What would a new black political strategy for the 21st century look like?
Going Republican is not an option. Today’s Republican party is the party of white supremacy and empire, pure and simple. If it’s time to jump the Democratic ship, this time we have to build a new one that goes where we need to go.
Democrats and Republicans don’t want anybody building parties outside the two party duopoly, and have constructed a maze of discriminatory ballot access laws to prevent it. Law firms affiliated with the Democratic Party caused the 2000 and 2004 Ralph Nader campaigns to spend millions defending itself in court against spurious legal challenges. If it wasn’t a weak point, an obvious point of assault, Democrats and Republicans would not make putting a new party’s candidates on the ballot so difficult.
There is a network of Green parties all over the world, and while the Green party in the US has internal problems, its structure makes each individual state organization virtually independent and self sufficient. On the state level, many Green parties already have won a degree of ballot access, but are nearly empty shells, buses parked by the roadside with the keys and title in the glove compartments. It’s time for black activists to walk in, put our names on those titles, take the keys, and drive these buses off.