Going further right didn't help, now we need to go as left as possible
Radical ideas like Universal healthcare, paid maternity leave, free child care, taxing the rich.
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Going further right didn't help, now we need to go as left as possible
Radical ideas like Universal healthcare, paid maternity leave, free child care, taxing the rich.
Radical ideas the rest of the 1st world had had for 50 years and successfully implemented.
What?
They are the establishment.
Thus the call to become something else; become being the operative word, meaning to change from what they currently are.
"How are you doing fellow leftists"?
Wow, if only there had been an anti establishment candidate running for president as a democrat in 2016... too bad...
I fear it's too late. Unless the party can be taken by force it won't be enough and we only have 4 years. If dems didn't snub Bernie this all probably wouldn't have happened. Our choices used to be two flavors of corporate fascism, now it's far right vs corporate. Dems are better on social issues, but it's not enough.
Dems are clearly better on economic issues as well. Not nearly good enough, but better. The problem is that they will only go so far, and they won't talk about it, out of fear of angering their wealthy patrons.
Or maybe they should just leave the Democratic party and start a new progressive party? We have less than 4 years, but that's also the most time we'll ever have.
The problem with that strategy is that our democracy uses a first-past-the-post voting system which trends towards a two-party system.
Sounds like a problem for the people empowering the right by voting for the center.
No, it's a problem for the people empowering the right by refusing to vote for the leaning right of center, neoliberal Democrats. People are attempting to get a moral victory over the Democrats by refusing to vote for them. This strategy makes minorities the cost of doing business.
Everybody knows the far-right exists because the leftists are too left and not right enough /s
Then become one of the two parties.
There already are two. We must co-opt one with a populist candidate. The Republican Party was already hijacked by Trump. That leaves the Democratic Party.
Bernie tried twice, Democrats demonstrated their ability to stop that shit in its tracks. It will not work.
The only solution is for progressives to abandon the Party and start their own to replace it. The US has replaced parties before, it can be done again.
Trump tried once and it worked. Neoliberal ideas are entrenched in the minds of Americans. Neoliberalism only allows change to the people in charge of systems as it asserts, incorrectly, that our institutions are flawless. Since neoliberals only consider changing people, it is much easier for a fascist to convince a neoliberal to change the people in society. Where as it is much harder for a progressive or a socialist to convince a neoliberal to enact systemic change or redistribute wealth respectively.
In short, people with neoliberal ideas in their head need to fully internalize neoliberalism as a scam.
Abandoning the Democrats will not result in them being replaced. They will continue to exist by moving further to the right, as Democrats like Chris Murphy have already proposed.
Starting a successful third party is mathematically impossible under a FPTP system. Third party candidates can only be spoiler candidates.
I think you mean popular, not populist, but yes.
No, I mean populist. Populism is what is popular right now.
https://www.wordnik.com/words/populism
A political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite.
They cannot and they will not. Please do not fall for them yanking the football away from you again. AOC and Bernie exist to give you hope and thereby capture your vote for a party that has no intention of ever fighting for the working class in a meaningful way. We need a real alternative but we've given away so much of our collective power (unions) that it's hard to see a hopeful path forward. Organize with your neighbors and start building trusted communities that will fight together when needed.
Do you mean to say that AOC and Bernie are unknowingly treated as pawns by the Democrat party or that they are knowingly misleading voters into thinking the party leans further left than reality?
I would assume if anything it's the former, and Democrat idealism has lost against the reality that a third labor party cannot take root while first-past-the-post is the rule of the game.
Would it matter which?
The DNC insiders clearly have no intention of letting the public have a voice in the party. Having a couple socialists around is supposed to secure the vote from the left. Neither Sanders nor AOC(nor other progressives) are leaving the party anytime soon.
It's fair to argue that splitting the party means losing to the right but the current strategy doesn't seem to be working out either.