Shawn Griffiths
DETROIT, MICH. - The Movement for a People’s Party (MPP) announced Monday that more than 400,000 people from across the country joined The People’s Convention Sunday, which kept the event trending on social media during the entirety of its 5-hour program. Near the end of the event, MPP reports, 99% of viewers voted to form a new major political party in 2021.
The event was organized in the wake of the Republican and Democratic Party conventions which MPP says “erased the needs of poor and working people in a time of mounting national crises.”
Speakers at The People’s Convention included former Bernie 2020 Co-Chair Sen. Nina Turner and Harvard Professor Dr. Cornel West, who MPP says electrified the crowd as they decried what Turner called a “racist, bigoted system” that disenfranchises and oppresses Blacks, the working poor, and the increasing rates of near-poor.
Dr. West called the People’s Party “a prophetic fightback.” He added that as he helps MPP build this new party he is bringing with him musicians like Curtis Mayfield, Sam Cooke, and Nina Simone, who West says have spoken for so many revolutionaries.
Referencing Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1963 March on Washington, West said, “That next morning young brother Dr. Martin Luther King told America about a dream that he had, which was not the American dream, but a dream rooted in the American dream, and it has everything to do with the Movement for a People’s Party.”
The People’s Convention also featured former Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson, UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Danny Glover, former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges, Amped Up host Ryan Knight, and political commentator Jimmy Dore.
“We need a third or fourth entity to step in,” Ventura said while speaking of his own experience as an independent who defeated both major parties. “The lesser of two evils, is still evil,”
Williams labeled the US political industry as a system of “legalized bribery,” and issued a call to action to all Americans to “step in” to a people’s party. “I’m proud to be stepping in with you,” she added.
Former New York Times journalist Chris Hedges said the choices between Trump and Biden is a choice between two demagogues -- Biden, he said, is just a “more competent” demagogue. He added that in the US “you are only allowed to vote against what you hate,” not for what you want.
MPP is now working on organizing local hubs around the country that the groups says “will form the building blocks of state parties and get ballot access.” The People’s Party, MPP adds, will run for Congress in 2022 and president in 2024.