Speaker 1: Native Lampod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with
Speaker 1: Reason Choice Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome home, y'all.
Speaker 1: It is another edition of mini pods with Native Lampod.
Speaker 2: I am Angela.
Speaker 3: Right. We are starting this mini pod with a question
Speaker 3: we get all the time.
Speaker 1: Folks are like, I do not like this two party system.
Speaker 1: What's up with a third party? We hear about it
Speaker 1: all the time. We have a listener's question. We're going
Speaker 1: to go to that right.
Speaker 4: Now, Miss Layla, and I am a twenty three year
Speaker 4: old politic organizer here in Tennessee. I had a question
Speaker 4: about convincing people to participate in our political system. I'm
Speaker 4: realizing as I try to convince people or talk to
Speaker 4: people just about what their views are, more and more
Speaker 4: that they are just disaffected with it all. And with
Speaker 4: the success of campaigns like the Uncommitted campaign in Michigan
Speaker 4: had such little resources and they were able to get
Speaker 4: some pretty quick policy movement, We're seeing that maybe hacking
Speaker 4: the system is sometimes more effective than participating in the
Speaker 4: way that we are all used to. Lots of people
Speaker 4: are turning to third parties. Our two parties, major two
Speaker 4: parties right now in the country are more beholden to
Speaker 4: corporations and their bottom dollar than their constituents. And it's
Speaker 4: really hard to ask people to vote for the lesser
Speaker 4: of two evils every single time for those of us
Speaker 4: who have our boots on the ground. So can we
Speaker 4: ever escape this two party system? Can we hack the system?
Speaker 4: Or are your guys' views?
Speaker 2: I love this question?
Speaker 3: Love it. Can you say Angela about because you got
Speaker 3: this question as south by Southwest? Do you want to
Speaker 3: tell that story? Because I thought it was such an
Speaker 3: interesting question from an interesting person. If you want to
Speaker 3: tell it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to first think, Layla, we were glad
Speaker 1: that you felt comfortable enough to raise this question. I
Speaker 1: think people, especially in an election year, get terrified about
Speaker 1: people raising anything like this because they're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: you're trying to suppress votes, You're trying to take votes
Speaker 1: away from this candidate or that candidate.
Speaker 2: And I don't think it's that at all.
Speaker 1: Even her referencing of the uncommitted approach, which was in
Speaker 1: my home state of Washington and our election, of course,
Speaker 1: was just this past Tuesday. I don't know when this
Speaker 1: manybody I was going to air, but it was what today,
Speaker 1: it was March twelfth, is when the election was in
Speaker 1: Washington State and there were tens of thousands of people
Speaker 1: who voted uncommitted there. Of course, in Michigan, we saw
Speaker 1: that when you're in a two party system, it is
Speaker 1: really hard to feel like you're a part of a
Speaker 1: representative democracy because you're forced to find yourself smushed and
Speaker 1: contorted into a box that you may or may not
Speaker 1: always fit in. There were actually two questions on the
Speaker 1: podcast Leonard and I did with Vox Media at south
Speaker 1: By Southwest. One was about is this actually a democracy?
Speaker 1: We're telling people to go out and save this democracy,
Speaker 1: but is it really a democracy when there's only two parties?
Speaker 1: Third party, Libertarian Party? You know, what does it really
Speaker 1: mean to be independent where you don't really see yourself represented?
Speaker 1: And then another gentleman, the King Chris Smalls, who is
Speaker 1: an incredible on the ground organizer. He's most known for
Speaker 1: organizing Amazon employees to ensure their ultimate protections.
Speaker 2: Overwhelmingly black and brown.
Speaker 1: People working in the warehouses in Amazon and not seeing
Speaker 1: themselves reflected in that trillionaire role that Jeff Bezos is
Speaker 1: now in. And so he also raised some third party
Speaker 1: questions and so I just I want to frame it
Speaker 1: in that way.
Speaker 2: I definitely want y'all to weigh in.
Speaker 1: I think that I have this innate fascination with what
Speaker 1: it means to have more representation across all kinds of lines.
Speaker 1: I talked about at that panel on the other side
Speaker 1: of apartheid being dismantled in South Africa, my dad getting
Speaker 1: this poster from someone who's like a godfather, Mee Tony Orange,
Speaker 1: May he rest in power and peace.
Speaker 2: And there were all of these.
Speaker 1: Parties like by Labor, by soccer, by you know, conservatives,
Speaker 1: I mean all of the libertarians, all of these varying wings,
Speaker 1: like you found your political niche. It really was like
Speaker 1: a niche democracy, democratic system, and still the ANC would
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly win. But like just the fact that you could
Speaker 1: see yourself represented up until the election, it empowered more
Speaker 1: people to vote. And I think if ultimately our goal
Speaker 1: is to get everyone involved. Right. We were talking earlier
Speaker 1: in our side chat about this video from Louisiana where
Speaker 1: folks are so frustrated. There's so many not just of us,
Speaker 1: but people periods sat out of that election. Do you
Speaker 1: really feel more heard by sitting out and protesting with
Speaker 1: your vote? Tell me how that speaks up for your
Speaker 1: interests at all, because now you' silenced yourself, right, You're like,
Speaker 1: forget voter suppression.
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna supress myself. I don't get that.
Speaker 1: And so I do want to figure out what it
Speaker 1: looks like for us to journey towards a more representative,
Speaker 1: diverse system.
Speaker 2: So I do love this question.
Speaker 3: I love the question and shout out to Chris Malas
Speaker 3: who unionized Amazon workers, which is no small feat. So
Speaker 3: shout out to him, and he thought he and Angela's
Speaker 3: exchange on that panel was beautiful. So I want to
Speaker 3: get to the meat of the viewers question and say, yes,
Speaker 3: you can have third party candidates. Unfortunately, third parties are
Speaker 3: so seduced by the presidential election where it is harder
Speaker 3: to penetrate the system that we have. For one, you
Speaker 3: have to consider your donor base, so where money flows
Speaker 3: into and where they come from, and not a lot
Speaker 3: will go to third party candidates because at that level,
Speaker 3: most people do not see a pathway to presidency, especially
Speaker 3: given the way the primaries the mis set up. Unless
Speaker 3: there is a jungle primary, third parties are not often
Speaker 3: on the ballocks. You have to be registered as a
Speaker 3: Republican or Democrat. And if you're a registered Democrat and
Speaker 3: you want to vote for someone who is in a
Speaker 3: different party, then you don't have that option unless it's
Speaker 3: a jungle primary, which means everybody can vote for everybody, right.
Speaker 3: So that's something to consider. But the support for this
Speaker 3: is increasing. In October of last year, Gallup Poll did
Speaker 3: some really interesting research and sixty three percent of Americans,
Speaker 3: regardless of what side of the aisle they vote on,
Speaker 3: they supported a third party. Which makes sense because you
Speaker 3: consider how many people are politically homeless when you come
Speaker 3: to presidential elections. We're old enough to remember these people
Speaker 3: often are spoilers, they are a problems. So we had
Speaker 3: people like Ross Pureau run I think that was in
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety two when he ran. We had people like
Speaker 3: Ralph Nader, and so there's animosity that these people, you know,
Speaker 3: detract votes and give one party or another favorable Here's
Speaker 3: where third party candidates have a route which I think
Speaker 3: can actually make waves. You can run in a state
Speaker 3: legislature as a third party. You can run perhaps as
Speaker 3: a member of Congress in a third party. In twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two, forty three percent of people who ran in
Speaker 3: state legislative race were uncontested. What that means is there
Speaker 3: was literally only one party running, so they just had
Speaker 3: a clear path to it. If you're somebody who has
Speaker 3: these very strong beliefs and no party aligns with you,
Speaker 3: run in your state legislature and that's where you can
Speaker 3: ascend to power. So many former state legislators go on
Speaker 3: to become members of Congress. Former President Barack Obama was
Speaker 3: a state legislator before he ascended to the presidency of
Speaker 3: the United States. So there is a path for you,
Speaker 3: but it takes work. So you have to walk before
Speaker 3: you crawl. You got to build brick by brick, and
Speaker 3: it's a heavy lift. But I say, given the political
Speaker 3: parties we see right now, let's lift heavy.
Speaker 2: Okay, we'll be back right after this break.
Speaker 5: You know, I agree with a lot of Whatsman said
Speaker 5: we should clarify first and foremost that we are not
Speaker 5: a two party only system. We are a manifold party.
Speaker 5: There are many parties that show up on my ballot.
Speaker 5: I can tell you that preference primaries are for the
Speaker 5: purpose of where you have multiple people running to represent
Speaker 5: their party. You then have to make a choice to
Speaker 5: whittle that down to a single person who will be
Speaker 5: representing that party. In this country, however, we do have
Speaker 5: two major parties, which takes up the bullworth of resources, money,
Speaker 5: attention time, And then there are third there are outside
Speaker 5: parties who then create a set of rules. Let's take
Speaker 5: the presidency for example, there's the Presidential Commission on Debates
Speaker 5: who then put in place a set of rules that
Speaker 5: then you must meet this criteria, this criteria, or this
Speaker 5: criteria or and this criteria in order to appear on
Speaker 5: a nationally televised debate stage. If you are not on
Speaker 5: a nationally televised debate stage, you are likely not going
Speaker 5: to be considered much in the conversation because the overwhelming
Speaker 5: majority of Americans will not know you exist at all.
Speaker 5: When when I ran for governor, I competed in the
Speaker 5: Democratic primary to be our party's nominee. But there were
Speaker 5: several other candidates on the November ballot who were not
Speaker 5: a Democrat or didn't run for the Democratic nomination, but
Speaker 5: they were given consideration on the ballot. So, to keep
Speaker 5: it honest, we are not a two party We are
Speaker 5: not a two party exclusive only system. We have a
Speaker 5: multiple party system representative of a democracy and in other
Speaker 5: countries that have multiple party systems that are thriving, what
Speaker 5: you end up with. Take Great Britain, for instance, you
Speaker 5: oftentimes see a prime minister producer who is equivalent in
Speaker 5: this country for life of a better reference as president
Speaker 5: of that country, but prime minister. And because they have
Speaker 5: a healthy system of multiple parties, you often find that
Speaker 5: they end up producing compromised governments. And what that term
Speaker 5: basically means is that unlike in this country you produce
Speaker 5: a democratic president or a Republican president per se, and
Speaker 5: those countries you produce a president a prime minister who
Speaker 5: is only prime minister because they had to coddle together
Speaker 5: a number of parties in order to create the majority.
Speaker 5: And if they lose the support of any significant faction
Speaker 5: of that system that they have pulled together, they are
Speaker 5: no longer prime minister and they got a call for
Speaker 5: another election. We saw that actually happen play out during
Speaker 5: these over these last several years, where Great Britain's gone
Speaker 5: through three or four different prime ministers and very short order.
Speaker 5: One of them only lasted a week, I think, and
Speaker 5: then they had to bring in someone that's right right.
Speaker 5: And here in the United States, so very dynamic and
Speaker 5: elastic systems that exist around the world that can produce
Speaker 5: a form of leadership and a form of governing. And
Speaker 5: they are enduring systems, by the way, in this country, however,
Speaker 5: and I wish I could just chalk it up to
Speaker 5: they're not being enough money to support a third party.
Speaker 5: I have not drawn the conclusion. That is not the
Speaker 5: conclusion I draw as to why they have not been
Speaker 5: viable here. Ross Perot didn't need anybody else's money, build
Speaker 5: money from his own pocket and compete it at every level.
Speaker 5: He only just had enough support to make it through
Speaker 5: the presidential debate commissions criteria at that time to be seen.
Speaker 3: I don't agree you can do that now legally, right
Speaker 3: and so fun.
Speaker 6: No, don't you have a limit?
Speaker 3: Isn't there a limit?
Speaker 2: Right? In order to finance here the.
Speaker 1: Commission and to clear the commission, I think now you
Speaker 1: have to have a certain of dollars from a certain
Speaker 1: number of donors.
Speaker 6: That's largely white and males.
Speaker 5: To me, it makes sense that some people are behind
Speaker 5: you if you're running for president of the United States
Speaker 5: and you want to compete for my time and attention
Speaker 5: and everybody else is to become president of the United
Speaker 5: if you're just self funding, never believed in that, I
Speaker 5: just don't think you should. You haven't shown me that
Speaker 5: there's a constituency that believes anything that you believe enough
Speaker 5: to give you five dollars, two dollars, one dollar. I
Speaker 5: love that the request is not by an amount of money,
Speaker 5: but by a number of people, and a democratic society
Speaker 5: is showing a critical mask of folks are like with you,
Speaker 5: even if it is not enough to compete with the
Speaker 5: major two party system. But we do have avenues, two
Speaker 5: diverse ideas. But in this country, for whatever reason, y'all,
Speaker 5: we have settled, you know, largely behind this sort of
Speaker 5: two party system as a way to negotiate power. But
Speaker 5: there are already ways in which we can penetrate the
Speaker 5: process through through a part in an organization outside of
Speaker 5: the two party system. And I think Tiffany's suggestion around
Speaker 5: why don't we start local, why don't we start within
Speaker 5: a state, is a really good example of how we
Speaker 5: start to build some will for this thing to actually work,
Speaker 5: because right now, buy and large, most people just don't
Speaker 5: think it work because they've never seen it work. But
Speaker 5: what if we started in one city or a collection
Speaker 5: of cities, and then those collections didn't produce House and
Speaker 5: Senate representatives at the state level. And then we thought
Speaker 5: we could grow this thing and then compete for a state.
Speaker 5: There are ways to do it, y'all. We got to
Speaker 5: be willing to put into work.
Speaker 4: Though.
Speaker 1: You know the thing that I think is so interesting,
Speaker 1: You said, what if we started? I would say, what
Speaker 1: if we just built upon the successes that are already there.
Speaker 1: I think about Fanny Louhammer, who co created, co founded
Speaker 1: the Mississippi Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. She was phenomenal. She
Speaker 1: literally changed the direction of this country and helped to
Speaker 1: push voting rights across the finish line. They're sole objective
Speaker 1: with that party was to challenge the Democrat Democratic Party's
Speaker 1: efforts on civic participation. So sometimes there are parties created
Speaker 1: to do certain things. I also, I'm not admiring them.
Speaker 1: I'm admiring their organization. But when you look at that
Speaker 1: Affordable Care Act. On the other side of the Affordable
Speaker 1: Care Act, the Tea Party Caucus was stood up. The
Speaker 1: Tea Party Caucus has now morphed into the Freedom Caucus.
Speaker 1: But they're sole purpose of existence, Well, it was supposed
Speaker 1: to be just fiscal conservativism. But that's not all their
Speaker 1: sole purpose of well, yes, but their sole purpose is
Speaker 1: to make the Republican Party more conservative. I maintain that
Speaker 1: we could have a black party that makes the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party more beholden to black interests.
Speaker 2: Maybe we broaden it.
Speaker 1: Reverend Jackson used to talk about the Rainbow Coalition that
Speaker 1: wasn't by accident. I just recently posted a nine minute
Speaker 1: speech from his Democratic National Convention speech that Roland posted.
Speaker 1: Its extremely brilliant. He is selling us on the idea
Speaker 1: that we should actually listen to, that we're stronger together,
Speaker 1: and this Rainbow Coalition can be responsible for raising up
Speaker 1: a new America, you know, a more perfect union. That
Speaker 1: is what this is all about. So sometimes the party system,
Speaker 1: to your point, Andrew's a good one. It's a two
Speaker 1: party majority, two majority party system. But that's not the
Speaker 1: only parties. And there is still space for us to
Speaker 1: do the very thing we need to get done so
Speaker 1: that our folks aren't feeling discounted and disenchanted with the process,
Speaker 1: uninspired if they see somebody who's finally standing up saying
Speaker 1: the things they need to hear, making the demands they
Speaker 1: want to see happen. Maybe that's what the purpose of
Speaker 1: the party. Maybe it's more of a caucus vibe.
Speaker 3: Well, I was just gonna say, because the difference between
Speaker 3: Vanny Lou Hamer and the Tea Party is the Tea
Speaker 3: Party they were already elected officials who we were.
Speaker 5: They joined the ELECTI officials largely joined.
Speaker 3: So the Tea Party existed in it because I only
Speaker 3: really heard about them in Congress.
Speaker 5: So the people created them, so I.
Speaker 2: Didn't know that the Tea part already was established.
Speaker 1: And then they put forth they like almost like they
Speaker 1: put forth a slates.
Speaker 6: And then members of Congress adopted it.
Speaker 1: So they the Tea Party was like, this is our values,
Speaker 1: and people were like, cool, I rock with those values.
Speaker 1: They were then elected and then they were the Tea
Speaker 1: Party in Congress, later becoming the Freedom Cockers.
Speaker 6: But they were Republicans though Republicans, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they were the caucus of that party.
Speaker 5: I would also say there were people in the foundation
Speaker 5: of the Tea Party movement who were not political in
Speaker 5: the first place. They got engineer. Again, this is the
Speaker 5: advent came under Barack Obama's administration.
Speaker 6: So you had a very.
Speaker 5: A shared fear of a lot of people coming together
Speaker 5: trying to figure out how they were going to negotiate power.
Speaker 5: They did produce candidates, but they also endorsed candidates who
Speaker 5: had already been elected before. And they had candidates, they
Speaker 5: had office holders who then defected into the Tea Party
Speaker 5: coalition because they saw where the heat was on the
Speaker 5: Republican side.
Speaker 2: Okay, and it was based on conceding to the demand.
Speaker 5: They ceded to the demands.
Speaker 3: They take their two paths we've laid out then for
Speaker 3: a third party, you know that. I think that's the
Speaker 3: best answer. And unless Andrew you had something something.
Speaker 5: Else, just to just to underscore the power of negotiating room.
Speaker 5: And that's what Angela hit on with and low Hamer
Speaker 5: as well. We were like, look, we ain't gonna be
Speaker 5: seen at all in the Republican Party. We know that
Speaker 5: it doesn't even make sense to put forth that threat
Speaker 5: because we're not demonstrable enough here to make a difference.
Speaker 5: But in a now reformed, new looking Democratic Party which
Speaker 5: lost all its you know, white Southern support and black
Speaker 5: folks then got the right to vote, and we're now
Speaker 5: here negotiating. We're a different voice now because we can
Speaker 5: withhold support, we can make that choice not to give
Speaker 5: you our votes in for Fannie Lou Hamer. It was
Speaker 5: in the nominating process, just like when we saw folks
Speaker 5: in Michigan withhold their divorce, their support for Biden. It
Speaker 5: was in the nominating processes where they made the difference
Speaker 5: and call for you know, uh, recognition of all of
Speaker 5: us who make this party work.
Speaker 6: Yes, shout out.
Speaker 3: To Fanny Lou Hammer, angela, this women's history, this black
Speaker 3: women's history. I love that you brought her up, though,
Speaker 3: because I didn't even make that connection to her in
Speaker 3: the third party. But that is frime example. Read about her.
Speaker 3: That's our little mini call to action. If you don't know,
Speaker 3: if you are out here part of one of these
Speaker 3: leaderless movements and try to organize, read about what people
Speaker 3: have done before you, because even if you don't agree
Speaker 3: with that, you can learn something from it.
Speaker 5: And it's just funny. It's more profound because it reminds
Speaker 5: us that nothing ever said or done is new. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it's never that there are.
Speaker 3: All right, Nick knows we gotta go, We we do
Speaker 3: gotta go, but we'll We'll end this on a Fanny
Speaker 3: Litu Hammer quote, and she says, none of us are
Speaker 3: free until all of us are free, and that's what
Speaker 3: we got to remember.
Speaker 1: So shout out to freedom. And I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: the Freedom Caucus, but shout out to freedom. And may
Speaker 1: we all get a little closer to what we really
Speaker 1: want in this political process by making sure that we
Speaker 1: see ourselves reflected by carving.
Speaker 2: Out our own path.
Speaker 1: Welcome out out to y'all, great answers, Thank you Leila
Speaker 1: for your question.
Speaker 3: Welcome home y'all, Thanks for listening. Everyone, tune into our
Speaker 3: main episode on Thursday, and don't forget to tell a
Speaker 3: friend about how.
Speaker 2: Much you love Native Lampod. Welcome Home, y'all.
Speaker 1: Native Lampod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with
Speaker 1: Reasoned Choice Media. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
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