I will make a prediction - not too hard to make if you've been paying attention and watching the harbingers of what is about to occur.
There will be a Third Party, it will appear very soon, but it won't be a Labor Progressive Party. It will be a party that capitalizes on the frustration of "centrists" in both parties who will then divorce their far right( Tea Party) and far left (Progressive) flanks respectively. (Note, I don't believe that progressives are "far left". Only currently are they considered such when just a few years ago they were plain old vanilla pro-labor, pro-social justice Democrats).
Important pieces of the new Centrist Corporatist Party are becoming more evident everyday as are the linguistic framing devices and commentary prepping the ground for their arrival. I will lay the breadcrumbs for you to follow in the future and see if I am correct or not.
There’s been constant chattering of forming a Third Party with a Progressive slant for quite a while now from frustrated disappointed former Democrats like myself. But you expect that from pointy headed liberal purists who didn’t get their “ponies” like real healthcare reform and a return to the Rule of Law.
But lately, I’ve been picking up little snatches of Third Party rhetoric from unexpected places around the MSM. The other night I walked by the TV set and heard a talking head say (sorry, someone I didn’t recognize) that in case of default, voters will be mad at everyone and will collectively make the decision that the only thing they can do is vote out ALL incumbents regardless of Party as a punishment for precipitating the fiscal collapse of the country.
But, does that really address the problem? Even if all incumbents were voted out, wouldn't we still be left with the same 2 choices we always have? The disaffection of both the left and the right is certainly no secret and the rise of people registering as Independents as a show of their disdain for both parties has also certainly not gone unnoticed. So exactly who is going to make hay with this universal disaffection and alienation?
How about if the answer is the same people who always make hay and profit from any situation?
I had been wondering if these deficits ceiling talks do fail and the country does go down the tubes because of these nitwits, if there isn’t a framework in place with the "usual suspects" that were a big part of that problem, standing by and ready to jump in and profit on the power vacuum.
Filed away in the recesses of my memory has been the always intriguing yet illusive conundrum of the No Labels Party. No wait, they’re not a a Party, they’re a movement. But they don’t stand for anything in particular except being nice and non-partisan to each other. Here is their website.
http://nolabels.org
It’s actually very strange if you poke around. When you try to find out who’s affiliated with it, you have to inconveniently click on every picture. They make it a lot of work. Not user friendly. Read their positions about how they have no positions. But look how they’re already organizing and protesting to promote their non-positions. It is all very very weird.
I poke fun of George Will all the time, but he wrote a devastating description of this group that is well worth reading:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
My first time ever posting a George Will article. The Earth really is turning on it’s axis.
Anyway people who have been mention as being associated with No Labels are such various and sundry people such as Michael Bloomberg, Joe Scarborough, Charlie Crist, Evan Bayh, Joe Lieberman, and a slew of media and behind the scenes politicos. Think sane Republicans and DLC Third Way Blue Dog Democrats. Think status quo in-group with some newer faces to lend credibility that it's not just the same Pillsbury-Doughboys- Bad Hair Club for Men-types.
Now start watching for the media framing and prepping.
Start noticing the media chorus of how the system is dysfunctional, how both sides are intransigant, how both sides are unable to deal with the hard choices, how we need to find a post partisan alternative to the poisonous gridlock that exists today in Washington. How the problem is systemic How we have to rise above Party identity in order to save the country for (sob!) the grandchildren, even if it means undoing the New Deal and the Great Society. (Unspoken subtext - Even if it means shrinking the government and privatizing all functions of government, destroying all unions, all public education, all social safety net programs and turning those back where they belong - the private sector.)
Did I say all functions of government? Not all. The single most important function of government and the only reason to retain even the pretense of a democracy to these corporate usurpers is ta dah! TAXATION! They will still need a conduit through which to filter public dollars into private hands.
The drumbeat builds:
Here we have Jeff Greenfield in the Washington Post:
What happens to American politics if we default? Hello third party
The prose is uninspiring, but Greenfield makes it clear that the voting public blames both parties equally and rushes to embrace a 3rd Party.
Tom Friedman helpfully filled in another piece of the puzzle today in the New York Times: Make Way for the Radical Center
Please go read that article. This group is certainly going to bear some watching - Americans Elect. I wonder if their website name isn't an in joke or a Freudian slip - Americanselect.org. My first reading of that was American Select. Isn't it interesting that any candidate coming out of their process has to be "credible" and "be considered someone of similar stature to our previous presidents." And, they have to pick someone from the other Parties as their running mate.
Also today on Meet the Press we had Doris Kearns Goodwin with her Party of Rivals peptalk and Chuck Hegel (who actually used the phrase "World Order". Swear).and Cory Booker and Andrea Mitchell discussing ""is Washington Broken?". I listened to that discussion with my Third Party Promotion filter on. Check.
This is my tree falling in the forest diary about a "post-partisan" centrist (really far right) corporatist neoliberal neoconservative consortium becoming prominent and evident in the very near future.