The problem, "fixing the Democratic Party," is larger than most people think. Most of the Party's big-dollar ecosystem exists to keep it just as it is.
Around the time of the rise of William Jefferson Rodham Clinton, Team D discovered high living and decided that they liked it.
Sweet donor cash means better digs for staffers, better pay, fat expense accounts, comfortable travel arrangements and most importantly, the ability to dispense favors, "consulting" gigs to cronies and to get your footloose film studies major roommate from Brown off the couch and producing some campaign ads.
Easy money is one hell of a drug. And a very hard drug to kick.
Take away their big advantage, and the 2016 and 2020 Team D presidential campaigns would have long been dead in the water.
As bad as Dems are at strategy and using their power, a constitutional convention to achieve a parliamentary form of government could easily be coopted by the GOP, koch, et al and instead of achieving some semblance of democracy, we'd hand over the keys to the GOP and be even more enslaved than we are now. I write a blog for Retake Our Democracy, NM based advoccy org unlike the national ones cited above for moral cowardice. I was directed to this thread aftrer a subscriber after reading a Retake post: "Dems Don't Need Better "Messaging" They Need More Candidates like John Fetterman and Gabe Vasques" :https://retakeourdemocracy.org/2022/07/20/dems-dont-need-better-messaging-they-need-more-candidates-like-gabe-vasquez-and-john-fetterman/. The piece would resonate wih Thomas' assertion that if he were to launch a third party, he'd start with labor who the Dems have abandoned long ago. The post notes how authentic Fettermen are and how genuinely committed to working people and how the Dems typically foget about them. As to our missed opportunity: In 2009, Obama had the power, the opportunity and the moral high ground to reshape the poltical process. He should have turned his back on Wall St and bailed out "the foreclosed" not 'the foreclosurers," and gone on from there to embed the right to an abortion in law, and then turned to climate issues and a green transition. Insteat he bailed out Wall St., drilled more oil than all prior presidents and did zero on immigration. If he had done all of that, he could have made the Dems as popular with the working class as FDR. A huge missed opportunity. Great piece and a worthwhile discussion.
2009 is a very convenient starting date. Perhaps that's when the neoliberals took charge, but for thirty years they sabotaged the Left resulting in a party with a damaged left wing. The party then went corporate style top>down leadership with ambitious but visionless talking heads who promoted lab-tested ideologies seemingly designed to tear huge holes in the party's big tent but that was OK because all the action was in the party suites where the lobbyists handed out the gift bags.
Judge the neoliberals not just for what they have done, but for all that they've thwarted. The latter may be an even bigger crime than the former.
Hi Tom, it is too late. A severe economic dislocation is coming and possibly a devastating war. Only a new constitution, based on parliamentary government, will start to provide an avenue for a government responsive to the "people." You would lose half of your subscriber base if you discussed this. Liberals worship the Constitution while "conservatives" will continue to undermine whatever liberal policies are left.
Around the time of the rise of William Jefferson Rodham Clinton, Team D discovered high living and decided that they liked it.
Sweet donor cash means better digs for staffers, better pay, fat expense accounts, comfortable travel arrangements and most importantly, the ability to dispense favors, "consulting" gigs to cronies and to get your footloose film studies major roommate from Brown off the couch and producing some campaign ads.
Easy money is one hell of a drug. And a very hard drug to kick.
Take away their big advantage, and the 2016 and 2020 Team D presidential campaigns would have long been dead in the water.
As bad as Dems are at strategy and using their power, a constitutional convention to achieve a parliamentary form of government could easily be coopted by the GOP, koch, et al and instead of achieving some semblance of democracy, we'd hand over the keys to the GOP and be even more enslaved than we are now. I write a blog for Retake Our Democracy, NM based advoccy org unlike the national ones cited above for moral cowardice. I was directed to this thread aftrer a subscriber after reading a Retake post: "Dems Don't Need Better "Messaging" They Need More Candidates like John Fetterman and Gabe Vasques" :https://retakeourdemocracy.org/2022/07/20/dems-dont-need-better-messaging-they-need-more-candidates-like-gabe-vasquez-and-john-fetterman/. The piece would resonate wih Thomas' assertion that if he were to launch a third party, he'd start with labor who the Dems have abandoned long ago. The post notes how authentic Fettermen are and how genuinely committed to working people and how the Dems typically foget about them. As to our missed opportunity: In 2009, Obama had the power, the opportunity and the moral high ground to reshape the poltical process. He should have turned his back on Wall St and bailed out "the foreclosed" not 'the foreclosurers," and gone on from there to embed the right to an abortion in law, and then turned to climate issues and a green transition. Insteat he bailed out Wall St., drilled more oil than all prior presidents and did zero on immigration. If he had done all of that, he could have made the Dems as popular with the working class as FDR. A huge missed opportunity. Great piece and a worthwhile discussion.
2009 is a very convenient starting date. Perhaps that's when the neoliberals took charge, but for thirty years they sabotaged the Left resulting in a party with a damaged left wing. The party then went corporate style top>down leadership with ambitious but visionless talking heads who promoted lab-tested ideologies seemingly designed to tear huge holes in the party's big tent but that was OK because all the action was in the party suites where the lobbyists handed out the gift bags.
Judge the neoliberals not just for what they have done, but for all that they've thwarted. The latter may be an even bigger crime than the former.
Hi Tom, it is too late. A severe economic dislocation is coming and possibly a devastating war. Only a new constitution, based on parliamentary government, will start to provide an avenue for a government responsive to the "people." You would lose half of your subscriber base if you discussed this. Liberals worship the Constitution while "conservatives" will continue to undermine whatever liberal policies are left.