What can we accomplish now? Where do we go from here? What will our political revolution look like in December 2016?

Bernie wants to start over from the ground up: elect progressive candidates starting at the local level. I admire his leadership in this endeavor and certainly will pay attention to all of the 'troops on the ground' who engage in heroic feats of victory.

But, this can't be enough. The planet doesn't have 50 years to wait for this movement to work its way to the presidency. Besides, for decades we have already tried this. Does this sound familiar: Our purpose is to elect more and better democrats? We might be able to get a handful of progressives in place (just enough to keep the left 'believing' that there is a chance). Otherwise, we will still be bullied, made to pull up our socks and get in line, and told how stupid we are.

So, while Bernie's plan can be a part of our revolution, it can't end there.

The second prong attack on the democratic status quo is also getting stronger. Jill Stein's platform is almost identical to Bernie's. Her numbers keep going up. If she polls at 15%, we get a place at the mic at the debate and she keeps our voices heard on national television prime time. At the very least, Hillary will need to remain to the left to try to capture those votes. But the greater good is that we are growing the Green party so that we can continue to push for progressive values going into the future.

We also need to Bern down the old system. We need to stop both Hillary and Trump. We need to keep either one from getting 270 electoral votes. By growing green and encouraging other third party supporters, we keep BOTH mainstream candidates out of the win.

There has been much discussion online about the procedure to cover this scenario.

What happens if no presidential candidate gets 270 Electoral votes? If no candidate receives a majority of Electoral votes, the House of Representatives elects the President from the 3 Presidential candidates who received the most Electoral votes. Each state delegation has one vote. The Senate would elect the Vice President from the 2 Vice Presidential candidates with the most Electoral votes. Each Senator would cast one vote for Vice President. If the House of Representatives fails to elect a President by Inauguration Day, the Vice-President Elect serves as acting President until the deadlock is resolved in the House.

This article argues that it would be impossible for a conservative third party to cause a republican congress to appoint the third party candidate (as the conservative 3rd party bleeds off Trump's votes and makes HRC the winner). However, the whole formula changes drastically if there are both a conservative AND progressive party bleeding votes from BOTH Trump and HRC.

So for all of our work to build the third parties, what do we get? Even the Republican congress might still appoint HRC as she represents the NEW republican party. So we still end up with one of the evils from somewhere. Here's what we get:

1. NO mandate! In other words, if the president is 'appointed' rather than 'elected', that president will have a huge chunk of the country saying "We did not elect him/her so you can't bully us into your wars, treaties, bailouts, schemes, and tricks!" Whatever candidate gets the Whitehouse he/she will need to continually get the consent of the governed -- it will not be automatic.

I, for one, am sick of hearing candidates claiming a mandate for whatever whim suits them.

And, hopefully, since any candidate would be unable to actually get anything done, we could start fresh in 4 years with totally new candidates.

2. It takes all of the 'scariness' away from both mainstream candidates. How can they be scary if they will not be able to accomplish anything?

3. Many pundits say this scenario would create a "constitutional crisis". Maybe that's exactly what we need. Bern it down! The two party system has a stranglehold on us. We need a new election system that allows for a broader spectrum of ideas. The 'lesser of two evils' continues to be evil.

I look forward to comments and arguments!