essentially, Nick Brana blew it

2017: Movement for a Peoples Party.

The initiative was led by Bernie staffer Nick Brana. He really was full of energy for several years. I was concerned a successful Peoples Party with a left-of-Dem social democratic (Bernie-ish) ideology would swamp the Greens.

It could have. But third party politics in this country is really, really hard. One after another, they don’t fully understand that . . . Ted Glick, Ron Daniels, Ralph Nader, Rocky Anderson . . . and they stop persisting.

Nick Brana. The Cornel West fiasco of June 2023 seemed to be the nail in the coffin for MPP.

This was a particular failure because there was real potential circa 2017–2018 to harness the alternative energy of the Bernie movement.

In 1988 if Jesse Jackson had made a decision to break with the Dems we could have had a third party from the Rainbow Coalition energy. In 2017 if Bernie had signed on with Brana et. al. we could have had a third party emerge.

Well, Bernie didn’t, but a core group with some real talent might have done it. We could have seen half the energy go into DSA/AOC and half the energy into Our Revolution/Peoples Party.

The Greens dodged another bullet.

I assume a strong initiative in this country comparable to the Canadian New Democratic Party would have more resonance than the Greens. But now 2024 gives us another chance to get the soft left thinking about the Greens as the main enduring electoral alternative. And as time goes by and nothing else of significance emerges, our prospects look better and better.

2024: God bless Jill Stein.