by Tom Evslin
No Labels is a non-partisan group whose current goal is to assure that we have choices for president other than just Trump and Biden in 2024. They are working to make sure that they are on the ballot in all 50 states if Republicans and Democrats present us with an unappetizing rematch of 2020. The two traditional parties don’t like each other but they don’t want any opposition to their duopoly either. According to The Washington Post:
“Top Democratic strategists, including current advisers to President Biden and former U.S. senators, met last week with former Republicans who oppose Donald Trump at the offices of a downtown D.C. think tank.“Their mission: to figure out how to best subvert a potential third-party presidential bid by the group No Labels, an effort they all agreed risked undermining Biden’s reelection campaign and reelecting former president Donald Trump to the White House.”
Democrats are doing more than talking. The Arizona Democratic Party is suing to kick No Labels off the ballot. One of its arguments is that No Labels would “harm Democrats’ electoral prospects because [our] candidates will have to compete …” No Labels cofounder and ex-NAACP head Benjamin Chavis, Jr. – hardly a Trump supporter, said:
“I’ve spent my entire life in the Democratic Party, championing civil and voting rights and I’ve always believed our democracy is stronger when there are more voices and choices in our political process. That’s why I was so disturbed to hear that a group of my friends and leaders in the Democratic Party recently convened to try to undermine No Labels’ 2024 presidential insurance project,” Chavis said in a statement. “No Labels will not spoil this election for Trump. What we will do is continue working resolutely to give millions of Americans a choice they so clearly want.”
Back in 2017 No Labels was the convenor of the Problem Solver Caucus in the US House. To his credit, then US Representative Peter Welch from Vermont was a proud member. He said then:
“There’s no illusion that any specific caucus, whether it’s Problem Solvers or any other individual caucus, can essentially overrule leadership and the partisanship that unfortunately really does prevail here. But as individual members getting together, when we present a bipartisan bill, it’s interesting how much force that gets in committee.”
Sometime between 2017 and his successful run for the US Senate in 2022, Welch quietly left Problem Solvers. I hope he speaks up for No Labels right to be on the ballot and for non-partisanship.
I’ve donated to Nikki Haley and will probably donate to Tim Scott and will donate to a credible Democratic primary challenger if one emerges. In 2020 I donated to Amy Klobuchar; in 2016 to Chris Christie and might again. I’ll vote in whichever primary has the best chance of helping to elect someone other than Trump or Biden.
I hesitated before making a second donation to No Labels. I think Trump Redux would be a terrible outcome. I voted for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020. But Trump-phobia cannot get in the way of wishing better for American than a second term for a visibly aging President with a seemingly inept Vice President. The two traditional parties look like they will not give us a better choice. That forfeits any claim that they deserve their duopoly.
Democrats have a much better way to prevent another term for Trump than suppressing our right to vote for whomever we please. All they have to do is nominate a better candidate – as a majority of their own party want. It’s even easier for Republicans to spare us Trump 2.0; all they have to do is not nominate him.
Categories: Commentary
You don’t have to help Trump, Tom. He’ll do it all by himself with the votes of the people. People like you and the No Labels people are nothing but a bunch of fence sitters in the middle with their fingers in the air to see which way the wind is blowing. If you don’t know what’s really going on in this country, you are really naive (a nice word for stupid) or one of the people who are knowingly perpetuating the Uni-party.
“There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist, who is willing to sit out the course of any battle, willing to cash in on the blood of the innocent or to crawl on his belly to the guilty, who dispenses justice by condemning both the robber and the robbed to jail, who solves conflicts by ordering the thinker and the fool to meet each other halfway. In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromise is the transmitting rubber tube.” – Ayn Rand
Anyone who voted for Joe Biden has no room to advise anyone else on who to vote for. The fact that this writer was wrong about everything during the Covid shakedown. He spent the entire time hiding under his bed writing stories supporting and encouraging the government to push the jabs on people who saw the scam for what it was and didn’t trust the safe and effective line. Who ares who he votes for, Vermont has lost it’s way. The only way to remain in a free America is to move out of Vermont. If you can’t move, buy everything online or in NH. Vote with your money to not support this craziness anymore.
Let’s be honest Tom. Those of us who live in the REAL WORLD and are not afraid to face the truth, know full well there are no longer really parties called Democrat and/or Republican.
Each party continues on in the ruse, organizing, writing party platforms with specific beliefs/principles and standards that they full well know will not be adhered to. It’s become a free for all system where candidates pick the party of their choosing and know they don’t have to concern themselves with party platforms of beliefs/principles or standards. There is no accountability.
Federal and State Party Leaderships are anemic, weak and feckless, afraid to STAND FOR SPECIFIC PRINCIPLES. Trump runs Republican, because like many other TRUE CONSERVATIVES, what other REAL choices does he have with our election system?
Let’s remember, unlike other candidates, Trump is not beholden to donors. He clearly loves America, the People of America and he seeks to uphold Constitutional Principles. He is not perfect, because no human being is.
Who is this Nit Whit ?
Shouldn’t he be a VT Digger Publisher .
Nobody with even a Minute amount of Intelligence would Admit to Voting for Joe the Clown Resident from somewhere deep in the Underworld.
– 20 IQ
I don’t care if someone else with a different view wants to post an article on VT Daily, I encourage it. I wish more would do this.
The problem I have with this author is that he constantly spews unfounded, unreasearched, verbal diarrhia and we post the comments tearing down his horrible rhetoric and misplaced ideas and he never responds or defends his position.
Why publish this Guy? What does this do for your paper or for us?
Why publish this Guy? What does this do for your paper or for us?
Well, there’s the first amendment thing. We don’t have to read the stuff. And, if you’re at all like me, I often refer to these musings in future discussions – not that anyone pays any attention to me either. After all, its the fact that this forum exists in the first place that’s important… not necessarily the logic behind what is written here.
I look forward to Mr. Evslin’s commentary. The perspective of wealthy Vermont entrepreneurs pontificating from their perches, high in the hills on sprawling estates, amuses me and enlightens me at the same time. Now that we are in the long emergency, the State is in shambles, the diversity hires and uber liberals steering the State into it’s final resting place,the wealthy are going to board a plane, and flee to their homes in Florida or some island far away from here. Bon voyage! It was fun while it lasted! Take Phil and the fanboys with you – we don’t need the hypocrisy, we need leaders with real business sense and guts, like 45, for example.
Recently, CNN was caught on film admitting that they intentionally did everything in their power to promote Trump in a way that would have him removed from office. This was their sole objective. Although, the CNN employee admitted that they did not admit this to the public. The individual admitted that now they will turn their attention to climate change, which will go on indefinitely. For all of you who actually watched videos of the 2023 WEF DAVOS meetings, you would know that CNN, MSNBC, New York Times and other national media outlets are WEF stakeholders, who moderated the various DAVOS meetings. It is no secret that Trump did not go along with the United Nations, WHO and WEF shared agenda. This is why he backed the US out of the WHO, which Biden reentered into.I also recently heard an interview with the ex executive director of the United Nations. He served in this role for 17 years. He openly admitted that Trump was not going along with the United Nations agenda. The writer of this article is completely uninformed on the global play for power and his role as a useful idiot, like most uninformed Americans.
All these Vermont republicans admitting they voted for Biden might give a normal person the idea of what’s wrong with the Vermont republican party.
A vote for dementia Joe demonstrates a severe lack of judgement. I bet Jim Douglas, who I used to admire, voted for him too. All these years that I’ve been voting for these turncoats in the party now makes me sick. At least now we can see the level of how fake these republican politicians are who represent the Vermont republican party. True conservative Vermonters have no where to turn to fight the progressive hijacking of this once beautiful, free state. We need a modern Ethan Allan. Without the intervention of some miracle, Vermonters are screwed and will be peons to our freedom steeling overlords only to work to pay for their never ending push to dystopian Vermont.