A Party with Pirattitude

In Massachusetts, a surplus of political groups registers discontent with government.

by

Question: What do some disgruntled pirates do when they want to advocate for more privacy rights and government transparency?

Answer: They form a political p-ARRR-ty. (For those of you who don't get pirate humor, well, I'm sorry.)

In honor of the SOPA protest day, I thought I'd point everyone to the Massachusetts Pirate Party. According to its Facebook page, the party wants to "open up government, defend your privacy" through copyright reform and abolishing patents. A fairly specific agenda, but the pirates are only one of 21 third parties in Massachusetts, explains an article in the Cape Cod Times.

According to the article:

Out of the nearly 4.2 million Massachusetts voters who registered for the 2010 elections, 52 percent, or 2.16 million, were unenrolled. Around 1.53 million, or 36 percent of voters, registered as Democrats. Eleven percent, or 474,798, were Republicans and 15,857, or 0.38 percent, were Libertarians.

Another 8,438 Massachusetts voters, or one-fifth of 1 percent, choose other political designations. The largest such designation is the Green-Rainbow Party, with 4,949 voters, more than one-fifth of them in Middlesex County. At the other end is the New Alliance Party, with two registered voters in Middlesex County.

Not exactly a huge contingent no matter how you slice it, but with the widespread dissatisfaction with our political leaders, it wouldn't be surprising to see more local third parties cropping up around the country. I've contacted the Pirate Party's "first officer," but so far have yet to hear back.

In the mean time, the article is worth a glance. I don't want to spoil the surprise or anything, but there's also a Pizza Party-somehow, it's only got one member.

A second Trump administration will cement a right-wing majority on the Supreme Court for a generation, and put our collective future in the hands of someone who will be virtually unchecked by our institutions. The country has shifted rightward, and the reverberations will ensue for potentially the next few decades. In this climate, a robust independent media ecosystem will be more important than ever. We're committed to bringing you the latest news on how Trump's agenda will actually affect the American people, shining a light on the stories corporate media overlooks and keeping the public informed about how power really works in this country.

Quality journalism is expensive to produce, and we don't have corporate backers to rely on to fund what we do. Everything we do is thanks to our incredible community of readers, who chip in a few dollars at a time to make our work possible. Any amount you give today will help us continue reporting on what matters to our democracy.

You can help power this newsroom by making a one-time donation or by becoming a member today.