Bernie tried changing the Democratic Party in 2016 and failed. The DNC is doubling down in 2018 and backing centrist candidates again. If they get whacked by the voters again this November and STILL refuse to give voters a real alternative to corporate capitalism in 2020, it's time for progressive Democrats to Demexit into the Green Party. There are not enough progressive voters for us to be divided between two parties (or more, if you count all the splinter groups). It would not be the end of the world. The Libertarian Party did not sink the Republicans.
Pyrrhic Party: The Democratic Establishment’s War on Progressives
The party’s antipathy for progressive candidates and ideas that seems to grow more conspicuous with each passing day.
by
Richard Eskow
"A truly clear-eyed assessment of the Democratic Party’s recent record would show that, under its current leaders, the party lost both houses of Congress and roughly 1,000 seats in state legislatures during the Obama years. The fact that the electoral tide seems to have shifted this year says little about their leadership. The shift is largely due to the party base’s understandable horror at Trump’s leadership."
---
"Perhaps not coincidentally, the party’s leaders have taken rhetorical postures and adopted policy positions that conflict with voters’ more progressive instincts. Hoyer supported the Iraq war and was deeply critical of the Iran nuclear treaty, a major greatest foreign policy achievement for the Obama Administration. Domestically, he is an austerity advocate who once insisted that benefit cuts to Social Security and Medicare should remain “on the table” in negotiations with Republicans.
Pelosi, while progressive-leaning on many issues, has been a strong proponent of “pay as you go” (or “paygo”) rules that would require Congress to find funds for all new initiatives, either from taxes or cuts to existing programs. While Pelosi describes the idea as “common sense,” it is an economically unnecessary measure that makes it more difficult to enact progressive programs. (Economist Stephanie Kelton has written extensively on the topic. Kelton discussed deficit economics in a recent interview with me, which can be seen here.)
Pelosi recently eulogized billionaire Peter G. Peterson, a leading voice for austerity economics and Social Security cuts, and for the deficit-fixated policies that have hamstrung progressives for decades. The desire to remember a friend is, of course, understandable. But Pelosi went further, saying of Peterson:
His prophetic voice on the importance of fiscal sustainability brought together generations of policy makers no matter their political background to find common ground and effect solutions … His legacy will endure in many ways but especially for his work at the Peterson Foundation which will continue to America’s fiscal and economic challenges now under the leadership of his son, Michael.
Words like these send a discouraging message to the progressive voters that comprise the bulk of the Democratic base. They suggest that the Democrats will remain the party of “austerity lite,” favoring budget cuts over bold programs to rebuild the economy along Rooseveltian and Western European lines."
---
"the Democrats have a problem the Republicans don’t. The pursuit of big money drives establishment Democrats to adopt positions — and to nurture a political culture — that prevents them from winning their natural constituencies.
Republicans can run on a pro-corporate, pro-wealth agenda without much difficulty. But Democrats need to win white, black, brown, and young Americans who are lower-income and working-class, and must drum up enough enthusiasm to bring them to the polls on a regular basis. That’s hard to do with an agenda that is, in effect, a “kinder, gentler” variation on the Republicans’ view of government as a hamstrung, and sometimes nefarious, external force in American life.
It’s true that Democrats have a good chance of winning back the House year. But then what? Are they going to govern as they have governed in the past – by offering only limited possibilities in the present and low expectations for the future? If they do, they will lose again once voter disaffection sets in."
---
"Fortunately, there’s a way out. As Thomas Ferguson told us in a recent, in-depth interview, the Sanders campaign showed Democrats how they can win without big-money donors. That campaign became a financial powerhouse by receiving millions of small-dollar contributions from a broad base of supporters.
It won’t be easy. The dynamics of congressional fundraising are very different than those of presidential races. An alternative model for activist, driven small-dollar congressional campaigns has yet to be perfected. But it can be done, and groups like Our Revolution are working on it.
Moreover, Democrats have no choice. They can’t win and hold power with the policies and political practices of the past.
Laura Moser got a boost when the DCCC attacked her. The party establishment’s reputation is so poor these days that one candidate was delighted when the DCCC endorsed… his opponent!
When the party machinery becomes a liability among its own voters, it is time for the party to change."
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018 ... ogressives
"When and if fascism comes to America... it will be called, of course, ‘Americanism'." - Halford Luccock
"Liberty without socialism is privilege and injustice. Socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality."
— Mikhail Bakunin