Why I Left The Democratic Party For The Working Families Party.

I know - You probably don't care. But since I joined to "push them towards the left," they've moved ever-rightward. If you're curious, here's my reasoning.

Hello, friends,

About a week ago, I changed my New York State Voter Registration from Democratic Party to Working Families Party.

Many of you are already done reading, and I get it.

I’ve heard things before like, “This may have been a good article but I stopped reading when you opened with” and, like, yeah. That’s your right. You’re free to do so. I endorse such discernment myself, and if you’re truly not interested in why anyone would leave the Democratic Party, I get it.

I’ve seen many a Hashtag-DemExit and gone, “Psh, this is obviously BS.” Worse, I’ve seen many a “Why I Left The Left” article.

And, look, this ain’t that. This isn’t me saying I won’t be fighting, or working on left-leaning causes, or refusing to ever vote Democrat because Democrats are just as bad as Republicans and all that bullshit. This. Ain’t. That.

And here’s the thing:

I’m not saying YOU should leave the Democratic Party, or that my situation is universal, or what-have-you, or that you should follow me.

There are MANY situations where you should absolutely remain a Democrat - or, if you aren’t already one, to sign up as one. If you live, say, in a place where there are actually real Democratic primaries? Or if you even know of a Primary that’s gonna be close? That’s a good reason to be a Democrat!

If you feel like your Democratic representatives are doing a good job and haven’t sold their souls out to be Republican-Lite? Stay! By all means, stay!

If you really believe that the Democratic Party is a bastion of genuine progress - not Progressivism in the sense I tend to talk about it, which is to say somewhat to the left, but actual progress, even if that’s not super-’far left’ - then go for it.

But hear me out, first, before you judge me too harshly.

Why, Fundamentally, Am I Doing This?

Hyphenation/em dash warning up ahead. My editor would wring my neck, but this is personal and I’m just getting it out on the page.

Up until the 2016 election season, I was an Independent. I was politically active, of course. Hell, I started my ‘political writing’ back for my college newspaper in, what, 2003? And it was virtually all lefty-leaning stuff. I voted Democrat in just about every election, except for the occasional person I thought I could trust not to be a dipshit with power.

Thus, I was always outside, but also always on the same team - And that really isn’t changing, by the way.

I joined the Democratic party for two reasons. The first was the immediate goal of being able to vote for Bernie Sanders in the primary, but I always viewed this as aspirational. I thought - and maintain - that he was our best chance against a guy who was clearly a Fascist.

But, either way, my goal was to actually join the party I’d been so critical of because it seemed like the invitation was there to join and be taken seriously. I contributed what I could financially as well as via activism, and in return I hoped I would be listened to just a little bit. I asked others to join, and I asked those who wouldn’t to at least support us from outside. I really, truly believed in and advocated for “Vote for them now, push them to the left as we go.”

Even in the 2024 election, I convinced people to vote for Harris that did not at all want to vote for Harris. I’m grateful to them, and sorry things went the way they did.

But eight years of “push them to the left” has resulted in an Overton Window far more solidly to the right, and a Democratic party whose answer to that is to work with them.

Here we are.

I wrote my ‘Frameworks’ article about all the things I’ve seen the Democrats do during and since the 2024 election. There are many other things that I simply missed in that article, or at least should have definitely said more about. I hinted about how fear-based racism had an impact, but I didn’t get detailed with it. I apologize, but I’m grateful I found better education on the topic.

The fundamental question was: What path are Democrats going to take? What’s their answer to the question of ‘where do we go from here?’

Since that article came out, the Democratic answer seems to have been found, and it is, as summed up by ABC News (ironically enough), to “Work with them now.

The “them” Democrats will work with, by the by, is Republicans. You know, those guys Democrats were (accurately) calling Fascists.

Thus, given all I’ve seen, I feel like it’s time for me to get out.

With the vote that a relatively centrist 74 year old cancer patient - no offense, cancer patients, but cancer REALLY sucks, as I’ve seen up close and personal, and that should be a patient’s number-one priority, not leadership positions in Congress - should get the House Oversight Committee Minority Leadership position instead of Democratic super-star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? Someone who can be instantly recognized by the first three letters of her names?

With that ‘recommendation’ playing out with AOC losing the floor vote?

With the way Democratic matriarch Nancy Pelosi worked to undermine AOC?

With the way Democrats left and right, up-to-and-including my own Representative Thomas Sellout Suozzi (who I wrote about previously), have basically ran away from defending and in fact voted against Trans peoples’ rights?

It’s clear that at least where I live, which pretty much includes all of New York State, there is no reality wherein I can push the Democrats to the left.

That’s About Where I’d Stopped Writing. I Sat On This. Today Is A New Day.

It’s December 18th, it’s 50-some-odd degrees when it should be more like 30, and here I am looking at the Senate’s vote on the 2025 NDAA.

Oh, look. Most Democrats in the Senate voted for the transphobic military spending bill. You know, because OUR SOLDIERS' CHILDREN shouldn't get rare-if-ever used medical care that might save their lives because - I guess? - we don't give a fuck about our soldiers.

As someone who grew up with "Never Forget" as a motto intrinsically linked with his nearby megacity? As someone who heard nonstop “Support The Troops!” arguments? As someone who grew up acutely aware of just how willingly sacrificed Queer lives were with things like Don’t Ask Don’t Tell & ballot initiatives about our rights to marry whoever we loved, & all of that being determined by other political forces, all in the pursuit of greater and greater, well...

I don't know what.

Honestly, this thought is too complex for my frustrated brain to take in. Even upon revision, it occurs to me that despite over a decade of therapy, I’m still that young kid being ridiculed by his peers for what was obvious to them, even if he didn’t fully understand it, himself.

And here we are, again, with Democrats just selling Trans people out.

It doesn't surprise me. It doesn’t even really disappoint me, because that would imply I had expectations that Democrats wouldn’t.

It just further reinforces the fact that I am sick and tired of having a Regressive and a Conservative party in this country, and for everyone left of center-right to have to side with the Conservative party (that has been Conservative at least since Third-Way Democrats took it over in the 90's), or else be viewed as some kind of hyper-radical far-left lunatic.

Like...Fuck this duoploy bullshit.

Nothing has changed since we lost in November. No lessons were learned in 2024. That’s actually worse than what happened in 2016.

Democrats learned to pleasantly lie a little bit about their intentions after losing in 2016, especially around issues like healthcare. Why do you think I pointed out in my Frameworks article how, back in 2020, so many candidates like Kamala Harris talked up Medicare For All - only for her to never mention it in 2024.

Weird, huh?

Like, let’s go with something local. Something a little…

Personal.

A Tale Of Jesse Volunteering For A Democratic State Senator’s Campaign.

It’s 2018. I’m not in the best shape, but I have some free time and I want to contribute to Democrats beating Trumpism once and for all. (Hah.)

I volunteered to do a round of canvassing for Anna Kaplan as she ran for New York State Senate in my district. Here’s a picture of me in front of her office. Suit, shirt, and even tie. EVEN TIE. I fucking hate ties, they make it hard to breathe and exacerbate my neck issues, and this was summertime if I recall correctly. And I wore a full-blown suit-and-tie to canvass.

That’s how much I cared.

I made this decision in part because of a Reddit AMA thread Kaplan did to promote her candidacy. This is me asking her some questions, particularly about the New York Health Act, which we’ve talked about before. She convinced me that she only had sincere questions about the plan.

Now, because I like to talk about the positives first, let me say this: Kaplan kept her word on the topic of automatic voter registration. At the very least, she sponsored a bill that would get this done, one that appears to have been signed into law. Cool. Good.

I will also note that she was always very friendly towards Queer people. I spent more than a little while making jokes with one of her PR people. In a way, I miss those times. Again: Cool. Good. Important, even!

Let it not be said that I didn’t weigh her tenure fairly.

Now, never mind that her stance was that people who use cannabis should be in jail. That’s fucking abhorrent, and it was evident in the fact that she was one of only three Democrats to vote against legalization. The idea that we should be spending taxpayer money on locking up and policing weed is just fucking dumb and honestly kind of soul-less.

But that’s not what we’re talking about, is it?

No. We’re talking about honesty about health care policy, and in particular the New York Health Act, a thing I can’t ever recall Kaplan bringing up again! Funny, huh?

While I hate to link to Twitter, New York State Senator Jabari Brisport spelled out the still-ongoing problem with that bill: That despite it having more cosponsors than it needs votes, somehow it never comes up for a vote. WEIRD! It’s almost like some Democrats…Don’t want to vote on the thing they claim to support!

Just like how they’re happy to vote against the healthcare of people they claim they support!

But despite many, many requests for Kaplan to step up and do something - to say something, to act, to do ANYTHING about what would be world-changing health care legislation - her two terms in office came and went. She never, to my knowledge - and I checked - sponsored such legislation.

In fact, she didn’t accomplish much that I observed as a big win for working-class people; nothing that I really connect to her efforts, at any rate. She was relatively centrist in her approach to most stuff, very much not interested in rocking any boats. In 2022, while Republicans ran on a fear-of-lawlessness campaign, the New York Post reports how she crowed about “record-breaking” funding to law enforcement. Because her instincts, at her heart, were to pull to the right

She was subsequently defeated by a Fascist lunatic named Jack Martins who I’ve written about before elsewhere.

But here’s where it goes national.

The Jay Jacobs 3rd District Screwjob

Anna Kaplan’s plan after her defeat was to mount a campaign for U.S. Representative of District 3 - my district, it’d turn out! - in 2024. After all, Sellout Suozzi had just dipped from his job to run for and win last place in our Gubernatorial elections. This really weird Republican guy named George Santos managed to win against Suozzi’s replacement, so it was an open primary.

And an open primary it was! MANY people were interested in the seat, so it looked like - finally - Democrats would have the kind of primary that’d turn out an actual debate over ideas. After all, I’d watched many people - friends, even! - run against Suozzi and be squashed in the primaries because he was an incumbent and, well, Democrats just don’t primary Democrats. That’s what socialists like AOC do!

But now? Now was an open primary! ANYONE could participate! And so the names started coming in.

(Except when it’s Jamaal Bowman or Cori Bush - then we primary Democrats)

But, see, our state party chair Jay Jacobs liked Tom Suozzi more than Anna Kaplan, so Anna Kaplan had a problem.

Even though HE left his seat for HIS ambitions and allowed GEORGE FUCKING SANTOS a free shot to win it by NEVER doing political opposition research on the fucking maniac in their 2020 contest like he should have, well…

Santos had to resign because he is an absolute criminal.

And that meant instead of an actual primary for the 2024 election, there was a special election for Santos’ seat.

And guess who wanted the job?

So with NO primary, NO chance for Democrats to even oppose it, NO respect for Kaplan fighting in the trenches to build support while Suozzi tried once again to up his profile…

…Suozzi was the candidate Jacobs picked, and everyone just had to bend over and support him.

And, wouldn’t you know, Kaplan had to cancel her primary effort for the 2024 primary because Suozzi, when matched against one of the most incompetent politicians I have ever seen in my life, won the special election.

And Democrats don’t primary Democrats.

Kaplan’s latest Twitter post is from August 1st when she retweeted that PR guy I liked. Her last actual post that was a political one was in April about the Presidential Primary. Nothing - and I mean NOTHING - from election season.

I guess she, an important civic leader who once held actual power, just had nothing important to say?

You know, it’s not like anything important was going on.

By the way? That state party boss was unanimously re-elected ‘by acclimation’ in September. Did I get a vote? Well, no. Because according to that article, that’s up to the executive board. And who votes on that? Honestly, I have no idea - that was never, ever made clear to me. I have no idea how the party structure works. Nobody really bothered to onboard me.

So I guess nobody’ll miss me when I’m gone, eh?

Anyway.

My point here is that Democrats…Just don’t seem to have the stomach for the fight that’s ahead. Even Bernie Sanders is, Goddess bless his heart, trying to use ‘I’ll work with you’ to pin Trump down into ‘keeping his promises.’ This will probably not work whatsoever, but will certainly create an environment permissive to Trump’s actions.

But you also have more clear-cut defections brewing, such as John Fetterman’s willingness to vote for the very same man he defeated in his election, Dr. Mehmet Oz, if Oz is appointed to Trumps administration. In fact, he went out of his way to shame other Democrats who are diametrically opposed to - I cannot stress this enough - ANYONE THAT A CONVICTED FELON WOULD APPOINT.

Democrats are treating Trump like a normal President, and while history may later look back and go, “Actually, yeah, Fascism was normal for America, and it was the 1930-1970’s Democrats and, to a much lesser extent, their 1990’s-2024 heirs who were the big aberration” the bottom line is that it shouldn’t be.

Despite what so many Democrats (including some I’ve supported!) seem to be settling on as a narrative: We should have won 2024. It was not fucking unwinnable! It was not an inevitable defeat. We were not, and have never been, doomed to this outcome.

That’s why I never accepted the theory that Joe Manchin and Jon Tester and Kirsten Sinema could fuck Dems over time and again because “They’re the only ones who could win,” but that Dems like Rashida Tlaib had to vote 100% with the powers-that-be.

That’s surrendering your beliefs before you even test them - and is it any wonder that nobody would believe in someone who surrendered their beliefs for power? ‘Sold them out,’ as it were?

OF COURSE those people would lose. To believe anything else is self-fulfilling Doomerism.

And if I’m wrong? And we are doomed to this fate? If Harris never, ever could have won?

Me giving up the ghost chase and trying to find a better path won’t matter any more than me staying would - because we’re doomed, right?

And I, my friends, have given up the ghost.

So What’s The Plan?

Therein lies the question, and therein lies the end of my ability to necessarily answer.

The theory I’m working under is that the Working Families Party is still a significant political force in New York, with many candidates depending on a couple percent of the vote coming through that line.

Eventually - hopefully, and with enough preparation & resources - there’ll be candidates who go directly through the party.

Will that happen? I don’t know.

But that’s the plan, because right now I just don’t think there’s a better option out there for me.

I simply came to the conclusion that for me, for my type of thinking, it was time to move on. Nothing magical about it. I felt like, at least where I live, the Democratic party was closed off to me and to new ideas, and I am just sick and tired of the hostility.

I am sick and tired of being told that my beliefs are too unrealistic when plenty of other countries do far more than I’d ever dare imagine America to be capable of. If it works for them, why not us? Are we just so far-right as a country? Even though poll after poll (see: The entire body of work The Progressive Cafe has produced for plenty of polling information) shows support for things like Medicare For All?

I dunno, man.

I think it’s simple: Bernie Sanders is right about that whole “Oligarchy” thing, that’s what we’re sliding FAST into, and too many conservative Democrats are happy to be bought-and-paid-for by Oligarchs if it means they get to keep their lil’ bit of power. And I’m pretty surrounded by ‘em, so I would rather just…Not be.

Anyway, what’s the worst that happens? We’re all doomed? This was all unavoidable? And we’re bound for inevitable, Luigi Mangione-style accelerationism?

I guess it doesn’t matter much, anyway.