Primary Fallout : we need an actual Progressive Party

[jman0war]

You can't be a revolutionary in a non-revolutionary party.

The Democratic Party is not a home for Progressives, that should be crystal clear.
From shadowy "super delegates", to efforts to supress voter turn out, this is not progressive action.

I'll probably stay home now and not bother voting in Nov.

I hope someone like Bernie starts an actual Progressive Party.
But in a 2 party rigged system such as ours, that'll never happen.

Progressives are there to be riled-up, then later kicked to side.
They don't need us, and they only sometimes want our votes.
I'm not going to play their pawn anymore.

[tonyt53]

1. I keep asking, but what exactly is a "progressive"? Sounds to me like they like Democrat ideas

Oh, and you could always vote for some other candidate. There will be many people running for President representing other parties.

[NCTraveler]

5. They mean Warren. Nt

[tonyt53]

6. Warren is a Democrat through and through, make no mistake about that.

[NCTraveler]

9. That is my point.

It's a bunch of gibberish.

[Armstead]

25. She got a taste of the Establishment Resistance when she spoke out against the TPP

If she were to seriously challenge the Centrist Power Structure in a primary campaign, she'd be subjected to the same crap as Sanders.

[justiceischeap]

33. Except all those years she was a Republican.... nt

[Cal33]

59. Warren changed because of genuine disagreement with the ideology of the Republicans, and

she became a Democrat, a GENUINE Democrat, some 20 years ago, and has remained one
ever since -- battling against the Corporate Power people who have been stealing from and
robbing the people of this nation blind from the time of Reagan.

She has the integrity and courage to openly fight against the big banks and Wall St. So
does Sanders.

Warren and Sanders are the primary examples of what Real Progressives are and do. They
are what Democrats should be.

[Beowulf]

2. I agree.

Not sure it needs to be a new party. It could be a coalition of existing parties - Greens, Working Families Party, etc.

[baldguy]

3. Tough when most "progressives" have relied on RW talking points over the last six months.

And still do.

[NCTraveler]

4. We have one.

Boxer, Brown, Franken, Warren, Sanders, etc.

[wyldwolf]

16. there are several, in fact

[NCTraveler]

19. True. You think they would know that... Nt

[Armstead]

28. I've known that since the 90's...

A lot of great Democrats.

Problem is anyone who veers too far off the Clinton/.DLC/ Corporate Wall St. Centrist Mold they gets branded as "too far left." They either have to tack back to the Center Right, or get banished to Democratic Siberia.

My heart bled, for example, for what was done to Tom Harken in the debates over the ACA. He pushed for a public option in moderate good faith....and was left twisting in the wind while insurance representatives like Joe Lieberman were given the final say so.

[Jackilope]

29. After her trolling in NV and that she is leaving anyway....

I don't include Boxer in favorable list.

[Todays_Illusion]

7. YesI will be doing a write in, I hope you do as well. Not voting is no voice a write in is a record

of refusal to consent. Yes we need a new party, but I prefer the words, Liberal Democratic, no one knows what a progressive is. Hillary claims that even as she works for the wealthiest only.

[Gormy Cuss]

8. Staying home rather than voting isn't a revolutionary act.

It's not progressive either.

[jman0war]

31. what is progessive about voting for "the lesser of two evils"

That is the very card the Democratic Party has been hitting Progressives with for several election cycles.

It's no longer good enough.

You can keep your HRC and you can keep your Trump

[Gormy Cuss]

32. What's progressive is keeping your eye on the bigger picture.

Which party would you like to see nominating justices, for one?

And FWIW I've been a Sanders supporter from Day One and dislike many of the policy positions of Clinton. I'm just not willing to roll the dice and chance a President Trump because it really isn't a lesser of two evils choice: one candidate is too comfortable in the center, the other is an incompetent blowhard who has no clue on how to manage beyond dictatorship.

[jman0war]

34. meh

President Trump would be a disaster but might result in a congressional revolt, and subsquent impeachment.
It might ironically result in an assertive Congress that puts manners on the office of the President.
So there's that.

President Clinton will be 4 more lacklustre years of big banks, big student loan debt, big medial bills, big lobbying by the existing big insiders and lots and lots more of the same.

I'lll survive either one.

[Gormy Cuss]

39. It's likely that the next president will select at least two SCJ

If you think that's not worth stopping Trump, good luck with that survival. Also the power of the banks, loans, lobbying etc. will be in place with either of them and demonstrably worse with the GOP in the White House.

You can't count on a Congressional revolt curbing GOP power. You can count on a return to a conservative court.

[jman0war]

42. can you cite Hillary's SC picks?

You are asking to compare Trump and Clinton's proposed SC picks but I am not aware Hillary has cited hers.

[Gormy Cuss]

50. Do you really believe that Trump will pick anyone to the left of Clinton?

For that matter, or anyone even tilting to the center?

[jman0war]

56. SC picks

The reality here is that you brought up SC picks as a reason to vote Hillary, but in fact Hillary has none to compare against Trump??

Trump can't be trusted because anything he says is not his true position.
We've learned this now for almost every one of his positions.
He says something outrageous, then later modifies.

Clinton can't be trusted because anything she says is not her true position.
We've learned this time and again now for example going back to the 2008 election where she was telling people in PA that she was opposed to the Columbia trade agreement; emails later show her urging members of congress to approve it.
She says what she believes is what the crowd wants to hear.
But her true position is often 180 degrees in the other direction.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

53. George W. Bush

should be proof enough that a Republican President can get away with a LOT without being held accountable, especially when Republicans control Congress as well. He, admittedly, wasn't as outwardly wild as Trump is but he got away with a LOT of stuff that he shouldn't have and left our economy a smoldering wreck by the time the national nightmare was over. I'm not rolling the dice and taking my chances on a Trump Presidency.

[squirecam]

68. sickening post

This crap is insulting.

Tell the immigrant family they can "survive" trump as he knocks down their door to drag away their relatives. Or the new tax cut that will add trillions to the debt. And that wall to keep out Muslims and other immigrants.

Just disgusting that you care only about you.

[jman0war]

71. pay more attention

In his own words he's said that everything is 'just a suggestion'.

There's no realistic way the wall is getting built, nor are the Feds going to spend the huge amount of money it would require to knock on doors and drag immigrant families away.

The real fear is that he stirs up the rednecks and racists who think they have carte blanche to do what they like.

[squirecam]

73. suggest

I suggest the country simply vote this idiot into oblivion.

The country cannot survive him. Nor should it have to.

[TwilightZone]

10. There are already several progressive parties.

Feel free to join one of them.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

11. She won both pledged delegates and the popular vote

This is not a rigged system, democrats just preferred Hillary.

[casperthegm]

12. Yes, the Democratic Party is a lost cause

I could see supporting the party if the party didn't generally embrace and have a nominee that embraced fracking, trade deals that send our jobs overseas, lack of transparency, an infatuation with money from corporate American/Wall Street, regime change/no fly zones, opposed Glass Steagall, opposed free college tuition, and opposed healthcare for all. Not sure when that became the party platform, do you know?

I don't see the party coming back to represent progressives or the middle/lower class. If that's the case then yes, we'll need to gather up all of the smaller progressive parties and consolidate them, and draw in the independents who were left out of the process and get a party formed that truly represents what the Democratic party should have but no longer does.

[RobertEarl]

69. It's in bad shape

In 2008, the vote was at record levels.

8 years later the vote numbers are again near record levels.

Democracy as we know it, by the numbers, is headed the wrong way. Not Bernie's fault.

[liberal N proud]

13. Good luck

Third parties all over the place that just can't get the support.

[LexVegas]

14. You must've been miserable the last 8 years. nt

[Trust Buster]

15. You sadly miss the point. The Democrats can only be as progressive as their political power

dictates. We must achieve this with grass roots efforts to elect progressives at the state and federal legislative levels. When you say that you will probably stay home in November, you're really saying that you are willing to allow Republicans to continue to control state and federal legislatures much like the 2014 midterms. In this case, your proposed inaction defies your own words.

[onenote]

17. To be clear: every vote not cast for Clinton is a vote to hurt her chances of defeating Trump

It doesn't matter whether the person not voting for Clinton is a Democrat, an independent, or a Republican. There are only two possible winners in the election and the one with the most votes (in states with the most electoral votes) wins. A vote not cast for one of those candidates, hurts their chances of winning and helps the other candidate.

[VulgarPoet]

46. 0 - 0 =/= 1.

[Adrahil]

18. There is the green party, yes?

But most folks recognize that our political system is set up in a way that favors a two party dynamic. That's one reason the Greens don't do well. Splitting the vote left of center just guarantees a right of center victory.

[floppyboo]

40. You wrote: "Splitting the vote left of center just guarantees a right of center victory."

I think it might be too late for this election. The 3rd way won. That is right of centre.

If I may, here is my constructive criticism for the day.

Hillary has to prove herself 'divorced' from Bill's rightward march. That's going to be hard and sensitive.
Getting her SD lobbyists to work hard against the TPP in a very public way might be a good first step.

[Go Vols]

48. and we have a current Prez that said

he'd be seen as moderate Republican in 1980s,and Hillary touts herself to be Obama 3.0.

I didn't care for moderate R's in the '80s either.

[floppyboo]

49. yeah, so time to do something to put her (or their) money where her mouth is

and get something set up as an example. Interviews from MSM with elected SD's and lobbyists coming out against TPP.

Something timely. Something that matters. Something big.

[davidn3600]

20. America is a plutocracy

It stopped being about the people a long time ago. Now you have to be rich and kiss ass to party elitists. And they have to approve of you before you even have a chance.

Been a rigged system for a long time.

[BlindTiresias]

64. Hate to say it

But democracies and republics trend towards plutocracies almost always.

[Blue_Tires]

21. whoever you are, you're trying too hard

[LiberalFighter]

22. You don't change the party by staying out of it.

It would be better to change the party than to start a new one.

[Marrah_G]

24. I used to think like that

But our party is too beholding to large corporations and big money now. There is no way to come back from that. No real progressive candidates will be backed by that money. We saw how the Democratic Party clearly wanted Hillary and did all it could to promote her over Bernie.

I think it's time for a new party and to start promoting those candidates from the local level on up.

[Exilednight]

35. You can't change a party that doesn't want to change.

I've ran across several replies in just this one thread where the only argument for voting for Hillary is "Trump wins if you don't vote'.

That's not an aspiring message. People want positive policy change and not just lip service. This party, and anyone who argues otherwise is tone deaf, has moved continually to the right on socioeconomic issues. We talk about bringing people out of poverty, but few have a plan to do it. We talk about universal health care, but few have a plan to do it. We talk of protecting rights and ending racism, but few have a plan to do it.

At what point do liberals say enough is enough and actually do something about it, and stop worrying about voting for people they disagree with without being blamed for the lack of the entrenched party's losses?

[Marrah_G]

23. I feel much the same as you

I thought maybe this year would push our party back toward the good of the people, but i was wrong. Big money owns the Democratic Party and once that happens there is no way to push the party back off that.

We need a new party or we need to start promoting a different progressive party.

[djean111]

26. I am with you a million percent. n/t

[dbackjon]

27. Then you should follow the tea party playbook

Start at the local level - take over local party apparatus

But if the vast majority of progressives only are active every four years then nothing will ever happen

[Jackilope]

30. Don't stay home. Down ticket is way to go.

There are issues to be hammered out that need your vote and down ticket true progressives.

Not sure what will happen at Convention, but I am changing registration after 37 years of being a Democrat. The embrace of corporatism, the disenfranchisement of voters from the top is duly noted and screw that. It is one thing knowing you can't trust Republicans. When Democrats follow suit, it hurts worse. If it is between HRC and Trump or whoever the GOP appoints should Trump drop out, I will leave the bubble blank. I do not trust her. I won't hold my nose anymore.

[ancianita]

36. Be patient. Wait and see what Bernie says. He'll learn more than he can tell. But he'll say so if

he agrees with you.

Just stay open 'til after the convention.

[justiceischeap]

37. I'm so glad the LGBTQ community stuck with the Democratic party-year after year after year

after year being pandered to for our votes and getting nothing in return, being betrayed at every turn. Watching our brothers literally being ignored during the AIDS crisis, our community dying off one by one. But... we raised our voices, we took to the streets, we demanded to be heard...all within this pitiful two-party system that didn't seem to want to do a damn thing for us. Didn't have the courage to stand beside us--oh, maybe there were one or two voices brave enough to be heard but for the most part, we were courted for our votes, promises were made and then nothing happened.

Of course, we had "progressives" within our own party telling us our "issues" (like human rights) weren't as important as other things--so we had that to contend with too.

But like patient little grasshoppers those dividends really paid off with this President and Democratic Party. Imagine if we'd decided to just sit on our hands and not make our voices heard. Imagine if we hadn't held our noses and voted for the lesser of two evils, time and again, just hoping it would one day make a difference. Now we have marriage equality and if we're lucky, fingers crossed and Clinton wins and brings a lot of Democrats on her coattails, we can get ENDA passed. I sure wanted that to happen in Obama's first two-years as President but, again, I'm sure patience will persevere and we'll get ENDA passed--it'll just take a bit longer than most think it should or would like.

Now, what were you saying about progressives?

[Starry Messenger]

51. +1

[squirecam]

70. Right

all of which Trump would undo. As well as evict 11 million families going door to door.

[Fumesucker]

38. Exactlly, a party that both the Democrats *and* the Republicans can hate on

Nothing would bring a mind meld between the Dems and the Reps like an actual third party threat.

[Cal33]

41. Just be patient. Both Dems. and Repubs. are quitting their respective Parties by the millions.

People can't take the 'status quo' much longer. There's bound to be change. The last I
read the Independents today form 43%. That's much larger than either one of the two
main Parties. The difficult part is for some of the different factions among the Indies to
organize and join together.

I'd like to see the movements started by the supporters of Warren and Sanders unite.
They are so much alike anyway. I am for both of them. I believe many Dems. who
have become Indies would like to join such a genuine Democratic Party again.

I believe, however things will turn out, change is coming. Maybe Corporate Power
people, who have always operated from behind the scenes, might come out into the
open for a change.

The status quo can't go on much longer. For one thing, their numbers are dwindling
rapidly.

One way or another, change is coming.

[brooklynite]

43. You're in luck! PROGRESSIVEPARTYUNDERGROUND.COM is available!

[MyNameGoesHere]

44. Yes we do.

I said this as a Clinton supporter if Sanders would have ran as a third party I was on board. He chose the worst path ever and decided to fit a square into a circle. It don't work. I actually felt betrayed that he didn't have convictions of a self proclaimed (democratic ugh) socialist.

[Kentonio]

47. A third party run could well have handed the GOP the white house.

If a third party is going to run properly, there will need to be years of preparation and careful planning and building up challengers at all levels not just the Presidency.

[MyNameGoesHere]

54. That's not my concern or my fault. Eom

[brooklynite]

45. A reminder about TOS...

Support for the Sanders campaign is allowed (even with anger) for the next week.

Advocacy of a Third Party as an alternative to the Democratic Party is not.

Vote for Democrats.
Winning elections is important — therefore, advocating in favor of Republican nominees or in favor of third-party spoiler candidates that could split the vote and throw an election to our conservative opponents is never permitted on Democratic Underground. But that does not mean that DU members are required to always be completely supportive of Democrats. During the ups-and-downs of politics and policy-making, it is perfectly normal to have mixed feelings about the Democratic officials we worked hard to help elect. When we are not in the heat of election season, members are permitted to post strong criticism or disappointment with our Democratic elected officials, or to express ambivalence about voting for them. In Democratic primaries, members may support whomever they choose. But when general election season begins, DU members must support Democratic nominees (EXCEPT in rare cases where a non-Democrat is most likely to defeat the conservative alternative, or where there is no possibility of splitting the liberal vote and inadvertently throwing the election to the conservative alternative). For presidential contests, election season begins when both major-party nominees become clear. For non-presidential contests, election season begins on Labor Day. Everyone here on DU needs to work together to elect more Democrats and fewer Republicans to all levels of American government. If you are bashing, trashing, undermining, or depressing turnout for our candidates during election season, we'll assume you are rooting for the other side.

[MrScorpio]

52. Who's going to pay for it?

In the past, we had a viable labor movement which was the backbone of progressive politics.

Today, labor organization has been torn to shreds.

Are we going to have to petition friendly one percenters for this hypothetical progressive party? Hold cookie sales?

Because anything short of revolution and the complete dismantling of the financial infrastructure is not enough to do the job here.

[whatthehey]

55. In other words, you fear you lack the competence and vision of the Tea Party

A group of knuckle-dragging troglodytes who completely overhauled a major political party at the very least every bit as beholden to corporate and big money interests (in objective reality far more so), in less than a decade, completely purging it of any official willing to compromise or seek bipartisan solutions, and replacing them with absolute ideologues at the far fringe of the party's political spectrum. What they got then was veto power over any moderate solution despite having only a tiny minority of public support, and absolute control over the agenda in both chambers of Congress.

Instead you want to follow the Constitution Party route and form a separate group of purist irrelevancies who can hold a national convention in a Ramada Inn conference room without disturbing the Bar Mitzvah in the next room and have zero impact on any single law, appointment, department or agenda.


Great idea.

[dreamnightwind]

57. Uh, most of us would have preferred to reclaim our party from corporate capture

but the party, and its corporate backers and enablers, obstinately crush reform efforts.

At this point I don't see any viable way to move forward that doesn't involve a new structure that is not dependent on corporate money.

[jman0war]

58. +1000 /nt

[whatthehey]

61. Again, the TP did it. Why can't the left?

[Lizzie Poppet]

62. Except the Tea Party ultimately failed.

The changed the shape of the GOP...but couldn't capitalize. Their darlings got destroyed by a complete outsider.

[whatthehey]

63. Trump is their favorite! And they control both houses in lockstep

The TP mouthpieces whine about Trump but the rank and file love him to bits, and supported him nigh 4 to 1 over Cruz. If that's failure, it's failure Sanders should aspire to.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/03/tea-party-donald-trump-ted-cruz/

[dreamnightwind]

66. Perhaps I misunderstood you

Do you want the left to do what the Tea Party did, or are you knocking the part of the left that won't go along with the corporate agenda?

The Tea Party was not just a grass-roots thing, it was Koch-backed, so there's that. If you remember as I do, the news media amplified everything they did, much as they did Trump, giving them legitimacy they shouldn't have had. The reason being that the corporate money people are quite happy with a libertarian vision where government does little more than military and police, and gets out of the way of regulating corporate activities. Just more corporate capture.

There was also a grass-roots element to the Tea Party, but if it was only that, they would not have had the success they had. They served the interests of the powerful, and that's why they had such success.

There is no similar context for those of us on the left. What we want is to get corporations out of our government, to get our military out of most of the nations on earth. to get corporate-pushed carbon out of our atmosphere, and to get non-violent offenders out of prisons. Where is the institutional alliance for this set of demands? There isn't one. People want these changes, but profit-driven institutions do not.

I personally don't think the left has the clout to deliver the change we need in the time we need to do it (climate change being the most urgent driver). I think populists on the left and right need to put our differences aside enough that we can ally against runaway corporate capture. The divide and conquer strategies of the powers that be are very effective, and allow continued exploitation as the world crumbles.

So I would like to see a new entity emerge that rejects any corporate money in campaigns, and that has a narrow platform targeted to issues that don't split left/right. We have enough people and motivation to do this if we can get together with people on the other side, and with the more than 40% who have withdrawn from either side out of disgust for both of them.

Most of the urgent issues of today are not left/right issues. they are top/down issues. We can still work on left/right issues but should not let that get in the way of allying with populists all across the left/right spectrum for the cause of ending corporate capture, ending the support of the American (really a stateless corporate) empire, and immediately doing everything possible to fight climate change and transform our society into a sustainable one that proves good decent lives for its citizens rather than one that is essentially a vehicle for concentration of power into a few hands.

I will always fight for the issues of the left, I just think right now we need to get a few critical things done to even have any kind of inhabitable planet in the future, and we need to work with everyone who is willing to join in such an effort. It's too big of a crisis to leave to the left, we need everyone, and even then it won't be easy, since we'll be fighting every powerful institution. Tear down the left/right wall.

[whatthehey]

67. While not an extreme leftist, I'd like to see an analog of the TP in Dem-land yes

We need an invigorating injection of new ideas and priorities. I'm not on the "everyone but Sanders is DINO neocon scum" bandwagon, but the central focus of the party is becoming stale and much of what Sanders proposed should help re-energize the party. Real healthcare. Real energy shifts. Real finance and tax reform. We need those, and a post-labor view of what the masses are for, a new approach to militarism, and a new geopolitics;and that's just a start.

Sure the TP was astroturfed but it wasn't Koch and Adelson who took over the committees and local infrastructure of the Republican precinct, county and state offices and held firm against same ol' candidates. It was the people who believed in the cause. Are there none on the left?

Corporate money is not an evil in itself. It is the influence it buys which can be. There was and is no shortage in the Republican Party, and the Teabaggers didn't win by outbidding them but outcaring and outorgsnizing them. A new entity would almost certainly fail. There are Greens, DSA, SPUSA, CPA. They have achieved nothing at the national level and been at it longer than the Teabaggers. The model for success is clear.

[dreamnightwind]

72. Thanks for your response

I agree with most of what you are saying.

I still think there was a large institutional bias in favor of the Tea Party's agenda (the small government and deregulation parts especially), the powers that be were all too happy to facilitate such changes, whereas the left's reforms go more directly against the grain of power.

I don't know a lot about the dynamics between the Tea Party and the more established wing of the Republican Party, so won't comment.

I sure don't know how you get corporate money without the influence, so I disagree with you there, I think their money is intrinsically a corrupting influence and will no longer support any candidates who are taking it.

If we could modify the corporate charter so that their main responsibility was to the public good (a vague and undefinable concept but a necessary one) rather than to maximizing profits for their shareholders, then that wouldn't be true anymore. I have no idea if such a modification is even possible. If it is, it would be a great reform to push for.

From my point of view, the Sanders supporters were and are exactly what you're talking about, we have resolve, energy, and are more than willing to give everything we have to effect the changes we so desperately need.

There is a seemingly insurmountable corporate capture of our party leadership, so personally I feel like the party has chosen its side, and it isn't with the people. It would be much better to work for reform of the party, as you say there are huge obstacles to creating a viable third party, but at this point I can't see making any real progress from within the Democratic Party, it will be firmly in the hands of corporatists for the foreseeable future.

I hope many people such as yourself will continue to work within the party to make it better, and good luck with that, you will need it. I will keep my eyes open to see where the rightful home of the energy behind the Sanders campaign is, too early to tell right now.

edit to add: I kind of missed responding to the main point of your post, which is that you would like to see a Tea Party equivalent for our party. I am all for it, long overdue. As I said earlier, I think it will be much harder to do in our party with our issues, but if it could be done it would be the shortest distance between where we are and where we need to go.

[Lizzie Poppet]

60. Today's Democratic Party is a centrist party.

Perfect for winning presidential elections and maintaining the status quo. Not so good at winning Congressional or state-level elections and actually making things better for working-class people.

[Demsrule86]

65. What a great idea

Then the GOP can win every race...but purity is sustained.