2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Do you buy into the single payer fantasy of Sanders? [View all]wildeyed
(11,240 posts)who is willing to walk through that door once the activists push it open far enough. That's the easy part. You gotta make them do it. That's the hard part.
Activist are responsible for giving the politician the cover they need to get the work of the legislation done. King famously pushed Kennedy and LBJ on civil rights. The depression opened the door for FDR. None of that groundbreaking legislation gets done without both timing and the right activists in place to agitate on the issues.
Sanders math on single-payer doesn't work. His job is to present a workable policy that we can move toward. He has not done that.
"And isn't that the entire point of the Democratic Party?"
NO. That is not the point of a political party at all. They are a tactic to allow politicians to win elections. Nothing more.
Y'all should quit dumping your responsibility to agitate the shit out of this issue onto Sanders or a political party's lap in the first place. Because it goes nowhere if you do that. MAKE THEM DO IT. Show up at every board meeting, at the state house and vote in every single election that you are eligible for. Write OpEds and register voters. Make the local pols who oppose you fucking miserable every time they see you coming until they pass your law just to get you off their back. Yes you can!