Let’s get this straight, progressives want to get rid of Trump just as bad as anyone. Progressives hate Trump. Trump, the Republican Party and all that they represent is the antithesis of everything that progressives fight for and they are fighting now to get him out. The Democratic Party failed to keep him out and now they are heading right towards that same cliff. Progressives think they know why the Democrats lost to Trump, not because of Russians or third party voters but Democrats have closed their ears and minds to their allies, the progressives, and to any self-realization. Democrats are proving themselves to be the greatest obstacle in the fight against Trump. And it’s not just the Trump thing, progressives are out front fighting for most everything you claim, as Democrats to want, justice, equity, fair-play, environmental stewardship, peace. Yet Democrats have made progressives their enemy, I’ve heard enough from them to know.
Bill Clinton once said that voters not wanting to live under Republican rule would have to vote Democratic because they simply “had nowhere else to go”.
With this statement the shift towards the cynical leadership that has ruined the Democratic Party began. Clinton was wrong in this of course, as he was about so many things, but it was in promoting and verifying this attitude that Clinton effectively killed his party and turned it into Republican Lite. It didn’t happen overnight in fact it’s been a slow and painful transition, hard to watch but inevitable because as it turned out, voters did have somewhere else to go… they went away. I know this because I’m one of them. With the number of unaffiliated, independent voters equaling the number of Republicans and Democrats combined I know too that I’m not alone.
We currently have about 50% of voters sitting out elections across the country due to apathy, general mistrust or contempt and the Democratic Party continues to leave these voters on the sideline in the conceit of its pride by refusing to reform itself in ways that would engage those voters. The Democrats could be winning election after election if only the nowhere else to go theory had instead been an earnest effort at providing a space with somewhere those voters might want to go. The Republicans are performing their own version of suicide by appealing to that fairly small but engaged group of folks who rally around people’s worst instincts. The Republican strategy will work for a while but as movements built on hate and ignorance do; they too will die, hoisted by their own petard, as they say, but I’m not speaking to Republicans here, I gave that up a long time ago.
Instead of making an appeal to that majority of people who have been statistically identified as being in favor of progressive policy the Democrats, to protect their donor base, choose to pander to the public with false hopes and promises of change while adhering to those policies that have been at odds with the general public welfare. Instead of getting behind their people the Democrats focused on protecting the military industrial complex, the insurance industry, fossil fuel industry and the rest of corporate America over the years. The Democrats have confused voters for a time with talk of great change, great aspirations but have consistently failed at delivering the real goods to those outside of the elite donor class. So far any candidate on the national stage who has attempted to really connect with that majority of citizens who want reform has been bullied, smeared and or ignored by the party as has been the case this year with Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard, as it was in 2016 with Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein.
The Democratic party has one last chance left at life and their time is running out, they must wake-up now to realize that voters do not owe the Democratic party a damn thing, that’s just not how it works . With Joe Biden as their presumptive front-runner and slogans that reflect their hypocrisy like Vote Blue No Matter Who it’s clear as a bell that that’s exactly what they think, that the public owes them some grand measure of loyalty after being screwed and disregarded by the Party for decades.
Bill Clinton did a terrible disservice to the Democratic Party by bringing such cynicism into the mainstream ideology of the Party and the current leaders of the Party continue to whip what remains of that poor abused donkey still to this day. They agitate the troops with failed investigations and impeachments but still haven’t taken the so drastic step of committing to basic universal health-care, equal rights or economic justice.
Bernie Sanders, The Squad and Tulsi Gabbard with a few dedicated and right-minded others have been working themselves to pieces trying to restore some integrity and purpose to the Democratic party. Progressives have been campaigning on those very issues, programs and policies Democrats and the public at large have been begging for for decades and what thanks do they get for trying to deliver? Smears, black-listing from debates and contested primaries are what they get.
Now that any hopes of a third party have been squelched by the scapegoating of losing Democrats, I too have nowhere else to go and will likely support whichever candidate rises to the top to “defeat” Trump because he is so very awful but I might not, I might leave that one blank if the best we can do is Joe Biden. I’ll vote, as I did in the primary, I can find a handful of Democrats that I greatly admire but the Democratic Party shames me and the nation to no end with its version of corruption, complicity and criminal behavior. Even in local elections I find myself voting for independent candidates when they run against status quo Democrats. Joe Biden is at best a somewhat inferior version of Trump, crass, untrustworthy, prone to unrealistic versions of himself spiced with out-right lies, a friend to the corporate elites and full of contempt for those he would be charged with protecting and representing. The Democrats have set the bar as low as it can go with the only goal now being to beat Trump, with that as their main force of inspiration they may or may not beat Trump but even if they do pull it off, which is alarmingly uncertain with their chosen candidate Joe Biden, what then?
With Joe at the helm they will only further disqualify themselves from any serious consideration by those who actually wish better things for this country while giving Republicans all the ammunition they need for taking back the White House in 2024.
If the Democrats lose again to Trump they will have no one but themselves to blame by failing to inspire and lift-up the voters and others who really do care deeply about their country and who with that love of country just cannot support or stomach such obvious corruption, complicity and cynicism as is brought to them by the Democratic party. You Democrats out there should be glad for the progressives around you and the energy we bring, who try to lift your Party out of the muck it has sunk into. Your Party is dying and we progressives have tried to revive it for you, we love you and we love the country. We stand for and by the oppressed, the marginalized, the least among you. We stand for justice, equity, sustainable living and non-violence and we know how to realize those goals through sound and proven policies and programs but instead of being free to try to get these things past the Republican death wish of a Party we are constantly finding that our greatest obstacle to anything even resembling reform is often the “Party of the People” the Democratic Party.
It’s time for the Democrats to either lead, follow, get out of the way or go on and die by the weight of their own cynicisms, hypocrisies and corruptions. You won’t be able to blame and scapegoat progressives, Russians or third party voters this time, we’ve already been down that road and we, unlike some folks, learn from past experience.
