How the Democratic Party Lost Its Way

[truebluegreen]

36. We won't win any arguments if we don't stand up and make them.

We aren't going to win over everybody, but we can do better than touting the stock index when the majority aren't even vested in that, or talking about how much worse things could be, or how the best we can hope for is incremental change, or a 2% course correction to the ship of state when many, many people are hurting economically and have been for years if not decades, and being ignored.

The US has been an oligarchy for decades, the Republicans are fine with that--it is their preferred condition--and the Democratic Party has been looking the other way. We didn't "lose our way" in 2016, or 2008, or 2000, or even 1992. We lost it when we walked away from the working class and starting running scared from our principles--I'd put it around 1972. I'd call everything that has happened since then a slow-moving disaster.

We had a chance to make a major course correction in 2008, but our candidate turned out to be a brave defender of the status quo. He is personally likable, gracious, thoughtful and intelligent, but his policies were not what we needed (standing between the bankers and the pitchforks? Seriously?). And here we are.