[Peace-discuss] What will the People's Party offer?

[J.B. Nicholson]

I wrote:
> Does anyone have any specific and sourced information on what Brana's effort is 
> promoting?

In summary: I have something of an answer here, the most I think anyone could have on 
this until they run candidates. Not much has changed since my earlier post but things 
might be reasonably read as slightly worse for not doing a better job clarifying the 
details.



Here's the detailed version:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Mvveu4jxJAk is Nick Brana's latest interview with 
Jimmy Dore.

Prior to the above clip of Jimmy Dore's live show, 2020 Democratic Party presidential 
candidate Marianne Williamson said she was "politically homeless". She made this 
comment to Jimmy Dore just after the self-styled progressives of "the squad" 
unanimously failed to withhold their vote for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. 
They all voted for Pelosi and as a result Pelosi will end up retiring as Speaker, the 
person who decides which bills come to the floor of the House. Pelosi is a firm 
opponent of Medicare for All. Therefore Pelosi will prevent Rep. Jayapal's Medicare 
for All bill from coming to the floor for a vote. But that's presumably okay with 
Jayapal because Jayapal voted for Pelosi too (per 
https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2021/1/3/167/house-section/article/h2-5). 
So I figure that this is how Jayapal announced that she's abandoning her own bill.

Nick Brana & Jimmy Dore have a different plan than working with Democrats and hoping 
for the Democrats to use strategic opportunities to get us what we need (such as 
Medicare for All), Brana has started a new political party called "The People's Party".

In the above interview Brana & Dore admit:

- that trying to steer the Democratic Party from within is a "failed experiment" (Dore).

- "it's our fault if we don't get onboard" (Brana) with joining a progressive party 
to push for progressive change.

The People's Party will:

- not take corporate money,
- run representatives for Congress in 2022,
- run someone for president in 2024,
- have "national ballot access across the country, all 50 states, and our 
representatives, you know what? You're never going to wonder whether they support 
Medicare for All and they're going to fight for it, because you're going to know that 
because they don't answer to Nancy Pelosi, they're not trying to get committee seats, 
they're not trying to horse trade with neoliberal Democrats, they're not afraid that 
the DCCC is going to come and primary them. That's not gonna happen. So you're gonna 
know where they stand when we elect them. That's what we plan on doing." (Brana)




As I see it:

- not taking corporate money is meaningless.

As Jimmy Dore has rightly pointed out, we already see Democrats who ran and won on 
not taking corporate money (I believe Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, AOC, is one such 
former candidate who got elected and recently re-elected). But AOC obeys the 
instructions of those who do take corporate money (like Nancy Pelosi who takes money 
from HMOs, for example). Therefore there is no need to distinguish between an AOC who 
does or who does not take corporate money. Pelosi knows that she can stay in power by 
sharing some of her corporate largesse with obedient Congresspeople. So not only is 
it meaningless to not directly take corporate money, we don't know what's to prevent 
the People's Party from having someone else do what Pelosi does in the Democratic Party.



- running in 2022 and 2024 is the next time we can more fully evaluate the People's 
Party's politics.

I don't blame the People's Party for this; every party has to start somewhere and 
they can only run candidates when the elections are going. But it stands to reason 
that closer to 2022 is the earliest we'll be able to evaluate whether the People's 
Party is worthwhile.



- not reporting to Nancy Pelosi is meaningless.

Any other party can do the same thing Pelosi has done/is doing for the Democrats -- 
take whatever money they have and redistribute some of it to other candidates 
effectively buying their loyalty to the agenda they support.



- Regarding Dore's claim that things would be different if these so-called "justice 
Democrats" weren't in the Democratic Party.

Dore said self-styled 'progressives' "have zero strategy": "imagine if they weren't 
in the Democratic Party. They would work together to get their agenda instituted 
instead of not working together, having zero strategy, and rolling over for the 
corporatists, which is [the] exact opposite of what they said they would do".

Perhaps they did exactly what Dore said, but for a strategy that works against our 
interests. Perhaps rolling over for the corporatists was their strategy and they 
worked together to achieve that end. The question for us wondering what to make of 
the People's Party is what would prevent the People's Party from doing the same thing?



- they don't address what this means for Democratic Party-affiliated people who are 
close to Jimmy Dore's show including:

Nina Turner -- who is now running as a Democrat, accepting donations via her 
actblue.com donation processing website, and posting vaguely about "unity against 
neo-fascism, white supremacy, poverty, and militarism" (paraphrased from 
https://twitter.net/ninaturner/status/1348377325885411337). Her campaign seems like 
any other "squad" member's campaign to me. She's got a tough job ahead of her but I 
will be surprised if she actually challenges the Democrats in any meaningful way (not 
rhetoric).

Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard -- whose headshot appeared on the People's Party banner for 
a while (I see this solely as the People's Party wish to get Gabbard to affiliate 
with them, not any sign of affiliation coming from Gabbard who has clearly spoken 
against third-party politics to both Primo Nutmeg and CBS). Her pro-drone militarism 
and her joining the coordinated push to make Biden the 'nominee' for the DNC 
corporation told me what I needed to know about her Congressional representation.

Marianne Williamson -- whose Democratic Party affiliation I already mentioned.



- Dore pointed out that Kyle Kulinski is a founder of the "Justice Democrats", all of 
whom voted for Pelosi as Speaker even when Kulinski supported #ForceTheVote.

I figured that (for all we know) Kulinski has no real power among that group and he 
coordinated with these Democrats to field the #ForceTheVote PR supportively thus 
shielding the Justice Democrats who support HMOs instead. This foreshadows a 
comparable lack of power for Nick Brana, founder of the People's Party should 
representatives from that party come to power and thus face a challenge between 
pleasing the wealthy versus standing up for the progressive values they ran on.



The Jimmy Dore show has raised good points backed with examples on plenty of other 
shows, but Dore doesn't seem to think ahead to how his own points bite him and Brana 
in the ass with the People's Party effort. Dore also seems shy about explicitly 
applying his own critiques to friends of the show. What would be a clear win for 
Dore: bring up these critiques, naming the names of the Democratic Party 
sympathizers/collaborators, and begin addressing them consistently (drumbeat 
coverage) with the anti-Democratic Party criticism he already raises on virtually 
every show.

Therefore this is where I diverge from Jimmy Dore's politics -- I understand that 
it's not in Dore's interest to always explicitly connect dots on his show; that makes 
it harder to get powerful guests. But as Dore has acknowledged, people running for 
office as progressives use his show as a stepping stone to more power in Congress 
(AOC did this, for example). They end up handing Dore footage which he later uses to 
embarrass them by pointing out their hypocrisy. The corollary of this is don't 
believe the next person who seeks Congressional power with or under the Democratic 
Party because "you don't change the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party changes 
you" and "there ain't no fight inside the Democratic Party" (Dore).