 I don't know about you all, but I still feel demoralized and a little bit uneasy after watching the, you know, Crandor Really DNC convention and the horror show that was the RNC convention, but thankfully on Sunday we had a different sort of convention take place. The Movement for People's Party held there, People's Convention, and this is what I want to see. It featured prominent speakers such as the Great Cornell West, Nina Turner, Mary Ann Williamson, Mike Ravel, and the list goes on. Basically the goal of this was to bring people together to create a new People's Party, an alternative to the two party duopoly that we see that very clearly isn't doing an adequate job at representing us. Now, 85,000 people actually signed up to support this, so it's nice to see a lot of people kind of coalesce around this one big idea of, hey, the two party system isn't working out, so let's subvert that and create our own thing. Now, I want to tell you a little bit more about the People's Party, and then I also want to tell you about the origins, because this is really interesting. I'm sure a lot of you already know this, but this was originally the draft Bernie Movement, but it has morphed into the People's Party. But before we get to that, this was kind of their goal. Every four years, the two major parties have held their conventions with noisy fanfare but without any lasting and meaningful solutions to the severe challenges the American people face, and the challenges have become more severe every year. We are building a major new party that is genuinely of, by, and for the American people, one that will truly represent us and that aims to build the stronger, healthier, and more just society we all deserve. And that to me sounds incredible. So it's inspiring to see all of these people come together and say, we agree, we want the same thing. And I didn't watch all of it, I didn't get to watch it live, so I'm trying to catch up, but what I saw was far more substantive than the RNC and DNC conventions combined. So Kudos to Nick Brana. I actually brought him on my show in like, I think 2017 or 2018 when he was doing the draft Bernie Movement, but ultimately Bernie said no. So you know, the movement had to go somewhere, there's still a need for an alternative to the Democratic Party, and now it is the People's Party. So I'm going to share a couple of clips from some great moments. I mean, of course, I tuned in because I wanted to see Cornel West and Nina Turner speak and Mary Ann Williamson has quickly like risen up on my list of people who I really respect and admire, so her as well. So I'll kind of give you my highlights, my favorite moments, but what's interesting is that there was like almost no coverage of this in the mainstream media. When you have 85,000 people sign up for this event, like you'd think there would be some sort of coverage, but there wasn't much, but this is what I want. I want this to not just be a thing that is created. I want it to like be viable. I want it to work. So I want to kind of extend the message of this People's Party. Like, and let me just say, this was like a diverse group of people, like not just demographically speaking, I'm speaking like in terms of their ideology, some of them are voting for Joe Biden, like Cornel West, Mary Ann Williamson, they're going to vote for Joe Biden. So they're not saying exclusively we only want to go the third party route. But to me, what this established was the urgent necessity for an alternative to the Democratic Party. And I think that we need this. But in order for it to be successful, I want people to acknowledge that we have to put in the groundwork for this. We have to do some very specific things to make this happen. Because if we just like create a new party and we don't change the institutions, then ultimately nothing will come of it, right? Because we have third parties in this country. And currently they're more successful on the right than they are on the left. Like the Libertarian Party takes more from the Republicans than, you know, the Green Party takes from Democrats. So if this were to become a thing and the party was founded and they started to like run people for Congress and whatnot, then it would be really, really important for you to make sure that this party is viable. And the way that you do that is to push for electoral reform. And I've said this once, I will say it again. There is a bill, H.I. 4,000, that will make it much easier for all of us to get a third and fourth party, because it moves us away from the first past the post, Majoritarian Winner Take All system. And it institutes nationwide ranked choice voting, proportional representation. So rather than all of us just having one representative, we have two or three, maybe. So it's more proportional. And on top of that, it ends gerrymandering. And if you are not able to convince your lawmaker, as I couldn't to support this bill, then if you live in a state where you have ballot initiatives, what you can do is try to get ranked choice voting on the ballot. I mean, this happened in Maine and it was a game changer. You see a prominent Green Party figure running for the U.S. Senate, right? Lisa Savage, I brought her on my program. So we want this to be accompanied by electoral reform, because if you don't get electoral reform, then this party isn't going to be viable. It's not going to be viable. Like best case scenario, you get like 10, 20 percent of people in this party. But then that's not enough to actually take power. 10 to 20 percent in each district, even is not enough to actually assume power. So we have to make this party viable by getting electoral reform. That's step number one. Now, what we want is for not just third and fourth parties to become a thing in America, but we want them to be good parties, right? Because once you start to actually get power, what happens? Capitalism corrupts that institution. So let's say best case scenario, we get the People's Party in Congress and they represent like a third of voters. Well, once you start to get power, then that attracts special interests who then try to co-opt and corrupt that new power. So even if, let's say like the Green Party, if they actually started becoming really key players, if we got electoral reform, we would have to protect the viability of third parties in the sense that like they don't just become extensions of the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, like we'd want them to still be corporate free and represent the people. So you'd have to protect them from capitalism, essentially, and make sure that we campaign finance reform. We decommodify elections. So in order for this to work, we have to do a lot of things like, one, we need electoral reform and two, we have to make sure that these parties don't become shitty over time and we have to get money out of politics so that way they can't be co-opted and corrupted. Right. Now, if we were to get some sort of, you know, People's Party, if this actually worked, which I wanted to, but we didn't get electoral reform, what would we be looking at? Well, let's say, you know, it got 10 to 20 percent. Let's go with that figure that I was using earlier of the electorate. Well, as I stated, that wouldn't be enough to actually get power in many instances, and they would just be splitting votes with Democrats, which means that Republicans would win. So that's why we desperately need electoral reform, because it's not enough to just have like a People's Party, but we need this People's Party to be viable. Like we want members of the People's Party to actually make it to Congress. Right. That's the ultimate goal of this, to get power. But we have to make sure we get electoral reform and campaign finance reform. Otherwise, like we're doing all of this for nothing. Now, there is a world where it's a possibility that like the People's Party just becomes big enough to where they take away a chunk of voters from Democrats. And then, you know, that forces Democrats to come to the table and try to, you know, bring in the People's Party. But after seeing how stupid the Democrats are, like in that instance, let's say like the People's Party was taking away like 30 percent of Democratic Party voters and they were losing every election. I still think that Democrats wouldn't come to the table. I think they just say, you know, this People's Party is worse than Republicans because they're helping them win, yada, yada, yada. Like we've learned that Democrats are not going to make any changes. Like they're going to vote shame because that's better to them. That works better than actually getting ranked choice voting because if they were to promote ranked choice voting, well, then that would stop the spoilage issue that they're so concerned with. But that also threatens their power because then third and fourth parties might become viable. So, you know, I don't think Democrats will ever come to the table with any sort of third party. It'd be really unlikely because they're just they're stupid. They're dense. They've showed us that they're not going to want to do anything. So we have to make sure that we make this party viable and we don't rely on the Democratic Party to make them come to the table and meet with us and become viable because we're going to be waiting forever. That's never going to happen. Democrats are too stupid to do anything. They don't care about winning or losing elections. So if we eat up like a sizable chunk of their electorate with the People's Party, they don't give a fuck. They don't care because then they're just going to try to fundraise more to their corporate donors. So we have to make sure that we fight for electoral reform. Now, look, I understand people are anxious and they don't want to do this crucial step of getting electoral reform. I feel you, right? Duverger's law is a thing, but it's not like a written like codified law. It just suggests that, you know, in these more majoritarian first pass the post, want to take all systems. Most of the times you're going to see just two parties and those parties are going to be pre milk toast, pretty centrist in most instances. Now, this isn't like a universal thing. I mean, South Africa has proportional representation. Their institutions actually are theoretically conducive to multiple parties, but they have like one prominent party and see that wins every single time, right? And even when you get electoral reform as Japan did, that still might change one election or two elections. But then things kind of just go back to normal. So it's really, really tough. Now, back in 2016, I told myself, OK, listen, I think that people are just so frustrated with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. It's possible that so many people vote for the Green Party. That we get five percent and that five percent leads to federal funding, right? And that makes the Green Party real players. But Jill Stein got one percent, which was baffling to me because still, even like with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump going up against each other and you have someone like Jill Stein who's bringing ideas to the table like student debt cancellation and a Green New Deal, which are now popular in the Democratic Party, people rejected her because it's not just about like the institutions and majoritarian winner take all systems. Like I've learned after 2016 that like this two party duopoly, like it's something that's embedded in our DNA. Like people culturally just won't vote for anything other than the Democratic or Republican parties. They won't like it. Just they have to pick one or the other. And even if we got electoral reform, I still don't necessarily know if we can nudge them in the correct direction. But what we can do if we got ranked choice voting is defang their arguments, right? People oftentimes who are theoretically more inclined to support a third party, they don't want to vote for a Green Party person. If that means that the Democrat, who's more likely to win, ends up losing. So they want to stop Republicans from winning. Therefore, they vote for Democrats. That's what a lot of people do. It's called strategic voting rather than sincere voting. But if we had ranked choice voting nationwide, then we could explain to them how now it doesn't actually hurt you to vote for a Green Party candidate or a People's Party candidate. You can vote for a third party and rank your choices. So if you want to vote for Howie Hawkins is number one, that's fine. You just choose Joe Biden as your number two and you make sure that, you know, you vote your heart and your conscience, but the worst person who you don't want to win doesn't win. Like you're not enabling them by splitting votes. Like this is this is really important because they're not going to buy it. If we just say, you know, hey, we have a third party vote for us. They like we've learned after 2016, it's going to be one of the two parties, the duopoly, they're not even going to try to give the Greens 5 percent. Right. So what I want is for the People's Party to be a thing that's viable. So if you support this and I don't know who doesn't support this, because whoever like can't see the need for an alternative to the Democratic and Republican parties, like I don't get that. I don't understand you. But I think most people who are watching know that there's a need for this. We need a People's Party and I'm glad this came together. So what we have to do now is put in the groundwork. Like this is a grassroots movement, right? This is the formation of a People's Party. So that means you put in work, you push for electoral reform, you push to make sure we get campaign finance reform to decommodify elections. So this new institution that we build, if we make it viable, doesn't get corrupted in the same way that Democrats become corrupted. But with that being said, like overall, like it's nice to watch this and like listen to intelligent people speak who have more than just platitudes. Like if you follow this, like if you tuned into it, like it's honestly therapeutic in a way. And again, I haven't watched all of it yet, but like it's therapeutic because you see people saying the same exact thing and it feels like you're not crazy anymore when you watch this, right? Like you see people who actually care about policy and that's refreshing, which it shouldn't be because if you're in politics, like if you follow politics, that should be like what you focus on. But I mean, not in 2020 America. So having said all of that, I'm rooting for the People's Party. I want to help the People's Party. We all have to help the People's Party to make sure that if this does become a thing, I don't know what like what's involved with creating a new party, but like we have to get electoral reform to make sure we don't only just have a majoritarian system and we have to make sure that we have electoral reform or campaign finance reform. We have to have those two things to make this actually successful and not just be like some fringe party, like we want to push this into the mainstream. That's the ultimate goal, of course. So electoral reform, campaign finance reform. But having said all of that, I'll shut up now and let the people who attended this, who are brilliant, speak. These are my favorite parts from the convention. Capitalism doesn't separate itself from racism. You cannot fix something that was built to be broken. We have to shatter the systems that oppress us and rebuild everything for all of us. The audacity of both parties in this country to say we cannot avoid universal health care when Democrats and Republicans both fund our war machine. Well, guess what? It's time for us, the people to be audacious. I'm sure you've all noticed that the two party system is not working for everybody. In fact, it's only working for corporate America and the wealthy elites. They fear the third party more than anything else. And guess who knows that from experience? You're looking at him. See, they think we're stupid. They think we're stupid. They think we're afraid. How are we ever going to stop the racial injustice crisis when both parties are in the pockets of the for-profit prison industry? How are we ever going to stop the cost of health care crisis and the lack of health care crisis when both parties are in the pockets of big pharma and the giant insurance companies? How are we ever going to stop the economic inequality crisis when both parties are in the pockets of the billionaire class? There have been people in every generation that have taken the wheel, had pushed back against the forces that were transgressing against our principles and did what it took to get this country back on track. It is simply our turn. Fifty seven years and three days ago, the greatest public intellectual in the history of the American empire died in Ghana. His name was W.E.B DeBois. And that next morning, young brother, Martin Luther King, told America about a dream that he had, which was not the American dream, but a dream rooted in the American dream and has everything to do with the movement for people's party. Because what we're talking about here is a people who muster the wherewithal who have not just the courage but the fortitude, the fortitude to fructify. And by fructify, I mean to generate the fruits of truth telling, to generate the truth of justice seeking, to generate the truth of kindness and sweetness and gentleness and how we relate to each other. But with a steel spine when it comes to bearing witness in the face of oppression. Hello, somebody. See, this poem encapsulates this very moment. Brother Langston Hughes is talking about this very moment. I hope you caught what he said. He said, telling others to get together whites and Filipinos, Negroes and Mexicans, all kinds of kids will die who don't believe in lies and bribes and contentment and a lousy piece. That is what the movement for people's party is all about.