The main reason why the progressive agenda hasn't advanced, regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans hold power, is that progressive values conflict in many respects with the corporatist ideology that both establishment parties are now beholden to. Single-payer health care is objectively a better system than the current US model, but neither party in Washington will even allow public discussion of single-payer, because to do so would discredit the corporatist dogma that the private sector (the mythical "free market") is always more efficient than the public sector. Out-of-control military spending in the US is impoverishing us, eroding our freedom, and creating an endless feedback loop of global violence, yet neither party will challenge the prerogatives of the military-industrial complex, which has grown into exactly the monster that Eisenhower warned of.
3. The Roots of Evil, part 2: The Plurality-take-all Electoral System
In a September 2010 Gallup poll, 58% of Americans agreed that the Democratic and Republicans do such a poor job representing the American people that a third major party is needed. How is it that in a country that prides itself as the birthplace of modern democracy, the majority of people feel represented by neither of the parties that win virtually every election? The difference between what Americans aspire to and what the political class gives them, which many call the "democracy gap", can be attributed to the plurality-take-all electoral system.
Americans elect our representatives almost exclusively in single-winner elections where the candidate who receives the greatest absolute number of votes, even if that is less than a majority, wins the office: thus, plurality-take-all. This system naturally tends to the formation of two voting blocs. The two-party system is only a symptom the underlying cause of the democracy gap is the plurality-take-all voting system.
Most are familiar with the "spoiler dilemma" that plagues plurality-take-all elections: because a candidate can win with less than a majority, if there are more than 2 candidates, voting for the one you agree with most can allow the one you agree with least to benefit from a "vote-splitting" situation. Because of this, the two dominant parties are usually able to coerce Americans to vote for them, even when their candidates fail to inspire enthusiasm, because voters see voting for the dominant party closest to their views as the only plausible alternative to allowing the other dominant party to take power. In short, Americans are stuck in a vicious cycle of voting for the lesser evil.
While corporate money in politics exerts a rightward pull on both establishment parties, plurality-take-all voting leaves most voters feeling that their only choice is between a socially liberal corporatist party and a socially conservative corporatist party, or as the traditional left-to-right political economic spectrum would have it, a center-right party and a far-right party. The center of gravity in Washington politics remains the corporatist-militarist consensus. Progressive Americans find themselves in a unique position among large blocs of voters, as they are now publicly repudiated by the dominant party that most of them vote for. While polls show that most Americans feel they are no longer represented by the corporatist duopoly, progressives know that they no longer have a voice in government, and so are in the best position to act.
4. Strategy, part 1: Why not Progressive Democrats?
Many progressive Americans seek to realize a progressive agenda by "taking over the Democratic Party". They have met a hostile response from the Democratic Party leadership, which feels entitled to their votes but refuses to implement their ideas. Indeed, the Democratic Party depends on the votes of progressives who view it as the lesser evil, but it also depends on funding from the same corporatist elites who fund the Republican Party. The best fundraisers rise to the top in both parties, and as the Democratic Party has steadily been infiltrated and taken over by corporatists, it has abandoned its social democratic New Deal legacy for the neoliberal ideology of the economic elite. The conservative movement took over the Republican Party, true, but that movement was created by the economic elite to further the corporatist agenda. Conservatives were welcomed into the Republican tent, while progressives who attempt a similar takeover of the Democratic Party are not welcomed by the party's gatekeepers, but fought tooth and nail until they either submit to being pawns for their leaders' agenda or surrender.
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