As the crucial mid-term election looms in our immediate future, a prevailing reality continues to permeate the political landscape: the current authoritarian regime in Washington has become increasingly detached from the everyday concerns of the American public. This fact has rendered the Republican Party historically unpopular. Sadly, it is also true that the Democratic Party is seen as only marginally more favorable in the eyes of the electorate. This disaffection (particularly present among progressives and their younger counterparts) has been fueled by the Party establishment’s reluctance, to fully embrace and adopt (save an occasional placating rhetorical nod)) the widely popular progressive policies famously and consistently articulated by Bernie Sanders during his two presidential candidacies. The inevitable frustration has now reached critical levels of dissatisfaction, especially among a less patient younger group of progressives who are now demanding real, substantive change in the wake of the unparalleled corruption and lawlessness of recent Trump administrations.
Clearly, this call for significant, authentic, and transformative recalibration of our political life does not exit in a vacuum. It’s antecedents can be traced to Clinton’s embrace/extension of Reagan’s neo-liberal domestic policy and his neo-conservative/imperialist foreign agenda, which was dutifully continued through the Democratic administrations of both Obama and Biden. This thread has been fully adopted and advanced by a Democratic Party establishment in spite of significant (and popular) opposition, first by Sanders and now by a growing number of progressive voices ready to facilitate the necessary transformation of FDR’s political party into one dedicated to the values of economic freedom, restoration of a viable middle class, the existence of genuine democratic institutions embodying an actual bottom up model of operation, and the enactment of programs and policies that address real human needs instead the rapacious hunger of runaway capital.
These, of course, are big picture and achievable objectives. In the short term, the success of this transformation will depend on the Democratic Establishment’s renunciation of corporate underwriting, a full-throated adoption of a grassroots/people-oriented/publicly financed system of democratic governance, and the realization that its future viability will depend on a commitment to a lasting coalition with the progressive forces already abundantly present in their midst and perfectly poised to create a serious and formidable counter movement in opposition to the current Republican vision of corporate fascism.
We can take an important step in that direction by wresting control of Congress in November with our eyes fixed on much more significantly impactful outcomes awaiting us in the near future. Indeed, together and united we will not be divided. Let us now stand together in solidarity as we pursue the vision and implementation of a true democracy.
