Whether we focus on taking over the Democratic Party or building power outside it, let's invest in the path we've chosen and stop tearing down allies that choose a different way.
Noam Chomsky has argued that change happens when mass movements apply sustained pressure, regardless of the political party in power.
Chris Hedges has warned that reforming institutions from within is often a dead end, as the Democratic Party has been structurally designed to absorb and neutralize progressive challenges.
Yet history shows that there are many paths to political transformation—and the old adage, "they always say it's impossible until it's done" remains as true as ever.
If Trump could take over the Republican Party, it’s fair to ask why a progressive movement couldn’t do the same with the Democratic Party.
The answer is complicated. The Democratic establishment has strong defenses against grassroots takeovers, from corporate donors to media influence to the internal mechanics of the DNC. Trump succeeded where Bernie Sanders failed because Trump still aligns with ruling class interests, despite his anti-establishment public persona. But that doesn’t mean an insurgency is impossible.
The Working Families Party (WFP) and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are actively working to push the party left while also building independent power. It is a yes/and strategy built on bottom-up organizing: supporting candidates both inside and outside the Democratic Party based on local logistics.
Our Revolution has chosen to focus on taking over the Democratic Party and winning down ballot races.
The Sunrise Movement is working to build power that can influence whoever is in office.
The US Green Party, while infamous for their unsuccessful presidential runs, has seen some tangible success at the local level (think city council, school and other board positions), where they boast 1604 races won, including 232 partisan races, since 1985. For those that believe local politics matters (and we do), we have to give credit where its due.
But here's the point: Whether we fight inside or outside the Democratic Party, or focus on building regenerative alternatives beyond traditional politics, they are all fronts in the broader fight against corporate rule.
The point is to pick one and invest in it instead of spending our time tearing down the other strategies all the time.
That said, this doesn't mean we shouldn't have some real conversations about what isn't working, and that brings us back to the Green Party.
Put simply, their (mostly) top-down strategy has not been effective.
After decades of pursuing long-shot bids for the presidency, they have yet to even break 5%. At a time when dissatisfaction with both parties are at all time highs, there was close to 90 million people who chose to not vote at all rather than vote third party. That's a hard truth we have to reckon with.
We'll say it again: Between Trump (an authoritarian narcissist) and Harris (whose conservative policy agenda and phoned-in response to Gaza probably cost her the election), almost 90 million people rejected those two options but also didn't support the Green Party enough to even register a symbolic protest vote. They just stayed home.
We can blame the media and all the structural barriers that contribute to this, but without deep structural changes to the Green Party, blaming external factors is pointless. We have to work with the reality we've got and adapt accordingly.
The history of running third-party candidates for Congress or the Senate doesn't inspire much confidence in this approach either. As Alan Minsky writes:
"Since 1946 there have been over 17,000 elections for the U.S. House of Representatives. How many have been won by a third-party candidate? Zero.
In the U.S. Senate, there have been two third party candidates elected: James L Buckley, in 1970 on the New York Conservative line (usually a fusion Party); and Joe Lieberman, founding member of the Connecticut for Lieberman Party.
Final score over the past 78 years: Connecticut for Lieberman 1, Green Party 0.
The record is just as bad statewide and in localities. There have literally been millions of elections since WWII. The number of third-party victories is infinitesimal, less than one-tenth of 1%."
Critics rightly challenge corporate Democrats for running conservative-lite candidates over and over again, just hoping neoliberalism will win this time.
John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris all ran on a conservative neoliberal agenda, and won once in response to four years of Trump.
We'd be doing ourselves a disservice to not recognize that repeating the same Green Party playbook again isn't a wise move.
We've got to mix it up.
If people are willing to rebuild the Green Party into a true grassroots movement—one that invests in local elections, uncontested races, labor organizing, and direct action rather than mainly just running presidential candidates—we salute that effort. We see it like a chess game. You don't go for checkmate after 4 moves. You've got to build up power from below first, through local wins, and build a coalition of dozens of members in Congress before going for the presidency.
Until then, we're faced with the urgent need to challenge the Republicans, and so we find ourselves agreeing the best path is an insurgent campaign to take over the Democratic Party through aggressive primarying and a bold, populist agenda.
Zohran Mamdani, Graham Platner, and Kat Abughazaleh have the blueprint. Their inspiring campaigns against oligarchy and in favor of a bold people-first agenda ought to be a model for dozens of more races across the country.
Building third-party power takes time.
As Alan Minsky and others have concluded, the Democratic Party is the only institution powerful enough to contest and defeat the Republican Party and their corporate owners in 2026 and 2028.
So does that mean yes to #DemEnter and no to #DemExit?
Actually, we're saying yes to both, following a path that allows the two paths to complement each other rather than conflict.
We need progressives to take over the Democratic Party via aggressive primarying in safe blue and contested districts. But we also need to build independent power.
Les Leopold suggests we can do this without becoming spoilers by running independent candidates in safe red districts, providing a true “second party” option. He advocates for creating an Independent Worker Political Association to support these efforts.
As Leopold writes:
"Today there are 132 Congressional districts that Republicans won with a margin of at least 25 percentage points, and 112 districts that were won by Democrats with a margin of at least 25 percentage points. That means that in 244 ultra-safe districts there is only one party now!
A new progressive populist formation that chose to run against Republicans in any of those 132 districts would be a second party, not a third party. There is no way that the new party will spoil the chances of the Democrats and enhance the Republicans. There is no Democratic Party in these districts to spoil!
That’s exactly the story in Nebraska, where Dan Osborn ran 15 points ahead of Kamala Harris for the Senate seat in 2024. He’s trying it again in 2026, and polls show him now in a dead heat.
His platform is called “The Billionaires who Control Washington Have Built a Billionaire Economy.” And it is loaded with working-class positions:
- Protect Social Security;
- Support strong public schools;
- Ban billionaires from buying elections;
- End wasteful government handouts to the pharmaceutical industry;
- End profiteering off senior health care.
He shows promise not just because he’s a gifted union man who still works as a manufacturing mechanic. He is running totally independent of both the Democrats and the Republicans, and that’s the key to his race. He’s running against billionaire domination of politics, and it rings true to the voters in bright red Nebraska."
So TL:DR: run independent candidates where feasible and primary corporate Democrats everywhere else.
Bernie Sanders, among others, have signaled their support for this strategy, which takes the best parts from #DemEnter and #DemExit, and gives us the best shot at a united front against the forces that own both corporate parties.
That’s our take. With this playbook, we don’t all need to agree on where to put our energy—there’s a complementary role for everyone. So let’s set some ground rules for disagreeing without the ritual circular firing squad.
For us, it helps to remember the 90 million people on the sidelines. There’s no need to attack Democratic or third-party voters when millions of non-voters can be moved by good policy, good organizing, good messaging, and good leaders.
Apathy may well be our greatest opponent.
Victory goes to the strategy that inspires the most people to shake off their understandable apathy and fight for the world they want.
We're seeing this most strikingly in the NYC mayoral race and believe Mamdani's model is the best blueprint for taking on the bipartisan status quo.
Electoral politics is also one tool. The day-to-day work is still organizing—our workplaces, mutual-aid networks, and movements that refuse to be co-opted by party structures.
It’s high past time to stop wasting energy attacking each other’s strategies and focus on building pluralistic movements that challenge the oligarchy that rules us.
Whether the lane we choose is taking over the DNC, growing independent alternatives, winning specific campaigns or fighting outside the electoral system entirely, the goal stays the same: dismantling corporate power, resisting militarism, and securing widespread economic and social prosperity on a thriving planet.
May the best strategy win victories for us all.
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