There is a particular audience that this piece is directed at. The Bernie or Bust people and especially the #Demexit folks; those who voted for Stein or even Johnson, and of course the ones that recognize themselves as woke. All in all a small portion of the population, certainly not one large enough by itself to force the systemic changes needed to wrestle America away from oligarchs and hand over all the reins of power to the people. I am a member of that small population and while we are now as a group significant, alone, we are powerless. We used to be the left flank of the Democratic Party until FDR became to ill to fight back. Before that, the Republican rejection of President Teddy Roosevelt represented the end of the left flank in the Republican Party. Since the day George McGovern lost to Nixon, a cheating Republican, Democrats have been doing more and more to eject the left flank of their party. After Carter lost to Reagan the party instituted Super Delegates to make sure no one that would not govern in the image of Reagan got the Presidential nomination. Economically, the Keynesians were replaced by Milton Friedman Neoliberal economists. Internationally, the Neocon globalists took over policy, creating a powerful deep state faction that runs our foreign policy regardless of who is President. The fact that both the domestic right wing advocates are preceded by “Neo” is a common 1950’s -1960’s term, the era where both schools of thought were born as a counter response to the many liberal ideas that rejected Free Market Capitalism.
But the left flank remains useful to Democrats as long as the left continues to see the Democratic Party as being to the left of the Republicans. But now the left is rejecting the Democrats just as the Democrats themselves have rejected the left. The party as an entity does not support in actual deeds any aspirational Progressive, Populist policies, or candidates. These ideas, voters and candidates are blamed for electoral losses. The Democrartic Party has turned against strong unions, free public education, and infrastructure investment. But that is the party establishment, and it is not true of individuals.
The aspirational, Progressive Populists as a group, needs to find power sources that can be tapped to affect systemic change. Politicians such as Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker need to be allowed to grow. That their growth and public awakening is painfully slow is evident. But we need to invite them and others to revive the left flank of American politics. It has not always resided in the Democratic Party, and both the Democratic and Republican parties are anachronisms. Out of touch, and in the way.
Instead of bitchin’ about Warren’s lack of support for Bernie or her acceptance of both neocon and neoliberal memes, support her insistence on stronger banking regulations, communicate to her the ways we need to improve the government support of our economy and its stance on international affairs. The Progressive arguments are strong and true. The same goes for every elected official, ask them to join us instead of threatening to reject them. Hold them all accountable at the polls. Our movement has power, but we need to recruit influence. Please stop this nonsense about how evil and vile so many elected officials are. It will not push change.
