'DemExit' virtual convention aims to create US leftwing alternative

Joe Biden’s acceptance speech at the virtual Democratic national convention made one reference to “middle class” and one to “working families”. It never mentioned the word “poverty”. Although Democrats put on a formidable show of unity, there are still refuseniks on the left who see little distinction between Biden and Donald Trump or the parties they lead. Some will gather at 4pm on Sunday for a virtual convention of their own. More than 12,000 people have signed up to attend the People’s Convention, streamed live on social media and featuring the Hollywood actors and activists Danny Glover and Susan Sarandon as well as two of the more quixotic Democratic primary candidates, Mike Gravel and Marianne Williamson. They will vote on forming a new political party “free of corporate money and influence” to run candidates in the congressional midterms in 2022 and for president in 2024.“A choice between Biden and Trump is no choice at all,” said Nick Brana, 31, national coordinator of the Movement for a People’s Party (MPP), which has nearly 100,000 members. “The Democrats and Republicans have made it clear that they will always choose profits over people. So we’re going to replace them.”The convention revives an evergreen debate on the left: whether to follow the likes of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and reform the Democratic party from within, or to conclude that it is irredeemably beholden to corporate interests and walk away to create something new. The MPP, founded by a variety of Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign staff, delegates and volunteers, embraces the latter approach. The party’s website has a page headlined “#DemExit” that declares: “Dear DNC: This is our Declaration of Independence from your Corporate Party.”In Brana’s view, poor people were erased from this year’s Democratic convention as it competed for Republican votes. “We believe that the Democratic and the Republican parties, as long as they’re financed by corporate money, will never represent working people,” he continued.“You cannot simultaneously be financed by Wall Street oligarchs and billionaires and massive multinational corporations and represent working people. You cannot simultaneously have corporate lobbyists on your national committees, as both parties do, and simultaneously represent working people.

All data is taken from the source: https://www.theguardian.com/
Article Link: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/29/demexit-peoples-convention-leftwing-alternative-democrats-republicans


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