Politics against the Duopoly
Both major political parties accept dark money, corporate money, and don't really care about representing the will of the people. Further my beliefs tend to be outside of the establishment of each of the parties. I am a Social and Economic Leftist, and Fiscal Moderate which makes me not really work in the established parties who are Liberal and Conservative respectively.
I have also struggled to find a minor/third party which I felt comfortable affiliating with. And of course there comes the issue of the logistics of being a political candidate. It isn't very likely to win an election, necessary to enact legislation for the working class, if you aren't the nominee of the Democrats or the Republicans. The best way for someone like myself to stand a chance of winning an election in the United States is for me to do the "Bernie Sanders Strategy". This being the practice of running in a political party primary to win, decline the nomination, and then run in the general election as an Independent (what he does in Senate elections).
But there is a problem with the Bernie Sanders Strategy, it is a unique quirk of law that allows Sanders to pull this off. Such a strategy is more difficult, more costly, or even impossible depending on the state. But one variation should be allowed in most states, but be difficult. One runs for and becomes the nominee of a major political party, wins the seat, and re-registers as an Independent or Minor/Third party member. Now, of course, to make this sustainable you need to be upfront with voters that you will be changing party affiliation.
Another thing though is that with the corruption of the major two political parties, I am not really willing to caucus with either of them. This would make the work of a legislator substantially harder, as in some states individual legislators don't receive staff, but rather the political caucuses have staff for their members. It would also likely result in receiving poor committee assignments, and to be out of the loop on certain issues. That said in West Virginia there is an interesting method by which a legislator would be required to have a rules committee appointment, and the treatment of the minority leader in a given legislative chamber.
You see, in addition to the Democratic and Republican parties, the Libertarian and Mountain (Green) parties are considered official political parties in West Virginia. This means (theoretically) if a Libertarian or Mountain party legislator chose to form a 1-person caucus they would be entitled to minority leader status and be granted automatically a seat on the Rules Committee. From this point that legislator could make arguments for more influence, and potentially be able to hire a small staff to assist them in their work.
While this strategy is one specifically detailed for West Virginia, I anticipate that similar methods are possible in other states. Now as I mentioned previously I am a registered Independent, and I have had reservations against affiliating with Third/Minor political parties. However to serve the people, and understanding that my grievances with the party are far fewer then those of the major political parties, I do believe I will be utilizing the Bernie Sanders strategy in addition to the minor party caucus theory, regardless of where life takes me, to run for office and serve the great people of the United States of America.
I do have an idea of which major party and minor party I will be affiliating with to do this, and I do agree with the vast majority of platform positions for each; I don't want to make public the parties at this point because I need to be truly committed to the party cause of the minor party. Because I don't want to do this just for the cynical practice of getting elected, but rather to be a true representative of the people rather than of corporations.
Have a great week.
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