2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Why are some Democrats so afraid of change and hold onto their status quo like a baby blanket? [View all]forjusticethunders
(1,151 posts)should have been built by the left grassroots starting in 2000, if not in 1980. But for the most part the "Professional" Left retreated to their highly-paid, highly-privileged and highly-white cul-de-sacs instead of continuing to fight and organize the downtrodden when Nixon and Reagan defeated the union movement (granted the unions had their own problems) and broke the New Deal coalition. When the far right was defeated in 1964, they reorganized and rebuilt their coalition into a winning one 16 years later. Now we're playing catch-up by trying to forge an intersectional left-wing movement, but that movement, because of the abdication of the economic/socialist left, has more or less decentered class despite the fact that class intersects every single person. The corporate Dems essentially took up the space that the left abandoned.
Because of the left's refusal to participate in coalition politics, they're creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. They sit out elections because the Dems is too far to the right? The Dems aren't going to listen to them, let alone be pushed to the Left. Even now you have people on the left saying Bernie is a sheepdog, who sucks progressives into Democratic politics where their "energy" is dissipated. But don't you think, looking at a voting bloc that is roughly 45% of the party, you WANT that energy in the Democratic Party as opposed to the Green Party where you'll just throw the election to a fascist, and thus move the Dems even further right because that's what happens when they lose?
Also a key thing is that a lot of leftists are making money off the status quo just the same as DLC insiders do - by complaining about it while not doing anything to change it other than virtue signaling. But POC, LBGT and other oppressed groups don't want to hear you whine about their oppression, they want you to support them in their struggle, interact in their communities, and make an effort to listen to that. Centrist DLC Dems have done a better job in that than the "Left" has even when Bill signs DOMA and welfare reform and Hillary supports marriage equality at the LAST possible moment, listening matters.
There's a reason the entire Progressive Caucus has endorsed Hillary.
There's a reason most unions have endorsed Hillary.
There's a reason Bernie is losing AAs 80-20 nationwide.
The economic, class-oriented Left has failed for half a century due to horrendous tactics and strategy and the fact that Bernie is not winning, indeed, not crushing Hillary (who's a rather flawed candidate in and of herself) , is a testament to that fact.