On September 7, Androscoggin County Commissioner (Maine) Zachery Maher switched his party registration from Republican to Libertarian. The office is partisan and was last up in November 2016. He is up for re-election again in 2020. He represents district 7 (the county has 7 districts), and the vote in November 2016 was 5,587 for him, and 3,289 for his Democratic opponent. Here is his web page, announcing the change. Thanks to Bob Johnston and IndependentPoliticalReport for this news.
The Libertarians sure are picking up quite a few local and state officials. That’s not suprising given how batstuff crazy and authoritarian the Republican Party is becoming. Now if only we could start seeing some Democrats go Green, but the Dem Establishment is even more crazy and authoritarian when it comes to party procedures/discipline, which is probably why we’re not seeing Democrats going Green: fear.
@Joshua…. The problem is most of the country is in the middle. The Repubs and Dems are becoming, and the Libs and Greens are already, too fringe. The four largest parties are ALL drifting away from each other, and from the typical average voter.
I agree with Aiden. The Bernie Sanders faction of the party is sending a primary challenger to WestVirginia to go up against the immensely popular Joe Manchin, not realizing that it’s people like Manchin, Heidi Heitkamp and Joe Donnelly giving the party a fighting chance for the majority. Running centrists is the only way they can win the majority, especially when they need to flip both Texas and Arizona.
@Aid James Not according to polls in recent years that Millennials like me are only ones favoring to economical Socialist policies while retaining favor socially Centre-left to Left-wing issues, and not just that more Americans are more becoming left/”Post-liberal” on Issues like Healthcare, Same-Sex Marriage, Alternative Fuels and Climate Change, BDS movement and social policies.
And technically that’s you thinking is old ‘reality’ mental thinking before Trump changes all that with his faux Right-wing populism/Neoconservativism and that made some members of Democratic Party becoming left while their Politicians who still supports Clintionan policies are refused to change.
@Brady Olson And like last (a maybe unintentional messed up responded) that American political climate has changed from “Left vs Right” thinking to “Anti-Establishment vs Establishment” thinking and some are beginning to favor left-wing populist or leftist politics within Democratic Party and want the party to drive leftward.
And you two realized that keep focusing on some Xers and Right-wing Baby Boomers will die off in future and replace with more Leftist generation.
@Aid James
And also this.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/7/16267256/single-payer-democrats-2020
Brady, I live in Indiana, and Donnelly is my senator. I didn’t vote for him in 2012 because of how conservative he is, and I won;t vote for him this time either. I would rather the Democrats run a leftist and lose over running a conservative like Donnelly and win. I think you’re quite wrong that the country is in the middle, and I very much doubt that the Green Party are even close to the fringe. The Democrats becoming centrist and attacking leftist ideas might gain them some votes, but it also causes a lot of hatred towards them. I didn’t vote Hillary, not Donnelly, and not Gregg, a conservative Democrat who ran for governor twice here. Do leftists like me just not matter, as long as the Democrats can get the centrists?
Compared to the industrialized democratic countries of the world, our country is rather right-wing. And in many of the aforementioned nations, they have more than two parties in their governments, including parties which are squarely left or right-wing (including their Green Parties!). If we want to live up to our country’s claim that we’re free and humane, we need to go further LEFT or at the very least more socially libertarian.
Chad, that proves my point…. Democrats are moving to Economically far left Authoritarians, the Republicans are moving to economically far-right authoritarians, the Libertarians are becoming more economically far-Right, and the Greens are becoming more economically far-left. The middle of the road public is completely unrepresented with in any large party.
@Aiden James And using longer periods (….) are somehow make you “smarter” like lot dumb right-wingers used that too.
And that why keep ‘Neoliberal/Neoconservative’ status quo is not working for a long time and that BS will further problem even worst.
Both James and Joshua are also supported my point that Left vs Right mentally is wearing off.
@Aiden James And one more if you feel that unrepresented by all these four parties, Join a centrist party like Unity Party or create one by yourself.
To a left-winger, Donnelly seems conservative because he isn’t “liberal enough”. I don’t think the Democrats should split into centrist and liberal factions. I think that the Democrats and Republicans need to get out of the way and let a new party claim the middle. If that happened, it would allow Democrats to nominate a liberal while Donnelly shifts to the centrist party.
The thing is, though, that it will never happen that way, as the Democratic Party are quite content to be in the centrist, nominally “liberal” side of things, all while disparaging progressives and leftists sick of the neoliberalism and warhawks that ‘head’ the party in national politics, let alone the corruption of the DNC. The leaders of the Democratic Party have no intention at all of moving to the left like they actually should. They would rather win with a conservative with a (D) behind their name over running an actual progressive who, as poll after poll show, actually has, issue-wise, the support of a plurality of the country on many issues.
@James Mahoney IV Yep
More or less control freak STATISM — for ALL of recorded political history —
namely — NET tax getters (aka parasites) [IE a HIGH percentage of folks getting govt cash – employees, contractors, welfare, etc.] vs NET tax slaves
– by the hour, day, week, month, year, lifetime.
Too many tax revolutions to count in world history with lots of ruins in many places.
Thus – shortly — open communists vs open libertarians.