General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Pop leftism is a form of disaster capitalism. [View all]eniwetok
(1,629 posts)"But we have to WIN under these rules so we can change them."
That's not what the Right did when it set out in the 70's to turn America into Amerika... they created Orwellian Right think tanks like Cato and Heritage to reframe political debates. They created the Federalist Society to politicize the judiciary. They created ALEC. They developed the Two Santa/Starve the Beast strategy to buy votes with irresponsible tax cuts then use debt to undermine the safety net. They sought to defund the Dems by going after unions and trial lawyers. They wanted to make the media less informative by getting rid of the Fairness Doctrine. True they could only enact some of these plans once in power... but the strategy was there.
Dems also need to think long term... and central to that is to finally have a long term vision of where they want to take the nation in 20-50 years. But Dems tend not to think past the next presidential election. If we want to move to a more democratic, multiparty system like most advanced industrial democracies... the ground work has to be laid.
I think that under our antidemocratic system... which is protected by a dysfunctional electoral system and a civic religion that not even most liberal Dems can break free of... making the US perhaps the most reformproof system on earth... there also has to be a long term strategy to lay the ground work for reform. A couple thoughts... there should be movements in states with citizen referenda to turn at least one branch of their state legislatures to proportional representation... so parties more liberal that the Dems can get seats not only to break the braindead duopoly of the two parties, but to model what democratic government can look like. Since the federal system is essentially reform proof where states with 4% of the US population can block any reforms, there should be a movement to change the amendment formula so it's population based. There also should be a movement not just for a affirmative constitutional right to vote, but for for civic equality in the vote as a basic civil right... by that I mean all votes weigh the same in terms of representation. This value SHOULD be so basic to anyone who calls themselves a Dem... and yet even most liberal Dems buy into our federal system where that right is destroyed by the concept of state suffrage.