That is not to say that any of the reforms were liberal measures. Both measurably enriched the industries they claimed to be reforming. And, in the case of the financial reform legislation, the Democrats forsook what could have been a potent wedge issue and refused to establish any sort of commission that might have held executives on Wall Street accountable for the economic collapse they perpetrated on Americans in 2008. There was an opportunity to make foreclosures a salient issue, but Democrats refused to push for a temporary national moratorium on all foreclosures until practices related to practices related to subprime mortgages, which helped create the collapse, were fully investigated.
It is not enough to call for the head of the Democratic National Committee, Tim Kaine, to be replaced. On the flipside, progressives who argue the Democratic Party can be changed from the inside (and who have been saying this for at least a decade now) have to demonstrate why this is, in fact, possible.
At the expense of forming powerful grassroots movements independent of the Democratic Party, key progressives like Medea Benjamin, Peter Coyote, John Eder, Daniel Ellsberg, Angela Gilliam, Tom Hayden, Elizabeth Horton Sheff, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Robert McChesney, and Norman Solomon have for the past decade put turning the Democratic Party more liberal ahead of developing an alternative for voters that would not only provide voters a real progressive option in elections but also enrich and renew democracy in America, as it could push for some much-need electoral reforms like ranked choice voting.
During this election, progressives like Robert Parry and Stephen Zunes ensured Ralph Nader continued to be scapegoated for the problems the country is experiencing. The lack of a progressive movement with the momentum to make huge electoral gains that can translate into good policy changes was pinned on voters willing to not let the Democratic Party take their vote for granted.
As much as it may not be right to call out names, names have to be mentioned. People who are part of the progressive movement have to take responsibility for how their advocacy has not helped liberals or progressives electorally at all.
This nation cannot survive if progressives continue to protect corporate Democrats and placate progressives who want to break out of this wretched two-party system.
While progressive thinkers or writers may say there needs to be movement building and media structures improved to support progressives, that all cannot come without a conscientious refining and retooling of a progressive electoral strategy.
Movements, which progressives expect to shift the power, in order to truly succeed need to have arms of struggle independent of politics and dependent on politics. Therefore, there needs to be a strategy of cooperation between forces advancing social justice and those who are changing the electoral system to make social justice battles easier for Americans to win. The Democrats lost big-time. Worse, they are likely to listen to former Senator Evan Bayh, who chose to quit the Senate because, absurdly, Democrats were taking this country too "far left." (Read his latest column to see how Democrats will be bringing policies of austerity to America. Bayh cleverly re-brands austerity with the term "progressive indexation.")
Now is the time to decide whether they are a lost cause or a Party worth reinvesting hopes and dreams into yet another time, again.
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