You may have noticed that I despise both of our political parties. There’s a reason for that: Both Republican and Democrats portray themselves as alternatives to the other but when it comes down to important economic and foreign policies there’s really no alternative at all.

Even before the end of the Cold War, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher proclaimed “there was no alternative” to neoliberal capitalism. With the demise of the USSR and communism this condition soon afflicted the Democratic Party in the US. Thanks to the malign influence of the Clinton, Obama, Biden and Pelosi crime families, as well as the Wall Street billionaire mega-donors, the Democrats embraced neoliberal economic policies and neoconservative foreign policies.

When it comes to our neoliberal economic system, both Democrats and Republicans pretend that the government is powerless to affect a global economy. The problem however is not that the US lacks power in a globalized economy. The problem is that both parties have been captured by vested interests, who benefit from the neoliberal economic dispensation. As the New Deal was dismantled beginning in the 1970s, neoliberal snake-oil was peddled by ideological economists as the “New Economy”, under the theory that economic ‘science’ claimed it to be the road to broad prosperity. Five decades later, a tiny cabal of rich own everything and the productive economy has been gutted in favor of financial gamesmanship.

US foreign policies of never ending war similarly enjoy bipartisan support, driven by both parties slavish devotion to the American empire and the military/industrial/complex. Nowadays, with overt invasions discredited, the neocon infected national security establishment has seized upon “color revolutions and proxy wars as their MO, while the corporate media gaslights Americans into a sullen acquiescence.

The truth is that American politics is now entirely unresponsive to popular demand. The last vestiges of democratic accountability were gutted many years ago as the US’s political systems were completely captured by powerful globe-spanning corporations.

We need a political party that represents average Americans, one that eschews war and neoliberal, financial austerity. It’s time to rebuild an American left for the working class and destroy the current finance-centered political party that deploys identity politics as liberalism. It is essentially an attempt to return the left to what it once was, and in that we are being helped by the fake left neoliberals so discrediting themselves over the past few years. What’s hilarious is that Trump and conservatives depict Kamala Harris, as a “communist”, even as the Democratic Party she leads consists of spooks, neoliberal bureaucrats, regime-change think tanks, and the military-industrial complex, that is leading a neoliberal return to serfdom, mass censorship, and an increasingly reactionary foreign policy that rehabilitates Nazis and supports proxy wars and genocide.

I hate to break it to you but the communist party in America has been hunted to extinction and the nominal left has been destroyed by the increasingly neoliberal/neoconservative Democratic party.

And, what about the populist right, represented by Trump?

The increasingly likely outcome is that the centrist representatives of both parties uses the ethno-nationalist, populist right (Trump, MAGA, etc.) to deflect criticism of their neoliberal and pro-war policies that have the US where it’s at today. Under such pressure, Trump and the populist right abandons their anti-war and anti NATO stances in order to be accepted in the “Beltway” but maintain the ethno-nationalism, militarization, anti-labor positions. With such a scenario, bargains between the “center” and far-right do nothing to disturb the neoliberal economic policies, immigrants will be scapegoated for economic problems caused by the financialization of everything, and attacks on anyone resisting austerity or war will increase.

This state of affairs was amplified recently at Naked Capitalism, when reader Anna K asked Yves if she could use a popular 2013 post, The Skunk Party Manifesto, as the basis for a new political party in Kentucky.

“I want permission to take her [Yves’] 2013 Skunk Party manifesto to use….as the basis for a political party’s platform.

I’m involved in an effort to start a third party in Kentucky, after the strong ceasefire candidate we ran as a Democrat was narrowly defeated in a nasty primary by Governor Beshear’s pick, who did not campaign at all. Here’s our candidate on the state’s premier political show before her defeat in the primary, sounding reasonable and saying the word “genocide” (she starts at 15:50, and was the only democrat who met the fundraising threshold to appear on the show): https://ket.org/program/kentucky-tonight/candidate-conversations-dana-edwards-and-shauna-rudd. Our petition drive is about halfway to gathering the needed signatures to get November ballot acces, with plenty of time left. Jill Stein (Green Party) agreed to be our presidential candidate. We expect to be visible in statewide news (Lexington Herald-Leader, Louisville Courier-Journal, and KET) after our public debut at Fancy Farm 3 Aug. We expect to be on the November ballot, running a candidate at least against 6th District of KY US Congressman Andy Barr (and Jill on the president line).

Things are moving too fast to develop a strong, well-written platform from scratch before Fancy Farm. So we want to borrow the Skunk Party platform, give credit where due, and modify it, specifically to address arming Ukraine and Israel and sabre-rattling against China. Our chops are stronger in foreign policy than domestic, so a strong domestic platform we can build on is important for orienting and educating our candidates and nascent party….

Kentucky punches above its weight class in foreign policy, as I’m sure you well know, and has since the days of Henry Clay. Time for more punching up, not down. We plan to have a small convention to continue work on our platform after Fancy Farm. We’re reasonably well-integrated with Palestine solidarity and anti-prison expansion grassroots groups. We’ll network a wider variety of groups in the valence of #OWS or late 19th-century populism with whom we’re loosely connected after
demonstrating viability with ballot access.

If we have Yves’s blessing, our party (The Kentucky Party, “Vote for Kentucky” official slogan, “KY against all y’all” unofficial stickers) will also adopt a stylized red-white-and-blue skunk as our mascot, to clear the room of the stylized donkeys and elephants.”

Yves Smith, the extraordinary writer and curator of Naked Capitalism, blessed the uprising. “So I hope you will support the Kentucky Party, even if not in Kentucky, by talking it up in social media. And if you are in Kentucky, please consider them as a November ballot option. Starting third parties in the US is very much an uphill battle. But even if one concedes that their odds of success is remote, they can serve as vehicles for calling attention to critical issues that the mainstream parties ignore as well as lodging a protest vote.”

I personally think we need a skunk party in every state, certainly here in the Beehive State, where the Republicans have a lock on power, with predictable results.

By the way, Naked Capitalism is the best website on the Internet and a valuable resource for anyone looking to educate themselves on the realities of our dystopian world. They are having their annual fund drive, so stop by and discover what a gem they are and throw a couple coins in their tip jar.

Update: If there was any doubt that both parties intend to provide no alternative to the toxic status quo, US Attorney General Merrick Garland just announced a sweeping set of actions to tackle a major Russian government-backed effort to influence the 2024 US presidential election on Wednesday, including unveiling criminal charges against two Russian nationals, sanctions on 10 individuals and entities, and the seizure of 32 internet domains.

More Russia-gate.

How novel.