The far-right Freedom Caucus has demonstrated that the tail can wag the dog, but this may only be the beginning of the fracturing of our two-party system.
I'm not sure how I got here, but am thrilled to find this piece.
Shortly after the November elections, I realized that the only way to stop McCarthy would be a cross-party alliance of some kind. It seemed like a real longshot. But I was committed to the idea, and set out to make it happen, enlisting the help of about 30 friends and acquaintances.
We started by appealing to media personalities, asking that they write a column or host a discussion segment on their TV show. For D's to vote for an R, they'd need to know voters would support them. So getting the idea into the national narrative was essential. Of course, no one picked up on it, except for the occasional time it'd be mentioned while being dismissed as fantasy.
We ultimately turned to directly lobbying House members with letters, phone calls and emails. But obviously we didn't succeed. The Dems were too proud of their "unity", though they had little to lose and everything to gain by marginalizing the MAGA faction. And without some reassuring gesture from them, no Republican moderate would risk reaching across the aisle.
However we did succeed in forming an amorphous network of contacts who passed on word of what we were doing to their contacts, who in turn passed it on to theirs, and some posted on social media. Now that McCarthy has the gavel, this network is in danger of withering away, though its anonymous members are still committed to the idea of the cross-party alliance.
I think we may yet see such an alliance emerge in the House in the coming months, for all the reasons mentioned in your post here. So to preserve our network, and continue working to make it happen, I just launched a new Substack site: "Feathers of Hope" at https://jerryweiss.substack.com/
Our first post was published 3 days ago (11/17). But I archived some of my original email appeals as posts pre-dated to the day they were sent, if you'd like to see how our work evolved. The site is intended to be a meeting place for activists, rather than just another forum for spouting off and pontificating about what *should* happen. We want to make it happen.
I hope you check it out, and let me know if you have any advice. We can use all the help we can get. Thanks. -- Jerry Weiss
I'm not sure how I got here, but am thrilled to find this piece.
Shortly after the November elections, I realized that the only way to stop McCarthy would be a cross-party alliance of some kind. It seemed like a real longshot. But I was committed to the idea, and set out to make it happen, enlisting the help of about 30 friends and acquaintances.
We started by appealing to media personalities, asking that they write a column or host a discussion segment on their TV show. For D's to vote for an R, they'd need to know voters would support them. So getting the idea into the national narrative was essential. Of course, no one picked up on it, except for the occasional time it'd be mentioned while being dismissed as fantasy.
We ultimately turned to directly lobbying House members with letters, phone calls and emails. But obviously we didn't succeed. The Dems were too proud of their "unity", though they had little to lose and everything to gain by marginalizing the MAGA faction. And without some reassuring gesture from them, no Republican moderate would risk reaching across the aisle.
However we did succeed in forming an amorphous network of contacts who passed on word of what we were doing to their contacts, who in turn passed it on to theirs, and some posted on social media. Now that McCarthy has the gavel, this network is in danger of withering away, though its anonymous members are still committed to the idea of the cross-party alliance.
I think we may yet see such an alliance emerge in the House in the coming months, for all the reasons mentioned in your post here. So to preserve our network, and continue working to make it happen, I just launched a new Substack site: "Feathers of Hope" at https://jerryweiss.substack.com/
Our first post was published 3 days ago (11/17). But I archived some of my original email appeals as posts pre-dated to the day they were sent, if you'd like to see how our work evolved. The site is intended to be a meeting place for activists, rather than just another forum for spouting off and pontificating about what *should* happen. We want to make it happen.
I hope you check it out, and let me know if you have any advice. We can use all the help we can get. Thanks. -- Jerry Weiss
Sorry, typo above: we launched on 1/17.
Thank you for the shout out!