP has since wel­comed the UWF as an affil­i­ate with seats on the nation­al board. (What choice did they have? There’s no space for both orga­ni­za­tions to oper­ate in Chicago).

A unit­ed par­ty would have to have a fed­er­at­ed struc­ture, with autonomous state par­ties and local clubs. But the resis­tance to the shared brand­ing goes deep­er than a struc­tur­al con­cern. It can be read as a desire to not be tar­nished by some­one else’s mistake.

Unit­ed Work­ing Fam­i­lies was formed while the Work­ing Fam­i­lies Par­ty was grap­pling whether or not to endorse Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s re-elec­tion bid. The New York­ers could have real­ly used some tough love and advice from Chica­go on the fea­si­bil­i­ty of cut­ting a deal with Cuo­mo. Regret­tably, the Chica­go orga­niz­ers chose parochial­ism and keep­ing their dis­tance over solidarity.

Anoth­er thing that holds us back is fear of play­ing the spoil­er. Again, the val­ue of an inside/​outside strat­e­gy is hold­ing togeth­er the widest pos­si­ble coali­tion while we are inside the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty. To be clear, the risk of let­ting the now-far-right Repub­li­cans eke out a win if the cen­ter and Left were to split the vote in a gen­er­al elec­tion is sub­stan­tial. The Supreme Court, the right to choose, union rights and ques­tions of war and peace are not to be dis­missed lightly.

But a split must one day come. If the Repub­li­cans cease to be a major par­ty in the north­east, on the west coast and in the major urban cen­ters of the mid-west, and lose the next three or four pres­i­den­tial elec­tions, then any­one who is still harp­ing on about less­er evils or uni­ty at any cost is prob­a­bly sim­ply not com­fort­able with a turn towards explic­it­ly anti-cap­i­tal­ist politics.

I write of pres­i­den­tial elec­tion cycles because they are impor­tant epochal mark­ers, not because we should frit­ter away our time debat­ing when to make a break and run a Nad­er-style third par­ty cam­paign. Look, I get it. Pres­i­den­tial elec­tions are years when more work­ing peo­ple actu­al­ly pay atten­tion to main­stream pol­i­tics and vote, so what we do and whom we’re sup­port­ing is big and sym­bol­ic. But big changes in social out­look and polit­i­cal pol­i­cy are rat­i­fied in pres­i­den­tial elec­tions. The changes are made more grad­u­al­ly and much more local­ly. Our chal­lenge for the next decade and a half is to run Work­ing Fam­i­lies cam­paigns for leg­is­la­ture, coun­cil and Con­gress and win; to build up a base that makes for ​“safe” Work­ing Fam­i­lies dis­tricts; and to build Work­ing Fam­i­lies leg­isla­tive cau­cus­es that put real pres­sure on the cor­po­rate Dems.

Some of this can be accom­plished, as the Pro­gres­sive Par­ty seems to have done in Ver­mont, through a degree of bro­ker­ing. The Pro­gres­sives build up enough of a base in a dis­trict that they hold the plu­ral­i­ty, and the Democ­rats decide not to run a strong can­di­date against them. I pre­sume that the Pro­gres­sives agree in exchange to not make a hard run at a dis­trict where the Democ­rats hold the edge. In this way, a cen­ter-left split doesn’t have to be a 100% spoil­er effort.

The ulti­mate split may, indeed, be sig­naled by an inde­pen­dent pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. I’m get­ting many years ahead of myself here, but let me sug­gest that the tim­ing would only be right if our new par­ty posed a cred­i­ble threat of actu­al­ly win­ning some elec­toral votes. Could we pose enough of a threat of throw­ing the elec­tion into chaos to extract mean­ing­ful elec­tion reforms — like abol­ish­ing the elec­toral col­lege and insti­tut­ing instant runoff vot­ing — to make ​“spoil­ers” a thing of the past?

Our big chal­lenge right now, though, is whether we are bold enough to actu­al­ly get in a room and ham­mer out a pro­gram, a struc­ture and a com­mon name.

The Sanders pres­i­den­tial cam­paign is a very time­ly oppor­tu­ni­ty. Whether Bernie wins the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion (still a dis­tinct pos­si­bil­i­ty) or takes his del­e­gates and forces a con­ven­tion fight over the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party’s plat­form, that plat­form will be the high­est pro­file list of ​“Left” demands in gen­er­a­tions. It will arouse the inter­est and sup­port of many thou­sands times more work­ing peo­ple than cur­rent­ly num­ber in our tiny move­ment. What those fresh­ly inspired poten­tial activists will need is to see a par­ty that they can join that will work past the elec­tion on win­ning those demands.

We have a his­toric oppor­tu­ni­ty in 2016. Shame on all of us if we don’t rec­og­nize the oppor­tu­ni­ty and cap­i­tal­ize on it.