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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow to Save the Democratic Party
http://www.thenation.com/article/171613/how-save-democratic-partyAmerican progressives and principled liberals need to face an essential truth: the Democratic Party, as now constituted, is no longer an agency for realizing their ideals.
Consider the larger implications of the November 6 elections, which took place in economic and social conditions that should have produced landslide victories for even a moderately populist party. In the two most representative electionsthe direct popular vote for the presidency and the House of Representativesthe Democratic Party won the former by less than 4 percent and lost the latter, as it did in 2010, to the most reactionary Republican Party in modern times.
The problem is not President Obama or any other individual leader but the Democratic Party itself. Much of its establishment, from Washington to most of the state capitals, has long since become a party of bipartisan compromise with an increasingly right-wing Republicanism, particularly on economic issues with great social consequencesas though Americas true course now lies midway between abolishing the achievements of the New Deal and Great Society and extending them fully in our times. Too many members of the partys nationwide hierarchy are closer, ideologically and politically, to Wall Street than to Main Streetto the corporate, rich and powerful than to the stricken middle class, the increasingly impoverished working class (and the diminished and embattled unions that protect it), and the unemployed and perpetually poor.
If more proof is needed, the Democratic Party has shown itself to be incapable of providing the moral imperatives, policy ideas, broad popular support or elected officials necessary to lead the nation out of its worst economic and social calamity in eighty years, now in its fifth year of millions of wrecked lives. Indeed, the partys complicity in the crisis is only somewhat less than that of Republicans unconditionally devoted to only one human right: the unrestrained accumulation of corporate and private wealth.
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How to Save the Democratic Party (Original Post)
xchrom
Dec 2012
OP
eridani
(51,907 posts)1. Start by defending Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid n/t
peacebird
(14,195 posts)2. Also by ending subsidies to big oil.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)3. K&R
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)4. Odd that the author didn't want their name used.
leftstreet
(36,108 posts)5. DURec
Just for the hell of it.
limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)8. k/r - post of the day.
I hope everybody gets a chance to read this.
LongTomH
(8,636 posts)10. The political dialogue in this country and the Democratic Party has been dragged far to the right...
.....over the last 4 decades. I want to see it pulled back to the left; but, I recognize that that is a task that will take years, possibly decades.
Having said that, there's no reason to delay starting the process. Start with supporting progressive candidates for Congress, and when possible, to state legislatures.
And, dare we hope for a progressive candidate for President in 2016?
xchrom
(108,903 posts)11. We can 'hope' - to hijack a currently popular term -
But progressives need to show united spine to the party.
And yes - it will take awhile - but I think all of us are in dire shape - and a strong Left voice can't take too long.