| What’s the perspective, though? Mass protests (ala OWS) were never really a focus of the Pirate Party. They were always about direct political participation (i.e. competing in elections). That’s not so realistic in the US where majorities are necessary to win seats and offices. The Pirate Party very clearly represents a minority and has no realistic perspective of ever representing a majority. They are also not very geographically clustered. In democracies with proportional elections that’s not so much an issue. The Green Party in Germany very clearly also represents a minority and has no realistic perspective of ever representing the majority, nevertheless it has been phenomenally successful during the last decades, not only as a opposition party but also as a party with government participation, both on the state and federal level. (The Greens were Gerhard Schröder’s coalition partner on the federal level.) In the US, much of this has to happen inside existing parties with a realistic perspective (consequently, parties in the US are quite a bit less organized and there is much more fierce competition inside parties). Ron Paul tries to be different within the pre-existing framework of the Republican Party. The Tea Party Movement tries to be different within the pre-existing framework of the Republican Party. Also, remember that this is only happening in Germany. A very special set of circumstances seems to have conspired there to create that success. This isn’t even happening elsewhere in Europe (at least not yet), not even in countries with political systems very similar to that in Germany. It seems like Germany is the special case here, not so much other places. |