The New Independents Movement - We the People vs. the Uniparty
Beware of the Wolfowitz* in Sheepowitz’s Clothing
A Front and Center Conversation with Steve Bhaerman and Michael Maxsenti
“We have a two-faced one-party system – and we the people haven’t been invited to the party.”
– Swami Beyondananda
When RFK, Jr. first announced he was suspending his campaign to throw his support behind Donald Trump, I was of two minds. I had supported Bobby because to me he represented the “independent” movement, which I recognized as the politics of the future. As most Americans don’t know, 51% of American voters now identify as “independent.”
While I could understand his move as a Hail Mary pass to get his agenda noticed by mainstream media, supporting Trump was for me a bridge too far. Re Trump, I could not un-remember conservative Jonah Goldman’s assessment in 2016: Character is destiny.
Yes, we have a sociopathic system, but is the answer replacing it with a sociopathic individual, particularly one who seems accountable to no one?
I noticed one thing immediately. When Bobby Jr. addressed a Trump rally the day after making his announcement, and when he presented the platform he asked Donald Trump to adopt – curbing governmental censorship, ending the forever wars and shifting funds to domestic needs, and “making America healthy again” by promoting clean food (including new regulations!) and clean soil -- he got a bigger ovation than Trump did. Regardless of whether Trump keeps his promises, Bobby’s message landed with the MAGA crowd.
Then something else happened, seemingly insignificant, that flipped my switch.
Kamala got endorsed by Dick Cheney.
OK, so what? Obviously Donald Trump is such a clear and present danger, such an evil character, that parties from both parties are aligned against him. But then I asked a question. Since when is Dick Cheney such a great judge of character? And then, another. Who or what is Kamala accountable to?
My take is she is a Wolfowitz in Sheepowitz’s clothing* – a kinder, gentler, more “joyful” face promoting Dick Cheney’s neocon policies of forever wars, and the domestic repression that goes with it.
And that brings us to the “uniparty” – a two-faced monster that uses culture wars issues to divide us, left and right. The result is that we the people have been unable to unite and hold our system accountable to the standards that the 90% of us who are not sociopaths would agree on.
This two-faced monster has also betrayed us, left and right.
I was watching a program with RFK, Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, in front of what one would imagine to be a conservative MAGA crowd. When the name Dick Cheney was mentioned, he got the kind of boos Vladmir Putin would get at a Kamala rally.
Huh?
If we set the way-back machine to 2003, conservative voters were aligned behind Bush-Cheney and Colin Powell who told them the Iraq invasion was needed to destroy weapons of mass-destruction. These were the people who used to put “Support Our Troops” bumper stickers on their cars, something you will notice you hardly notice anymore. By the time the 2006 election rolled around, conservative voters recognized they’d been had – they were the ones who supported sending their kids to fight in Iraq, and had come to realize their valor had been betrayed. That’s why the Republican establishment had to install Sarah Palin as VP candidate in 2008 – to address the emerging “Tea Party” movement that was pro-America but anti-American empire.
Indeed, when Barack Obama (who I voted for) became President in January 2009, the Swami announced, “The American Empire has a new face – but it still has the same big fat ass.”
With neocon Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, the neocons (see footnote at the end) simply switched from the red team to the blue team. The same military industrial foreign policy prevailed under the new banner. And …the same peace folks who railed against Bush-Cheney uttered nary a peep when Obama became the “drone president”. Hey, he’s our guy, right?
Meanwhile, on the other side when neocon Jeb Bush ran in the 2016 primaries – well, let’s say he crawled instead of ran. The Republican constituency clamored for Donald Trump, and they put him over the top. (Contrast that with how the Bernie folks gave in to being de-platformed by Hillary and fell in line – with the exception, let’s say of Nick Brana and Tulsi Gabbard.)
So the Republican side of the two-faced one-potty system got hip to their betrayal, and the Democrat voters are just beginning to “wake beyond woke” to recognize that their compassion has been betrayed – by a heavy-handed COVID program that was used (just as the 911 attacks were used to enact the “Patriot” Act) to install censorship of ideas that went against the official narrative. They even created a new Orwellian term, “mal-information” referring to information that was factually-correct but narrative-inconvenient. And they betrayed compassion by leveraging progressives to get the shot “to save others” when they very likely knew they were lying that the shot would prevent infection and prevent the spread.
And so many of my progressive brethren and sistern simply went along, as ditto-headed as the Rush Limbaugh followers were 30 some years ago.
So I offer a question. Those politicians and journalists who “crossed over”, who changed teams – Bobby, Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Naomi Wolf, Mark Crispin Miller, Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Jimmy Dore, Bret Weinstein, Jeffrey Sachs – are they deluded? Are they strung out on hopium and Deniatol, willing to imagine that somehow Donald Trump is the best port in this storm we are facing?
Or …are they willing to see bigger than the familiar narrative to recognize a clearer, and more present danger in the form of “soft-cloth” totalitarianism that has a nicer face than Donald Trump does, but is de-platforming any form of dissent, weaponizing our federal agencies and the media, restricting access to real food and natural medicine, all under the banner of “inclusivity” (excluding, of course, those they disagree with)?
Those above-mentioned individuals who stuck their necks out – why would they be willing to give up their platforms, careers and communities? Are these attention-seeking ego-maniacs or have they allowed themselves to see what the Democratic Party has become while we weren’t paying attention?
Those of us on the progressive side have become so unaccustomed to courage and vision, that we frame it as some kind of perverse insanity.
So, I am not telling you who to vote for or vote against. This election, more than any before, should be a matter of conscience, based not on external narratives, but internal knowing.
At the same time, I invite you to educate yourself about the new independent’s movement – the conference that convened last week in Denver, the Independent National Convention, and the Rescue the Republic rally to be held in Washington, D.C. this coming weekend.
Please watch our Front and Center podcast where my podner Michael Maxsenti reports on the exciting developments for electing independent candidates to Congress in 2026, and on the D.C. rally that represents the new independent movement happening this coming weekend.
One of my strongest objections to a Trump Presidency has been accountability. As a wild card with seemingly no peers to mitigate his toxic tendencies and con-man persona, this to me was the biggest danger.
However, he now has two things he didn’t have in either of the past two elections – strong, congruent peers, and a constituency beyond MAGA that can hold him accountable. In expanding beyond his hard core supporters to court independents, these are not people who will blindly follow. Already Trump is “trumpeting” Bobby’s talking points in his speeches, and Bobby and Tulsi have begun working on his transition team to identify independents to fill some of the 14,000 positions a president has to fill.
Regardless of who wins in November, this independents movement is here to stay, and the movement is about ending censorship, stopping the forever wars and a runaway economy dependent on weapons of destruction – and in ending uniparty rule.
Until now, each side has been mobilized against the evils of the other side. To progressives, corporations are the villains. To conservatives, it's the government.
Actually the true “dark power” is the two of them intertwined, working together. Mussolini said the more accurate name for fascism is corporatism. That’s what we have now. We have an interlocking directorate – an Everything Industrial Complex if you will – where “regulatory” agencies are captured, and in bed with the industries they are supposedly regulating. This is not Democrat or Republican. It’s the system.
There is no political savior or techno-fix that will move the dial – only an organized, coherent movement of independent voters. Regardless of who you plan to pull the lever for – or against – in November, I urge you to become part of this movement.
Educate yourself. The people who’ve left the Democratic Party corral haven’t left because they know less. They have had the courage to learn more, and then look the heart of darkness in the face.
Here are some resources. Stop watching NPR … CNN … MSNBC …or Fox. Allow yourself to see beyond what you’ve been told and begin thinking for yourself. It’s the only way we can “overgrow” the system. We are the leaders we’ve been waiting for.
https://www.independentnationalcoalition.com/
Rescue the Republic Rally and the rise of totalitarianism - https://www.mahanow.org/weinstein-podcast
How RFK Jr. will fix agency capture
A vote for Trump is a vote for Kennedy
Understanding the UNITY approach
A Political Science Experiment: Navy Veteran, Mechanic, & Independent Candidate for U.S Senate
And a highly recommended article: https://thehill.com/opinion/4856451-trump-kennedy-alliance-unity/
If you’ve swallowed the “Babblum” about Putin and the Ukraine conflict, please watch this enlightening conversation with economist and sustainable development expert Jeffrey Sachs.
To get a flavor of how it’s the Republican constituency who are the new peaceniks and environmentalists, watch this conversation with Bobby Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard as part of their Reclaim America tour. If you’re a progressive, you might find a moment or two where you have to hold your nose or roll your eyes. Go ahead. But watch it anyway.
Time to wake beyond woke – and anti-woke.
We are the leaders we have been waiting for.
Steve Bhaerman
* For those who don’t remember, Paul Wolfowitz was a key architect of the neo-conservative movement that gave us the 2003 Iraq War, the Patriot Act, and the surveillance state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wolfowitz
Thanks for this and the update. We have been talking for years about a Declaration of Independents. As you know I am all in and hope we can continue to build the Bright Shadow Cabinet. I think the idea of the Unity Party is very sound. I think "Post Partisan" is a better Fram than bi, trans or nonpartisan. Check out my song here https://coronawise.substack.com/p/imagine-theres-no-parties
and my attempt to get off the right/left, R/D axis https://coronawise.substack.com/p/a-political-maturity-scale-off-the. I will be participating in activities they weekend DC. Btw, I don't think Jeffrey Sachs joined the Trump team, but left the Dems.