Start a new political party, the 'American Progressive Majority'.

Two things.
One, I would get a gun and find a trustworthy community if I were a leftist or minority American.
As much as I despise guns, if shit gets Gilead bad, you'll probably be happy to have it.
As for community, if you don't have one yet, I would recommend joining either a socialist club or a progressive/traditional (i.e. not racist) Christian church. A black church (think MLK), or a pride flag flying liberal Church (think John Brown).
When Nazi's invaded my country, these were the two communities that actually resisted, by fighting back and helping people hide and escape. In times of slavery, socialism wasn't yet a thing, so the abolitionists and underground railroad people were progressive Christians. Jesus was the OG socialist and these communities live it.
- Just going to drop this here
  https://socialistra.org/
  https://youtu.be/w0ndPOs8Q1c
  
  Thanks for sharing.
  I just want to say one thing though. With drones, guns are no longer the big equalizers that they used to be.
  If you ever get in a standoff with government fascists, they will just use drones.
  I saw the videos of how Azerbeidzjan just totally obliterated heavily armed Armenian positions using Bayraktar drones.
  This shit is scary as fuck. I wouldn't be surprised if, within 25 years from now, 90% of the world is living under authoritarian regimes.
  Which is why I think being part of a very large community with solidarity among all members will be key.
  Any small group will just be labeled as terrorists and obliterated.
- Totally agree, and fucking thank you for the shout out about progressive Christians! Underground railroad, temperance movement, anti-war protests, civil rights, etc, progressive Christians have always been a driving force for good and that has totally gotten overshadowed by the evil of white evangelicals in recent years

These numbers are bullshit.
Who in their right mind actually believes Americans prefer gun control to: abortion care, legal weed, gay marriage, higher minimum wage, and home ownership.
Like regardless of what you or I want for America, that's an actual load of shit. Too many people love their guns, there's literally more guns than people here.
- There are more guns than people because people that own guns own multiple. And people that own a lot of guns own a loooot of guns. 29% of gun owners own five or more guns. It takes like 2 seconds to confirm this shit...
  
  Nearly half of all American households have a gun. 44% to be exact.
  If even a third of everyone in those households didn't want gun control (33% of 44% is a little over 14.5% total), then that statistic is wrong.
- Too many people love their guns, there's literally more guns than people here.
  Loving their guns and wanting better gun control laws aren't two opposite things you know. They can easily go hand in hand. See Canada to the north. Lots of guns, and better gun control laws.
  
  I've made an argument in favor of pretty much the most basic form of gun control, having a license that proves you know how to operate a firearm (kinda like you need a drivers license to prove you know how to drive a car). Even that gets push back. Whoever that mythical person is who is both loving guns and wanting better gun control laws, they're a minority of a minority.

I’m sad that trans rights aren’t on the list there, not surprised with how awful things are but still sad
- The only thing with majority support is a narrow majority thinking trans people should be allowed to be discriminated against overtly in jobs and public spaces (but those people also generally don't think forcing a women to use the men's restroom is discrimination). Few people will say they oppose protections against discrimination, but "neutrality" is just a polite way of supporting discrimination...
  
  Yeah it’s really sad how the world has almost turned fully against my people. Give it a few more months (at most) and the Democrats will have almost fully turned on my people. This country is a shithole and I hate it
- Ignore systemglitch, their comment history reveals clearly how pro-fascist they are. Which means they don't matter.
  Edit: lol be mad fascist. Every time you comment on someone being trans, on immigration, sanctuary cities, etc, you show exactly the piece of shit you are. We can all tell.
- I think you are thinking of bailing out the banks and auto industry.
  
  Oh yeah you're right. Lets put trans rights away for now so we don't make the right winger cry. /s
  Why do we always have to deal with right wingers with the utmost care and patience? Drag their crying asses into the future. Let them kick and scream and don't give them a finger.

That's not how you cite a source - the point of a citation is to allow the reader to trace, and evaluate, the source of a claim, and the methodology used to arrive there. I get that it's impractical to do a full bibliography, but the way this poster just 'cites' a bunch of organizations without tracing specific claims to specific publications detracts from the argument. We should be better than the enemy who make claims and respond with "do your own research" when challenged. Part of the reason why we're in this mess is because we stopped supporting, or trusting, the process behind evidence-based science. If we make these claims, can't we link to a site that lists the actual papers behind the claims? Otherwise this whole stuff is vulnerable to the argument that "this is a radical left delusion and fake news". Fascist propaganda shouldn't be resisted in kind, that just drags us down to their level.
- Agreed. As much as I want to believe this post, it would be great to site the source below each claim.

Ok but now is not a good time to disarm
- The working class must never disarm. Post jan 6th and George floydd and people still have yet to learn that no one will protect us but ourselves. How delusional of me to think anything will ever drive this point home in people's frightened minds.
  It would be nice to have some reforms, but that's not what anti gun people want. They want everything. We could pass reforms and somebody will shoot up some gun free zone and people will be back to take more. It's a never ending circle that only stops at fully stripping the right to own a firearm completely. Some aren't even ashamed to admit it.
  My body, my choice in how to protect it. Prisons are gun free, prisoners have very few rights. Yet rape / violence in prisons are a running joke everyone enjoys repeating. I will not be a prisoner.
  Good luck to OP with their party but I want no part of it. Plus they aren't in favor of legalizing all drugs so you support the police state's right to continue to ruin lives and shoot people for fun with no repercussions. Not to mention the lives lost from tainted unregulated drugs of a unknown potency. Oh and nothing on replacing First-past-the-post voting so we can have more then two parties? Super hard pass. We'd only be 3-4 generations before the capitalist class captures this political party as well. If not less.
  If only we could join a commune that best reflects each of our values. OP could be completely unarmed in their commune and mine would have nukes cause humans are psychotic hairless apes that only respect one thing. Overwhelming violence.
  SocialistRA.org
  
  So much this. I support nearly everything on this proposed new party's list except the gun control items. I seriously doubt only 27% of Americans own a gun. I know more than a few Democrats who own not just one, but multiple firearms. Including aSsAuLt rifles. And the 90% support for tougher gun laws? There has to be a very serious conversation about what that looks like.
  As for a ceasefire for the war in Gaza... It's terrible so many innocent civilians are being killed, but Hamas started this most recent war. They are also well known to use civilians as human shields. Finally, they will never stop their attacks until Israel no longer exists. Even during the most recent ceasefire, Hamas was focused on building more weapons so they could continue their attacks: https://english.aawsat.com/features/5123487-what-are-hamas-military-options-gaza-war-resumes
  According to the sources, Hamas' military wing had hoped the ceasefire would last longer, allowing it to resume producing rockets, explosive devices, and other weaponry. However, efforts were severely limited due to a shortage of raw materials.
  The only way to truly "free Palestine" is to rid them of Hamas, or at least shift their focus to supporting their own people and governing Gaza instead of waging jihad.
- I think I misunderstood your comment. I was thinking it wasn't time to figuratively disarm the Democratic party....
- If not now when? When is a revolution ever at a good time. The Democrats have been "waiting" for 20 plus years ...
  
  When we can guarantee that never again will Nazis rule over us. When their ideas are universally reviled by every living soul. When every last Nazis is dead dead dead.
  Then get rid of the guns.
  
  A revolution without guns?

it's wild that only 55% of you guys want a fairer health care system
- It’s because the phrase “Medicare for all” has been propagandized. If you instead asked if people wanted “affordable medical treatment and preventative care for themselves and others”, I’m sure that number would be much higher.
- There are a lot of special-interest items on the list, and for those things people aren't going to feel any risk to themselves by saying sure let's fix this or that. But for healthcare, which directly affects them, they could be more like, "I'm surviving the way it is, don't monkey with it."
- About 70% of Americans are overweight or obese, why should healthy people be penalized more because of them?
  
  You already are.
  That's how insurance works.
  
  Penalized... how? Do you think overweight people getting healthcare harms you somehow?
  
  Because of something called the social contract.
  But I guess you think you are so young and healthy that you will never grow old or becoming unhealthy.
  What an egoistic shit take BTW.
  
  You've heard of an ouroboros?

I agree with almost all of these but some of these numbers were definitely pulled out of someone’s ass
- It certainly doesn't seem to be reflected by the results of the election.
  
  It doesn't show what issues people prioritize. MAGA focused on getting people angry about migrants and threw gas on the flames with false information to the point where their fear/hate for migrants mattered to them more than any of these issues listed above.
  They voted for not getting raises, getting taxed more, prices going up, and damaging the earth itself while hurting our alliances around the world all to address the "issue of migrants."
  So what really happened is the number of people that the U.S. "repatriated" (deported) looked like it skyrocketed during the final months of Trump's 1st presidency, but in reality both Biden and Obama's administrations were deporting people around the same rates, Biden actually doing the most by far. The spike came from returning people do to COVID. Which is why it looks like Biden was deporting a lot in the beginning as well.
  ICE says in the first 7 weeks of Trump's presidency, they have deported 27,000 migrants. Which would be 16,000/month.
  So that would be 30% of the 55,000/monthly average we saw previously. So not only are we wrecking out relations with other countries, they were removing people at an extremely inefficient way.
- Especially the one about same sex marriage!

AOC and Bernie are tearing up things! Support them everywhere! Especially on social media.
- Hopefully they leave the Democrats and start and actual leftist party. Otherwise their impact will be limited.
  
  Given how the American political system works, I think their impact would be even more limited if they did not work within the Democratic Party. I think the only hope for a real national progressive/leftist party is to takeover and co-opt the Democratic Party, much like Trump did with the Republican Party.
- Yeah they suddenly found some principles now that the other team is in power. Seems legit. \s

I don't believe e any of these numbers.
- You're free to look them up if you care.
  
  You’re free to look them up if you care.

70% couldn't ve bothered voting knowing it meant democracy's end
Good intentions are important Americans, but you cannot make the world a better place just by having good intentions and navel gazing

90% of the US don't want more gun control laws. As a percentage that would be saying that every state in the US except Texas wants more gun laws ... it's not right.
I consider myself liberal, but would never support taking away someone's rights. Own all the guns and even a fucking tank if you want ... but you will go to jail if you harm someone with them.
We were given the right to have firearms for the exact situation that is happening now.
- I think most people, including "moderate" Republicans, have polled in favor of regulations that make it easier to catch criminals and prevent people convicted of violent crimes from buying guns.
  The firearms lobbyists have prevented this, and politicians conflate normal regulations with the "Obama is coming to take your guns" threat for easy political support.
  If we could get people to believe reasonable regulations are possible and not get distracted by the fear mongering we would actually have better laws.
  But as it stands, conservatives believe the Republicans and Trump are protecting them from liberals stealing their guns. And this is despite Trump saying ‘Take the guns first, go through due process second’
  Le-sigh
  
  politicians conflate normal regulations with the "Obama is coming to take your guns" threat for easy political support
  Democrats do make this rather easy with bullshit like 'assault weapon' bans
  
  Nah. My state has no gun regulations once purchased. There is a background check to look for felonies, but then that is it. No license, no concealed carry permit.
  If you don't want someone to carry a firearm in my area then you put up a metal detector, because a sign can't stop people from carrying. It is really kind of "Wild West".
  
  The fact that we have an opposite quote for everything that comes out of the Orange's mouth is pretty hilarious to me.
- The whole gun control should be formulated as „sane regulation of gun ownership and sales“. Focusing on illegal guns instead of law abiding gun owners might be a good choice as well. Assault weapons ban and similar are ineffective window dressing policies.
  
  Yes, exactly! Now is not the time to be pushing gun control laws. Now is the time to remind people what the Second Ammendment was meant for.
  If ICE comes to your door and you are a legal citizen then you just tell them they are trespassing and need to leave. If they won't leave then they have magically been converted to armed criminals on your property.
- “Gun control” comes in many forms: the tracking another user mentioned; requiring continuing education or training courses every so often; ensuring that people with histories of violent or suicidal behavior and/or people who have been identified by a certain number of community members as poor candidates for gun ownership (no idea if this is a popular notion, but I would not have wanted 4/5 of the people I knew who later committed violent crimes with guns to have been allowed to own them, and mutual acquaintances have agreed with me that they were not stable/safe people, and it’s always seemed like a good idea, as long as there are safeguards in place to prevent bullying and other abuse) aren’t allowed to own guns; and in some parts of the country, requiring a gun license for using long guns are all forms of gun control. It’s not hard to imagine that 90% of Americans support one of those at least.
- but you will go to jail if you harm someone with them.
  So after the suicidal maniac goes on a killing spree at the local elementary school and wipes out a chunk of the next generation, then you send them to jail (and take their guns away? You didn't clarify that part)
  Guns are a hobby. They should be a privilege you earn, and one you have to work to keep (don't get in trouble with the law, keep your registration up to date, etc).
  The solution to our current situation isn't to go out and kill people, it's to fight legal battles and go out and vote when the time comes. A civil war doesn't guarantee we'll end up with the country you want even if the MAGA army is crushed. It's going to cause immense death and destruction, and it will open us up to attack from our adversaries. It will almost certainly ruin your life, mine, and everyone you know and love.
  But even IF a real civil war is inevitable, getting guns and fighting won't be a challenge. Trump has very few allies in the rest of the world, but democracy does. NATO would not just sit and watch while a nuclear power goes through such a destabilizing event, especially when Trump's ties to Putin are so well known.
  
  Your statement is false. Guns are NOT a privilege in the US. They are a constitutional right. Full stop. I didn't even read the rest of your post

Democracy seems to be broken in the US if this is true
- USA is not considered a “full democracy” outside of the USA itself. It does not rank particularly highly on indexes of democracies either.
- This is by design, the US election system was built to prevent "tyranny of the majority". Which makes sense in theory, but it would make more sense if it was also backed by a government structure like a parliamentary republic with proportional representation instead of a presidential republic.
  
  Can you elaborate? Tyrany of the majority is as such democracy, if you have an opposing opinion
- Just First-past-the-post voting things

Clearly people aren't voting the same way they're answering surveys. I don't see how forming a new party will make that happen.
- Yeah, I observe the same thing here in The Netherlands. In theory, democracy should work best for the working class majority. In practice, people somehow tend to vote for something not in their own self interest.
  Wonderful example is the area where I live, our town shares a border with a Belgian town. Most people do groceries on one side of the border, go to the bar on the other side. In essence, we operate as one town that happens to be in two countries. Ask anyone in the street if they are open to a "Nexit" from the EU, most will say a hard: "No".
  Then look at the election results, the party in favor of a Nexit became the largest party, also in the town I live. It's wild that people vote different to what they believe in. If you then ask them: why did you vote for this party, because it contrasts your earlier answer. People will say: "Yeah, but it won't come to that". Then I look at Brexit and it's exactly how that cluster fuck happened.
  My brain simply cannot process this idiocracy.
  
  I think the key is the term "informed electorate". As Trump said, "I love the uneducated!"
- Yeah, that’s a very succinct way to put it.

Maybe more of us should own guns right now.
- I got some. I’m not good with letting those ghouls be the only armed ones

The 2 biggest demographics of growing gun owners are women of color and trans people.
The idea that we should disarm the working class to further concentrate weapons in the hands of militarized forces who are known for abusing their power with impunity is just moronic.
I think the 50501 movement is more tepid centrist neo liberalism and thats the last thing we need here. We need real leftism. You dint fight the far rught with the right leaning center you fight it with leftism. And karl marx one of the fathers of modern leftist thinking said it best/“ any attempt to disarm the workers should be frustrated by force if necessary” the government acting like a nanny state and prohibiting things deemed dangerous by those at the top is never effective. Drugs and alcohol prohibition onky made things worse except for those profiting from exploiting prohibition
- Yes, Dems need to give up on gun control. My wife and I are lifeling Dems and just bought each other handguns and range time for valentines day. We feel we will be needing guns
  
  As an American the idea of living somewhere where gun violence isn't part of the background noise of society sounds idyllic. But the cops have guns and are all too gleeful to use them. And the neonazis and right wing militias are armed to the teeth. And so I should have a gun too so there's a chance that some of them face consequences.
  But we need to remember what our aim is when it's all done because guns did help us get here
  
  Gun control doesn't mean no access to guns. Things like violent offenders or people who have been medically determined to be unfit not being able to buy guns counts as gun control. If you think it should be illegal for domestic abusers to own firearms, you are for gun control. Now, you may not think there is an effective way to have proper gun control and not affect your freedoms, but that's a different thing.
- The way it works in the UK - very well by the way - is that simply being caught with a gun is enough to get you thrown in the slammer. Consequently crims don't go around armed, and for the most part the police don't need to be armed either. It was a real shock to me the day I walked through Heathrow and there was a pair of armed officers walking around; I think that's the first and only time (off-screen) I've ever seen a gun. If the police need armed backup then they have to call for a specially trained squad.
  The only other armed units are the Services. We don't have any "militarised forces that abuse their power", afaik.
  Guns for sports are allowed but there are extremely strict regulations around them.
  Shootings here are extremely rare. Of course they still happen, no solution is 100%, but it's close, and a hell of a lot closer than the bizarre American fetish that the ultimate solution to gun violence is more guns and more guns and more guns, absolutely flying in the face of all the facts.
  That Onion article entitled "No way to solve this, says the only country with this problem" is spectacularly on point.
  
  Extremely strict regulations means the rich can have them freely and poors have to jump through multiple hurdles.
  The working class should never be disarmed.

Only a little more than half support Medicare for all? Is this a terminology issue, or are 45% of Americans that terrible?
- Sadly there's this idea that Americans are being taxed to death, when in reality not so much.
  People don't understand that while we'd pay maybe hundreds more in taxes to fund Single Payer, we'd pay THOUSANDS less in healthcare costs, so we still come out ahead
  
  They also don't understand the "they" part. People who don't support, or at least those I've met, don't understand that "they" doesn't mean the government per se. It means you. The individual. You pay more in health care because of defaults on payments. Because of so many other things. The cost of that gets passed on to you. The individual.
  People get stuck in the "I got mine" mentality. They don't see the bigger picture. "Why should I pay for someone else's health care!" is what I commonly hear. My dude, you already do. When you point this out. When you give the stats. They usually shut down and it's"
  10 "Why should I pay for someone else's health care!"
  20 goto 10
  People just can't seem to grasp the wider picture. I'm not sure they want to. Any issue that requires a wider picture sees the same response. Default to previous operation. Repeat operation.
  "Oh no! She's stuck in an infinite loop and he's too stupid to realize it." - Professor F
  
  But I'm not sick or injured right now, so it won't benefit me at this exact second in time, so why would I want this?
  Plus my unstable career, where I'm treated as a number rather than a human, is currently paying for my health insurance. So I don't need any government handouts thankyou very much.
  Yeah, checkmate commie.
  
  Not to mention which taxpayers the funding would come from, if someone who would actually implement M4A got into power. We likely wouldn't be paying any more at all.
- TL;DR people are not good with money. There is no point is arguing finances with people that do not know basic math.
  So what the conversation devolves to is "stable" vs "experimental" and very few people will choose to be experimental with their health.
  The best way to shift favor would be for it to be required to show the cost of insurance on every check (it is currently a hidden fee). This way, when "hooman see big number" removed from gross pay they may reconsider.
- I look forward to being taxed less when we kill off private insurance.

This is a better platform than the Dems provided in 2024. Upvoted and cross-posted.

Be all that as it may, but sweet fuck all percent of you actually vote, so what difference will it make?
- I have been having arguments with idiots telling me "not voting isn't inaction" or "the lesser of two evils" is how we got to where we are now
  No. Not voting is literally doing nothing. You are helping their voter suppression efforts. And we got here not because of "the lesser evil" getting worse over time but because historically we only have 40-50% voter turnout for the last few decades.
  Democrats have shifted more conservative because progressives hardly vote. I say that as a progressive. If it wasn't true then Bernie would have won the primary, but he had a ton of support from young voters and then younger voters only had like 10-15% turnout.
  
  Its more nuanced than that. Democrats actively fucked over Bernie. You're right that voting is the bare minimum action required, but you're wrong in that the "lesser evil" is exactly how we've gotten here.
- None of this was an option in the voting booth. Genocide Joe didn’t do shit about any of this and kamalacaust promised the exact same thing.
  People here talk about republicans being delusional but the dems are just as bad.

I think you need to somehow get money out of politics or these majorities will continue to be divided.
- I think you need to somehow get money out of politics
  How do broke people have the time or resources to organize at the national level?
- Which will never happen unless at least 1 of the 2 major parties is co-opted and taken over by people who specifically want to eliminate Citizen's United, put a strong, enforceable cap on private political donations, and block corporations from donating to campaigns.
  A 3rd party is never going to be successful enough to accomplish any, let alone all of that. Republicans will never get money out of politics because it benefits them too much. It hurts the Democratic Party overall, but it directly benefits the Vichy wing of collaborationists leading the party, so they won't back campaign finance reform unless the Democratic Party is wholly overtaken.

Only 69% support same sex marriage? That seems low.
- It's not. 67% of the US identify as Christian. 44% of the population is Protestant and 22% Catholic.
  It's honestly a miracle these numbers aren't lower. The bible says a marriage is between a man and a woman, but also to give to the poor, disabled, and orphaned. Ironically, both liberal and conservative Christians have to reject a lot of the bible to be consistent with their political beliefs. Being 'Christian' these days seems to have more to do with what parts of the bible you don't believe in than what parts you do.
  
  The bible doesn't say marriage is between a man and a woman. In fact, the bible doesn't even say much about male homosexuality, and it says nothing about lesbian relationships. And it doesn't even say a lot about marriage at all.
  You can take away from the bible that male homosexuality is sinful. It says enough to draw that conclusion. So for those Christians who try to read the Bible as an instruction manual - fair enough.
  But it also says slavery is OK, which is why the very religious confederates fought a war to keep slavery.
  For actual Christians who profess to follow the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles, accepting homosexuals is quite similar to rejecting slavery.
  In both cases, the appeal is to the higher morality of the primary commandments (love God and love your neighbor) instead of trying to justify wickedness against the weak with an appeal to scripture - which is what the Pharisees did and what Jesus condemned.

Our entire US system is set up to make it so that it is essentially (literally) impossible for a third party to win. This article gives a decent basic overview of why: https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4947662-why-a-third-party-presidential-candidate-can-never-win/
- How we vote is controlled at the state level. We don't need federal reform to change how we count votes to make 3rd parties able to participate without a spoiler effect.
  Alaska has passed these reforms, so can your state. Unless of course your state representatives don't support democracy.
  
  Alaska is better than the rest of the country in that regard for sure. Not sure it is good enough to fix the problem entirely but definitely definitely better than how the rest of the country does it and certainly worth watching to see how it impacts things. Article did not mention more 3rd party representation but even just the racial/ gender balancing is a big improvement
  
  as long as you don't start passing anti FPTP voting laws in democratic states first, you'll be fine, you do it in democratic states and you lose votes, overwhelmingly.
- I am glad my state somewhat backs is claim of being independent by keeping RCV. Still voted for trump though, but at least that's something besides laying down for the party that tells us we are to stupid for ranked choice
- It's set up so that three parties can't be viable simultaneously, but which two are viable does change periodically.
  
  Not really. Looking at the presidential races, we have:
  1788-1792: George Washington
  1796-1816: Democratic-Republican v Federalist. Other than the 1796 election, a Democratic-Republican won every presidency.
  1820-1824: Democratic-Republican v Democratic-Republican - Monroe ran away with 80% popular vote and 218/232 electors in 1820. In 1824, the Democratic-Republican splintered into 4 factions netting a total 97% of the popular vote.
  1828-1832: Democratic v National Republican. Notably, this is really a splintering of the Democratic-Republican party.
  1836 - 1852: Democratic v Whig - I'll give you this one. After a 40 year run, the Federalists were replaced by the Whigs
  1856 - Present: Democratic v Republican - And 20 years after that, the Whigs were replaced by the Democratic party
  There has been a couple of strong showings by third parties since then, but for the most part, US politics has been Democrats vs Republicans since 1856.
  Congress followed a very simmilar tragectory.
  In short, of today's current 2 political parties, one of them goes all the way back to Washington stepping down, and the other one showed up in the first 70 years. Both parties survived the Civil War.
  During the time since 1856, there has been several massive political realignments, but the two parties remain dominant.
  
  I mean, last time there was a a President or control of a house of Congress from a different party was in the 1850's so I wouldn't say periodically. It has happened but it is very rare and hasn't happened in a very very long time. At this point those people saying that primaries of the current two parties are the only real way to invoke change are correct. It is far far far more effective to try to take over a primary and get a Republican or Democrat that are RINO or DINO than it is to get enough support for a third party candidate. For that to work you basically have to find someone that is more appealing to conservatives than a Republican, more appealing to Democrats than a democrat AND you have to overcome the massive funding/ name recognition/ trust (this part is getting way easier lately) in the old two.

I agree with every single one of those except for the taking away my guns part. The second amendment is vitally important for the exact reason of what we are going through right now: the overtaking of the US government by oppressive fascists.
- It doesn't say anything about taking away guns. It says gun control laws. These often include things like a waiting period to purchase a gun if you don't have your concealed weapons license. Or bans on people owning guns if they have previous convictions for assault/battery.
  The first they try to do to prevent crimes of passion. Basically if someone finds out their spouse is cheating on them and they find out, they don't walk into a pawn shop, walk out immediately with a gun go shoot the person they cheated with, their spouse and then themselves. Instead the hope is that they walk into the pawn store, buy the gun, they tell them they can come back in 5 days and pick it up. And hopefully in 5 days they will have calmed down enough they have found a better way to deal with the situation. States like Florida had these rules for handguns because they are easier to conceal while shotguns and rifles you could walk out with same day. Desantis I believe changed the gun laws recently though, so idk what they are anymore. I've bought guns in Florida and Tennessee, and I always thought laws like that were reasonable.
  
  Waiting periods are ineffective, especially against their other supposed use, suicide prevention. The likelihood of suicide (in the applicable suicidal people) is highest the day the sale completes and remains elevated for months. Besides, everyone has a bottle of [redacted] at home and a [redacted] within 5min of their house they can go to, and that second method is more effective than guns actually. (Redacted because suicide ain't cool kids, seek professional help if you're considering.) Also they don't significantly impact crimes of passion, if the guy can't get a gun he can still go OJ on them as well, and then there's the whole "he probably still wants to kill them next week if he wants to today" thing. It can help those instances, but often it doesn't. And though you mentioned it (which is rare), afaik all states that have them do so on all applicable gun purchases not just first time which is clearly ridiculous, if someone already has one the waiting period is useless. Furthermore it can also actively cause harm, think for instance a woman escaping her abusive husband and taking the kids to her mom's. If he has guns or even just a bat, and she has nothing but police 11+ min away (natl avg response time to emergencies), she may need a gun to stop her soon to be ex from family annihilating like Chris Benoit, and artificial waiting periods (artificial because it's not that they do additional background checking, the NICs clears and then your 3-10d wait begins) could prevent her from doing so and allow the husband to murder them.
  Previous convictions already do come into play, but only felonies or misdemeanor domestic violence convictions. Frankly that's sorta fair (except I don't think non-violent felons should be barred, actually). I want to agree because assault and battery sounds bad even at the misdemeanor level, but in reality that could be anything from "beats Asian people up for fun" (looking at you Mark Wahlberg, he prob shouldn't have one) to "spit on a cop one time while blacked out." Like, yeah, spitting on cops is bad and stuff, but I don't think it's bad enough to warrant loss of rights for life, and I say that as a (not cop) that has been spit on, fuck that guy forever but he should still keep his rights, we were kids, we fought it out, it's fine. Both of those count as assault, for instance.
- I mean realistically what is you owning a gun gonna do against a drone strike or whatever other tech the military has? The only way a revolution happens in the modern day is if the military lets it. I can definitely see the value in guns for protection against paramilitary groups trying to go after people but beyond that guns aren't gonna stop the US government from doing fascist stuff if the military is on their side.
  Edit: Also at a certain point if you're actively fighting and resisting against the government getting access to guns even if they are illegal isn't gonna be the biggest problem you have.
  
  I mean realistically what is you owning a gun gonna do against a drone strike or whatever other tech the military has?
  All of that tech is reliant on logistics. People in trucks, moving stuff from where it is, to where it will be used.
  With guns, that logistics network is vulnerable.
  The Russians spent 10 years fighting Afghan resistance, and lost. The US spent 20 years fighting Afghan resistance, and lost. The American civilian populace is much better equipped than Afghani fighters ever were. Any forceful defeat of the American populace will require civil disarmament.
  
  guerilla warfare is still helped by having weapons and is probably still somewhat effective against a military that doesn't want indiscriminate slaughter of civilians.
  
  Untrained unequipped combatants in the Middle East have killed over 20,000 US soldiers in the last 25 years so not sure your point stands
  
  Could I get the right to bear nukes?
  
  How did Afghanistan turn out?
  
  Yes the ukranians should just give up their guns too, since they're useless against FPVs and GRADS right? I mean, c'mon, Russia has BMPs, what're you gonna do with your AK?
  /that one cool S.
- The second amendment is vitally important for the exact reason of what we are going through right now: the overtaking of the US government by oppressive fascists.
  And yet, from outside USA looking in, I can clearly see that the moment has come and passed without a single gun owner doing anything. Keep polishing I guess.
  
  From the inside looking out I’d say everyone is still in disbelief and denial that things are as bad as they truly are and that is the reason for the lack of action. And I don’t think it’s too late.
- You're going to hand over your guns without making a fuss the microsecond that the gestapo knock on your door, and you know it.
  
  Absolutely officer, that's all the guns.
  
  The liberal gestapo or the conservative one?

Such a party should have rejecting corporate/foreign/etc money as part of its platform. Also candidates should be barred from owning stock.
- Too many people have 401k for no stock ownership to make sense.
  
  There are still the sellout parties for those people.
  
  They could roll it over into commodities or bonds.

Drop the anti-gun arguments; they aren't based on reality.
- It's a lot easier to unite people if we have a cohesive plan for what happens after we win.
  
  Agreed.
  With all the pushback against those anti-gun arguments, it should be obvious that including them is an impediment to "cohesion".

Then why didn't they fucking vote for it?
- Because people don't vote on policy, they vote on personality and vibes. It's how it's always been. This list of policies is (mostly) just a copypasta of the Democratic platform. But people have never voted that way. The Democrats put forth the crypt keeper, then replaced him with one of the most boring public speakers to come out of the Democratic Party in a generation. And they were running against someone who is a horrific fascist, yes, but also has stage presences and charisma and knows how to play to an audience. As much as he's one of the worst people on the planet, Trump knows how to make himself entertaining to watch.
  That's what drives votes for politically disengaged people who don't pay attention to politics until the middle of October every 4 years. They listen to who is more entertaining and pretend like that candidate is telling them what they want to hear, regardless of whether or not he is.
  
  This list of policies is (mostly) just a copypasta of the Democratic platform.
  Not in this universe
  
  Either this poll is wrong or people just didn't vote hard enough. I hope it's the latter
- Because none of this was an option. Genocide Joe didn't do shit about any of this and kamalacaust promised the exact same thing.
  
  So instead the better choice was to vote for or tacitly support by not voting against, the enthusiastic genocide proponent?
  If you live in a first past the post system it makes sense to vote for harm reduction.
  If you are fortunate enough to live in a proportional representation system there is no reason to compromise.

Then fucking vote like it
- Yup. Vote for a turd taco or a shit sandwich. That's all we get the choice for anymore.

https://xkcd.com/927/
- Lol. This was exactly what I was going to post.

You'd want to avoid using the word 'progressive' because it's already become a shorthand.
People will vote against things they want (ACA) over terms they hate (Obamacare).

I appreciate and agree with the sentiment, but I think a call to form an entirely new political party demonstrates a naivety with regards to how the American political system works. It's just not going to happen. A third party will NEVER displace one of the two major parties without massive changes to the electoral system that would likely require a Constitutional Amendment.
Our system and political culture is just not structured to allow for 3rd parties. What's more, the 2 major parties have ingrained themselves into the system so much that they have MASSIVE institutional advantages over a 3rd party.
This will never be a successful effort. I think a better goal would be to co-opt and take over the Democratic Party, booting out all the Vichy collaborationists like Schumer, Jefferies, Newsom, Adams, Pelosi, etc, and remaking the party.
With a new 3rd party, best case scenario is it has 0 impact. If it does get any votes, it'll just divide the anti-fascist vote with the Democrats (and any other 3rd parties) making it even more difficult to win.
- "Democracy will just never work, the king won't allow it"
  
  That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying play the game to win. Don't start with a losing strategy.
  
  I mean, this but unironically. What happens when your elected representatives are stripped of their political authority? What point is there in going through the motions of a vote when an appointee or a lifetime judge can overrule it? How much power do democracies have in a society that's been privatized and commodities to the Nth degree?
- It's difficult, not impossible.
  I actually did an in-depth analysis of this over here in lemmy.world/c/progressivepolitics.
  TL;DR version:
  It would take roughly 1.1 million signatures to get on the ballot in every single state. That's just .05% of registered voters.
  It would require building a local infrastructure to support state ballot access, but it's doable. There's a void in state and local politics that progressive candidates can fill, and if there's a unified party organization backing them, there's a real opportunity to take the ground the the democrats have surrendered.
- Is it naïveté, anymore, if we keep having to reiterate this fundamental facet of our political structure going on 3 decades, now?
  
  Naïveté or willful ignorance. Either way, a new 3rd party won't accomplish anything useful.

If that's true why did the majority let the minority lead the way, are they dumb?
- Yes. Americans are fucking stupid.
  The RNC and GOP claim to hold every position on every stance and talk about outcomes which will never come from the policies they actually write. The American Public doesn't know jack shit about policies or vote history.
  So the GOP consistently outnumber the DNC every year for over 10 years. Even when DNC pick majority leader it has been because of caucusing Independents.
  You can just keep winning if you just keep lying.
- If you just vote for the individual policies we say we want in this poll, then you're throwing your vote away!
- Because none of this was an option. Genocide Joe didn’t do shit about any of this and kamalacaust promised the exact same thing.
  I voted for Cornell West in a state where my vote doesn't matter for shit. So yeah people can vote for this stuff but they're just "throwing their vote away".

Me% would love it if everyone were able to attend higher education. History gets sugarcoated in grade school. Once you make it to college, you get to learn all the good stuff.
- Also, c'mon! Everyone in my community pays at least $10,000.00 a year in taxes but somehow that's not enough to patch up all the holes on the road.
- I'll be real with you, in depth WWII history should be taught in high school, as well as political spectrums like dictatorships. Where I'm from, I saw images of concentration camp victims when I was 15, in class. I saw how starved they were in pictures and in videos. Saw the piles of clothes, shoes, tooth fillings, etc. Saw the camps themselves and Hitler speeches that we studied. We were presented the US anti-propaganda film, "Don't Be A Sucker" as well to home in how dangerous dictator cult speeches are.
  It did affect me a lot to learn about these things and the harsh reality of human cruelty, but it was also a good lesson to ingrain in us kids. Repeating this is a worse nightmare than being educated about it. I'm always shocked when I meet Americans that got the bare minimum education on WWII with 0 understanding of the how it happened. It's actually shocking.
  
  Yes, exactly. We should do this. All I'm adding is that anyone that goes to higher education...people who can become leaders with a lot of intellectual power....engineers, scientists, etc.... That they should known not to allow their knowledge to be misused for war purposes, for cruelty or for giving a single person the keys to everything.
- Maybe the actual solution is not lying to and brainwashing children.
  
  But my brainwashing is the right way! /$

I'm not sure if people too lazy to vote in a primary to get progressive candidates on the ballot are going to put in the immense amount of effort to create a new political party.

I believe this will achieve exactly nothing. The whole system is rigged against the people, neither the republicans nor the democrats (aside from a few sore thumbs) work for the interest of the people. And you can bet you're bottom dollar if there ever was a new political party the democrats and republicans will work hand-in-hand to prevent this new party from taking power.

Meh, I'm guessing there already is some small party that ticks all those boxes. I'm guessing independents, or some random party could win certain local races if the Dem and Rep are both very unpopular, and the media gives them air time (that may be hard). Unfortunately, I don't think the next presidential election will be valid election, and I don't think the state-level elections in red states will be valid either. Having other parties can be useful for getting messaging out (again, if the media gives them air-time), but the country looks like it's going full fascist, which will probably need mass direct action, or war, to unseat.

Any party that tries to be created with populism but ignores the materialist analyist of how we got to this point and how to combat reactionary thinking and regressivism (which is conservatism, which is why its a universal flaw) will only fall to the same tactics and pitfalls that have led us to this division in the first place. We need a true worker's parry that understands that division of power and group interests lay on class lines (capitalists vs workers) and not on any of the manufacturered scapegoat ones. Progressive ideas are popular yes, but they need to come with actual systematic analysis or they will just morph into right-wing populism through lack of critical thinking and bad actors.

Too bad the dems have co-opted and derailed all of these issues.

If only we had a progressive Senator and Congresswoman to lead this new party.

Can working families be that?
Wfp

If there are so many people thinking this way, then where are they? Where are the mass protests about rights being trampled, services being taken away and converted into money for the rich?

Aside from everything else, only 55% want universal healthcare and only 76% want higher minimum wages? That seems surprisingly low. I would think that everyone would want higher wages - starting from the lowest paid...

I think we should be making the dems fear us too.
Shooting ceos and burning tesla seems to be the only way to get heard now. I don't want to advocate for violence, but when I see dems being friendly with Republicans it fills me with dispare and hopelessness, they are the most well equipped people to do something and they treat it like another day in the office. I was so mad when Harris shook trump's hand like 'to bad about the peasants, but good game!'
I am not stupid enough to think both sides are the same, but they are not really different either.
Edit: and so people don't think I am signaling out Harris, I was pissed off when Walz said he could friends with Vance. Of course that fat cancerous blob of shit could be friends with the neo monarchist.
- Not fixing it. She doesn't deserve the effort.

I'm not sold on this 3rd party idea. I think that's what it's going to take, but I dunno.
I just want a universal basic income, medicare for all, an end to trickle down economics, and everyone gets a free puppy or kitten. I don't think any 3rd party that supports of that would get traction because everyone who lacks empathy will make sure that doesn't happen.

And yet you all vote for two right wing parties if you even go.

Then why did most Americucks voted for old orange fart?
- Most didn't. Only ~23% of the population voted for him.