climate change, etc.

but there is no movement that encompasses the left. it just doesn't exist. those who claim to uphold it either get coopted or are content to sit back and whine.

their natural allies in any struggle are people of color--Latinos and African-Americans especially.

But the keyboard revolutionaries prefer condescension and lecturing to outreach and listening, and we saw the results in Florida and Texas.

You are fairly pretty new here - so maybe it has not come to your attention that Hilary has absolutely no fucking intention of doing anything remotely like moving a millimeter to the left. She would likely laugh in your face if you said that to her, personally.

Hillary will always be a Third Way neo-con, for war and fracking and the TPP and triangulation that always always slides us more to the right. And DWS and her DNC will keep shuffling the deck until there are no more Progressives to even bother with; Debbie can stop them at the gate by withholding support, and she does that, and worse - she openly supports, campaigns and votes for her GOP buddies down here in Florida.

This is really another "you better support Hillary" OP. A "Bernie BUT" OP.

Oh, and the political revolution WILL go forward, thanks for your kind mention.

And I am not whining, I am merely answering you. That is a pretty old and familiar tactic, calling any answer to a criticism as whinging and whining. Also, you have no idea, evidently, what people are doing outside of DU.

Really?

When someone criticizes the "movement". A movement that cannot take criticism is dead in the water. Not only have some (not all) Bernie supporters refused to take criticism, they've harassed and brigaded people for daring to say that Bernie's campaign hasn't been flawless.

I mean, just because I'm a Bernie supporter I have to just ignore the racist dog-whistles (Stockholm Syndrome? Red states don't count until they don't have black people? "Bernie would be winning if there were no black people?&quot that have been coming out (similar to how another campaign went full dog-whistle mode when black people stopped voting for them...)

No one on the internet can make me actually angry. I cannot imagine ceding anyone that power, really!
You do seem awfully invested in pushing the notion that I am angry, though. Odd.

Doesn´t take a rocket scientist to see it.

Gone with the fucking wind ....

Are you ready for that sacrifice while you build a new left coalition?

Or do you have this fantasy that you can actually take over the reigns of the Democratic Party, which is apparently corrupt from top to bottom and its probable standard bearer is a corporatist likudnik?

FDR didn't lose elections when the Socialists, Communists and populists like Huey Long pushed him to the left after he ran on a Bourbon Democrat platform.
Truman didn't lose elections when the first stirrings of the Civil Rights movement pushed him to desegregate.
LBJ didn't lose elections when he was pushed to sign the Civil Rights act after building his career as a racist Southern Democrat.

Also the easiest way for the Democrats to triangulate right is to have them lose to Trump or Cruz and make it look like bigotry and racism are a winning political combination.

Also the coalition is *already there* - you just need to organize, outreach and tie it together.

You're pretty much the living example of all that is wrong with leftist activism. Talk a giant game and then produce absolutely nothing.

Genuine change can't be accomplished through your keyboard or social media, so why bother, right?

I said go for it.

What's your problem?

I'm sure you're white enough to survive unscathed, though. How "progressive" of you to toss women, gays, and minorities under the bus in the name of your purity.

Republicans winning elections are always a bad thing, a very bad thing.

This is an easy litmus test to follow.

Those who want Republicans to win an election, are Republicans.

merely because we do not shriek hysterically and root for the enemy does not make us sheep

Looking forward to June 7.

any more clever, or true.

You also seem to fancy yourself as having extra sensory powers. I suggest you work on the former and forget the latter.

I suggest you start by reading Animal Farm again as a start.

thanks to the war George W Bush and his useful idiot Naderites helped bring us

When she casted her vote with conviction?

And now, like a likudnik, she is saber rattling again?

Yeah, let's talk about that.

Let's talk about how the Democratic Party is about to nominate a pro war candidate.

Of the war Hillary voted for with conviction.

Good.

I hope you do take time to comprehend the death and suffering.

P.S. I voted for Gore and Kerry.

In order to make a permanent leftward change in the country, we also need to counter the years of right wing hate aimed at GOP voters, with a concerted effort to move the moderate right, leftward. Then we would have a solid majority. I think the fact that Trump has gained traction this season, shows that there is deep dissatisfaction within the GOP.

So that we can vote for more than ONE leftist in the GE, that other people can vote for the leftists, and that if we fail to get leftists elected, we can try to move the centrists left.

And, what better way of "organizing" and "convincing people" than the Left running a candidate?

is not only losing, but losing among the most oppressed groups in the primary. Something isn't computing here. Sanders went from winning under 50k earners to losing them big. How the hell does that happen?

How did electing the likes of Bill Clinton move the country leftward? Welfare reform? NAFTA?

what apparatus should 'the left' have utilized since 2000?...the fucking DLC/Third Way Party that overtook the Democratic Party after 1988?...yeah, it's nice to have the hindsight to see how the goddam wolves-in-sheep's-clothing hijacked the Party and about all they have to show for it is two Presidents who face dwindling/non-existent congressional support thanks to losing off-year elections like they were intentionally helping ruin the American middle class....

one thing you said is revealing...in fact, it is just one word: TRIANGULATE

The DLC/TW have done as much to push things rightward as the Repubs have...in fact, they have helped force the Right Wing even further right....

Of course, having little or no true DNC support for those at the grassroots level is, apparently, the fault of the people at the bottom...

because organizing is easy....

I will say this: your Third Way analysis of "the Left" is pretty true to form...and anticipated...

"I'm probably to the left of 95% of everyone on this forum."...said by anyone truly right of center...thinking they are 'left'...

Protest?
Try to win in local and state elections?
Go into the streets and try to explain why Third Way politics would screw them over?
Do outreach, organizing and social work in disadvantage communities like the center-leftist (with the huge emphasis on center) Obama did?
Why is the most prominent community organizer since MLK a centrist University of Chicago grad?

Are you seeing the problem yet?
The Left needs to put some boots on the ground like they did in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The far right instantly organize and run candidates against both Dems and moderate Repubs at every level, move the party to the right, and retake both houses within 6 years. That's also how we got Reagan 16 years after Goldwater got annihilated.

The Repubs have big wave elections
The Left does...
???
????
?????

That's how political power works when you're fighting the Establishment. And as much as Bernie is a better candidate ideologically than Hillary, let's not pretend that he can't be pushed into triangulation, hell I'd call the F-35 support (tepid as "I don't like this plane but if we have to have it let's build it in my state), the votes for intervention in Kosovo, and other votes a form of triangulation to interests that aren't exactly leftist.

That's the problem we're seeing, there's no big picture vision among the movement, it's always "our candidate or we're doomed" instead of "if we don't get our guy today, we'll get him later".

This primary has taught me a lot. The lessons are there for everyone who wants leftism in this country to see, but too many want to ignore it. The biggest issue is that it's the centrists like Obama and Hillary doing the outreach.

Even if we suddenly became a Democratic Socialist system tomorrow, capitalism would come roaring back if the capitalists do a better job of responding to people's concerns and the socialists rest on their laurels.

do you know, remember, or have any experience, with the Democratic Party and its core values and the principles it promoted prior to the way the Party runs today?

the fight isn't between capitalism and socialism...they both have too many facets to try to simplify into a 'this or that' comparison...

it's the unbridled greed that can fester with poorly-regulated capitalism that has become the issue...adopting tenets of a Democratic Socialist system, much of which already exists in the USA, appears to be the only program we can institute to fight the ongoing destruction of the American middle class...

except where it may not be sufficient. But that's not the point, the point is how we get there.

The Democratic Party? Cuz that's a sick joke. I laugh at these posts that artificially bundle large and disparate groups of people, who share little other than some ideology, into monolithic, self-organizing entities that can be blamed. Silly.

The left has to stop siloing into little enclaves too.

I should have done that in the first place.

Sanders and his supporters keep proclaiming that his campaign is the result of a revolution. If so, then where are the candidates supporting him? The Presidency isn't the only office that matters, or has influence over the direction the country takes. There are 100 Senate seats, 435 House seats, 50 Governorships, and 7383 State legislative seats where the officeholders make decisions every day that greatly effect Americans lives. If this is a revolution, these nascent revolutionaries (I can't say they're really any part of "the left&quot should be able to list hundreds of candidates for office supporting it.

Another tell-tale is what these nascent revolutionaries will do when they lose. And they will lose. Will they regroup, buckle down, and work twice as hard for the next round of campaigning & elections? Or will they evaporate?

History shows that they'll evaporate. Either they "compromise their principles" and vote for the winning Democratic candidate - meaning that they grow up & realize those lofty principles they fought so hard for (not really) are shit & actually don't get anything progressive accomplished. Or just sit at home to pout & whine on Election Day. Or, they'll latch onto a third party Don Quixote, who may be superficially "liberal", but often has some very problematic, not-very-liberal views on important issues - which they will of course sweep aside & ignore. Some will even cast a supposed "protest vote" for the Republican ("that'll show those nasty, nasty Demon-crats!&quot - with varying levels of enthusiasm.

OTOH, it seems that whenever anyone actually works to create a base of support to vote for real progressive candidates, and get progressive legislation passed, these nascent revolutionaries dismiss them out-of-hand as party hacks, or Third Way, or corporatists, or just simply corrupt & cowardly - precisely reflecting what the RW propaganda machine has been saying for decades. And then they dream up conspiracies to excuse their losses & justify their lack of support for Democrats.

They can't seem to grasp the fact that democracy is hard. IT'S MEANT TO BE! Creating a real movement is what the leaders in the Democratic Party - that they're so happy to demonize - have been doing for decades. Sure, there are problems with the system that we have - but to even begin to fix those problems we need to have people in office to do it! When these nascent revolutionaries take their ball and go home they create the environment which they're so dissatisfied with. I guess that's why they're such a useful tool for the RW to use against the Democratic Party.

They're doing just fine.

I just see one unsuccessful Presidential wannabe & a bunch of whiners following him around who think he's the Dali Lama.

Apathy is epidemic in our country, with over half of us completely disengaged from the political process. That, to me, is the biggest problem we have.

So.....what have you been doing, personally, to inspire people to participate in our democracy (or what's left of it)?

And that's why the "revolution" can't get off the ground.

Not saying it should. Just saying it could.

My opinion is to actually wield power you have to wield it.

The only real power the left of which the OP speaks is to cause enough pain to force the Democratic Party to respond.

anything to the common good.

If the progressive left made a list of demands and voted en bloc to cause the Democratic Party to lose elections until the Democratic Party moved left, the Democratic Party would move left.

Not saying they should, just saying they could.

Until they would be willing to do that, the "left" is held hostage to whatever the corporate heads of the Democratic Party want it to do.

Most voters are just sheep. Anyone in power knows that.

I consider Naderites to be moral inferiors to Republicans.

by losing?

A movement for the common person wants to condemn that same person to fascist oppression in hopes of provoking a 1917 style revolution (as if that was the only way to do socialism).

This is exactly like the DISGUSTING KPD members who thought letting Hitler rise to power would help them get the revolution going in Germany.

And they want this because bottom up grassroots organizing and dealing with diverse constituencies is too haaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrd.

It doesn't occur to the "Left" that they're the ones that should be improving their approach, not punishing oppressed people for not voting for them.

But that doesn't translate into support for progressive candidates who do a mediocre job in campaigning and building actual grassroots support (Sanders has done well if you grade him on a curve given his last-minute candidacy, but elections aren't won on a curve). Black people aren't voting 80-20 for Hillary because they're conservative centrists.

/ignore.