US has another movement that tries to boost ‘third way’ for elections

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Trying to avoid a polarized election like the one in 2020 — or like the Brazilian election in progress — a group of voters in the United States is formatting a new third way, called “No Labels”.

It’s not a new party to contend with the Republicans and Democrats, but something that could unite the two extremes of “us versus them,” an estimated center of 64.5 million voters — a third of those who voted for Donald Trump last year. vote and 20% of those who elected Joe Biden.

No Labels only intends to enter the US electoral scene if Republicans and Democrats face each other from radical positions. If there is an acceptable candidate for the electorate in the center, the movement will not intervene and must remain quiet as in the last few months when it began to be created. It would have been an unheard-of initiative were it not for New York Times columnist David Brooks to discover and introduce it.

The new third-way project has raised $46 million of the $70 million it needs to operate. It is now making room for one more candidate on the ballots for the 2024 election. The mission has been handed over to a group of lawyers, political strategists and companies collecting signatures for petitions. In Ohio alone, 100,000 supporters have already been gathered; in Arizona, 47 thousand.

“This moment demands that American leaders and citizens declare their freedom from the anger and division that are ruining our politics and, more importantly, our country,” explains No Labels on its official website. And more: “We believe in an ethic of mutual responsibility, in which both government and citizens owe each other something.”

A YouGov poll showed that 60% of Democrats consider the GOP a “serious threat to the United States”. The same survey showed lead exchanged with Republicans — 70% think the same about Biden’s acronym. Another poll by the Pew Research Center ahead of the 2020 election indicated that seven out of ten Democrats said they would not date Donald Trump voters. Not even the Covid-19 pandemic brought the country together, as it also did in Brazil.

No Labels has not yet decided how to nominate the candidate to run as an alternative to polarization. But, as anticipated by the NYT, the process will be technology-intensive and will need to be transparent, perhaps even with a convention in Texas. Possible candidates will not have to leave their parties, because it is not a question of creating a third party, but a third option.

Writer David Brooks simulated a polarized campaign in which No Labels proposes retired Admiral William McRaven, or PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, as a third way. The conclusion was that the greatest danger would be to dehydrate the Democrats, if the candidate were Hillary Clinton, as in 2016, and then give Trump a new term.

No Labels has already taken a stand on political issues that often lead to radicalization: under-21s without access to guns, legal abortion only up to 15 weeks of pregnancy, immigration reform with a door to citizenship, and self-reliance. in energy.

“We believe that unity of Americans at home makes us stronger abroad. The Chinese Communist Party, Russia and other totalitarian regimes that threaten American interests benefit from, and exploit, US internal divisions,” the group says, citing Washington’s two main antagonists on the global geopolitical stage.

The organizers of No Labels also defend the return to the ideal that “politics should stop at the water’s edge”. It’s a reference to the goal of, despite domestic divisions, presenting the country as unity to the international community — in other words, doing the dirty laundry at home.

“These beliefs have been at the foundation of American democracy since its founding. If they seem new to some, it is only because so many in our public life have forgotten or ignored them,” claim the aspirants.

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