GUARDIAN PUBLISHES: Robert Reich "Some commentators think Democrats have moved too far to the left – too far from the so-called “center.” This is utter rubbish. Where’s the center between democracy and authoritarianism, and why would Democrats want to be there?" Sirota in a parallel Guardian item: "That media machine convinced Democratic normies to believe the highest calling of citizenship was to simply line up behind party-approved candidates, crush progressive challengers in primaries, and “vote blue, no matter who” in general elections – and then do nothing more, even when “electable” conservative Democrats lost and the few winners produced no change."

 In effect, Repubicans are vile and Democratic politicians are complacent. Vile, also, when not mere soft GOP-lite dumplings. Worded better, but that's the upshot.

Reich. In part:

As Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg concluded after the 2016 election: “Democrats don’t have a ‘white working-class’ problem. They have a ‘working-class problem’, which progressives have been reluctant to address honestly or boldly. The fact is that Democrats have lost support with all working-class voters across the electorate.”

The working class used to be the bedrock of the Democratic party. What happened?

During the first two years of the Clinton, Obama, and Biden administrations, when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, they scored some important victories for working families: the Affordable Care Act, an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Family and Medical Leave Act, for example.

But they also allowed the middle class to hollow out and the working class to sink.

Clinton passed free trade agreements without providing millions of blue-collar workers who consequently lost their jobs a means of getting new ones that paid at least as well.

His North American Free Trade Agreement and plan for China to join the World Trade Organization undermined the wages and economic security of manufacturing workers across America, hollowing out vast swaths of the Rust Belt.

Clinton also deregulated Wall Street. This led to the financial crisis of 2008 – in which Obama bailed out the biggest banks and bankers but did nothing for homeowners, many of whom owed more on their homes than their homes were worth.

Obama didn’t demand as a condition for the bailout that banks refrain from foreclosing on underwater homeowners. Nor did Obama demand an overhaul of the banking system. Instead, he allowed Wall Street to water down attempts at re-regulation.

Both Clinton and Obama stood by as corporations hammered trade unions. They failed to reform labor laws to allow workers to form unions with a simple up-or-down majority vote, or even to impose meaningful penalties on companies that violated labor protections.

Biden has supported labor law reform but hasn’t fought for it, leaving the Protecting the Right to Organize (Pro) Act to die inside his ill-fated Build Back Better Act.

Clinton and Obama allowed antitrust enforcement to ossify, enabling large corporations to grow far larger and major industries to become more concentrated. Biden is trying to revive antitrust enforcement but hasn’t made it a centerpiece of his administration.

Both Clinton and Obama depended on big money from corporations and the wealthy. Both turned their backs on campaign finance reform.

Obama was the first presidential nominee since Richard Nixon to reject public financing in his primary and general election campaigns, and he never followed up on his re-election promise to pursue a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United vs FEC, the 2010 supreme court opinion opening the floodgates to big money in politics.

 Sirota. In part:

While Republican normie voters were being radicalized by Fox News and talk radio, Democratic normie voters were being anesthetized by NPR, the New York Times, the Atlantic and MSNBC, which taught them to believe that an extremist like John Roberts is a lovable moderate, Mike Pence is an American hero, George Bush is a decent guy, and an operative who installed Sam Alito on the court is a warrior for democracy.

That media machine convinced Democratic normies to believe the highest calling of citizenship was to simply line up behind party-approved candidates, crush progressive challengers in primaries, and “vote blue, no matter who” in general elections – and then do nothing more, even when “electable” conservative Democrats lost and the few winners produced no change. The worst thing anyone could do, they taught viewers, was criticize, pressure, or protest Democratic leaders to try to get them to do anything.

At the same time, Barack Obama and his administration persuaded normie Democrats that the celebrity candidate would save the day, that progressive pressure campaigns are “fucking retarded”, and that Obama’s hand-picked candidate, Hillary Clinton, was the most viable successor. Meanwhile, the labor movement was crushed by Democrats’ trade deals and corporate union busting, disempowering what had been a radicalizing force inside the Democratic coalition.

[...] But let’s admit it: the campaigns, advocacy and pressure of my generation and the Boomers did not radicalize the [Dem base] normies quickly enough. We were not just outgunned by conservatives, outspent by corporatists, and undermined by liberal careerists selling their souls for the next hot take – we were also outmaneuvered, outsmarted and outperformed.

We failed, and that failure allowed Democratic leaders to never fear their own base – to the point where Democratic voters gave their presidential nomination to the candidate who authored the crime bill, allied with segregationists, championed the Iraq war, touted social security cuts, voted to let states restrict abortion and sharpened bankruptcy laws.

So here’s the bad news: because this dynamic allowed Democratic leaders to never feel the heat of accountability, they never wielded their power to make a serious effort to avert the current nightmare. In many cases, they did the opposite.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after the Roe v Wade ruling. Photograph: Michael McCoy/Reuters

The Obama presidency was defined by initiatives to prop up health insurance predators, protect Wall Street criminals and abandon promises to Democratic voters, which created the backlash conditions and depressed turnout that helped lead to Donald Trump’s ascent. The Biden presidency has been similarly defined by the party living up to the president’s promise that “nothing would fundamentally change” – and its attendant unwillingness to materially improve the lives of anyone other than billionaires and corporate executives, all while the administration boosts various rightwing causes.

The crescendo of this phantasmagoria has led to this grim reality: As conservative justices now turn on a spigot of extremist rulings, the Democratic president is giving half-hearted speeches pretending he has no power, and issuing reports declining to even support expanding the supreme court – due to concerns about protecting “its independence and legitimacy”.

For their part, Democratic congressional leaders are singing patriotic ballads while sending out fundraising emails. They expect yet another positive response from a base that up until now has politely asked for – but never really demanded – anything from them in return.

Two parties. One pile.

Fixable? How? When? Ever? If two parties are Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, we are down the rabbit hole. If "Third Party" does not ring your bell, what does? 

Is Sirota's insertion of an AOC image enough to give hope? How many AOCs will be needed, and what's the likelihood of that number getting past Dem inner party gatekeepers with power and the money behind their status quo proclivities?

What to do?

Short term, in November 2022, you are left with lesser evil, i.e., vote Dem in droves. 

The need is to GOTV to dodge worse. 

Long term: Third Party.