Talk:Veterans Party of America

A centrist party? Yeah, I can see they say so themselves, but...

... if you look at their platform, it is extremely detailed only on immigration with the details all concerning the ways illegal immigrants should be registered and all the instances in which they should face "immediate and permanent deportation."

The platform also includes some rather brief, but sweeping pledges to running a balanced budgets by shrinking the government and eliminating "unconstitutional departments" (hmmm... I wonder which they might be...):

The spending by government at all levels is out of control. The Veterans Party of America believes it is in the best interest of our Nation to reduce the national debt by reducing the size of government through major spending cuts that will automatically eliminate unconstitutional departments. This will require a Constitutional Amendment to ensure America will remain on a balanced budget.

With the exception of their idea of making non-restaurant food except, the VPA's tax proposal is also classic right wing policy through its focus on abolishing the income tax in favour of a consumption tax:

A national consumption (sales) tax will make it fair based on the spending of people versus their income. Essential life items, such as foods purchased from a store, or any other location that is not a food serving industry (i.e. restaurants), should be exempt. Abolishing income tax will require a Constitutional Amendment prior to initiating a national consumption tax.

The VPA also seems quite fond of voter ID laws based on the usual vague claims about voter fraud, but supplemented with a populist spin on the worry about the influence of money on politics (a concern that is present in all shades of the political spectrum).

While the VPA environmental policy contains some nice-sounding phrases, it is no accident that it's headlined as "Resource Sustainability", because it is clearly based on global warming denialism:

The Veterans Party of America believes reducing our carbon footprint is a noble effort. It is a fact that global temperatures have risen over the last century with the last ten to fifteen years remaining level, and as such, we will not buckle to reactionary legislation introduced by those supporting the alarmist view of, “Global Warming and Climate Change,” nor will we passively sit on the sideline as resources are consumed and damaged with reckless abandon by aggressive industries seeking profits. It is also a fact that mankind has survived two previous eras with much higher temperatures.

And yes, the VPA platform also supports the English-only movement:

The Veterans Party of America believes the United States should have English as an Official Language. A proposal would be set before the People in order to vote and voice their opinion on this. States and Territories have the right, on the State and Territorial level only, to enact a secondary language that is rich in their culture and history. Said right for a secondary language would not be in any effect at the federal level, with English as the Primary and Sole Official National Language.

In sum: While the VPA describes itself as centrist, its platform has several of the hallmarks of the kind of right wing populism that Trump appealed to during his presidential campaign (incl. such topics as economic nationalism and infrastructure projects), though it's obviously nowhere nearly as wingnutty as the extreme right wing Trump supporters, such as the Charlottesville gaggle. ScepticWombat (talk) 21:49, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

@ScepticWombat add it! FuzzyCatPotato!™ (talk/stalk) 22:56, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

I will, Fuzzy, I was just wondering whether I was overanalysing things (as I hadn't heard of this party before), which is why I decided to flag it here and perhaps be corrected before I started being sarcastic, ironic and/or snarky in the article itself. ScepticWombat (talk) 10:06, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Sourcing and irrelevance.

If I was to remove all content that was sourced by now completely dead sources, the only part of the article that would remain would be the one talking about Bonnie and Clyde, and do we even need an article on an irrelevant third party that seemingly ceased to exist some time after the 2016 election? A somebody. (talk) 01:21, 4 May 2024 (UTC)