The need to build @AmerParty?remains as strong as ever. Our nation is more divided than ever, and neither the Republican or Democratic Parties can provide a roadmap for the future in which we can have confidence. Rather, the outlook is for more debt, income inequality, continued partisanship and much uncertainty about our economic and foreign policy direction. Trump’s policies are not isolationist but indicate withdrawal from some of the post-war international institutions and relationships that the U.S. has supported for 70 years. Any and all resulting economic and foreign policy vacuums are being filled by China, Russia, others. China and Russia are hell-bent on creating a multi-polar world in which they will have an equal say in world affairs.
It’s important to remember that many of our issues were caused by the policy and leadership failures of the Republican and Democratic Parties. Neither Party took action when corporate America outsourced millions of jobs to cheap-labor countries. The Great Recession of 2007-2012 was caused by multiple Government failures to regulate the housing market and certain financial institutions. It is false to claim that the Great Recession was caused solely by Wall Street greed, as Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats continue to allege.
The truth is that neither the Republican and Democratic Parties are much concerned about the quality of life of average Americans. This is why “quality of life” is almost never included in their speeches, and “income inequality” is never included in GOP platforms. The Republican Party continues to advance the interests of Big Business and its Campaign Donors as evidenced by the recently signed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This legislation gives business a permanent tax cut but taxpayers only a temporary one through 2025. Meanwhile the cost of health insurance increases each year, so that it’s unlikely that most citizens will see any increase in disposable income.
The Democratic Party has no new ideas and continues its evolution from classic liberalism to secular Socialism. It permitted Bernie Sanders, an avowed Socialist, to run in the 2016 Democratic Party despite the fact that he is not a Democrat. The Democratic Party continues to advocate for income redistribution schemes rather than for creating environments in which all Americans can climb the ladder if they take personal responsibility for their education and advancement. Most of all, Democrats believe in the primacy of Big Government over individual responsibility and freedom.
The American Party started from a clean sheet. We care first and foremost about the quality of life of all 326M citizens, taking the position that Government’s responsibility is to help establish the local, regional and national environments in which each citizen can thrive. We believe in personal responsibility and the need for individual achievement, not a Nanny State that seeks to redistribute wealth from successful individuals to others. That said, the U.S. has a need to substantially reduce income inequality, and the American Party will propose and adopt policies that can make this happen.
When starting a new political party, the founders have to consider who the beneficiaries will be, i.e., for whose benefit is the new party being organized. The American Party, as you would expect, has taken instruction from the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
This principle was augmented in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: ….”that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Today, few would say that we truly have government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Many would say that we have representative government in name only. It doesn’t have to be this way. The American Party was founded to fulfill the vision of the Founders and great Presidents like Lincoln, to be a modern party that would retain the best of America’s traditions and be innovative enough to survive and prevail on the world stage in the 21st C. and beyond. Building a major new party is a journey, but with your support the American Party will make substantial progress in 2018. Thank you and Best Wishes for Happiness and Prosperity in the New Year!
