In my previous post, I wrote about the need for the Democratic Party establishment to lose its fear of embracing progressive policies that actually help people. Afterwards, I came across this brief video by Robert Reich, who expresses similar sentiments in a little over three minutes, probably much more effectively than I did.
As well, a lengthy article in The Guardian addresses the progressive movement within the party, which the Trump regime has helped to stoke, says Larry Jacobs, director at the University of Minnesota's Centre for the Study of Politics and Governance.
“There’s a sense that the Democrats have been patsies in the face of Donald Trump. When Democrats say they want to fight back, they mean it.
“Donald Trump has radicalised the Democratic party,” he said. “This revolt within the party would not have happened without Donald Trump. He is provoking a kind of earthquake, raising lots of unsettling questions within the Democratic party - its direction, its leadership, its policy priorities, its beholdenness to big donors.”
If the right can conceive a radical programme in documents such as Project 2025, why can the left not be similarly ambitious?
One of the biggest impediments facing progressives in the party is the fact that the 'traditionalists' ("timid incrementalists") are beholden to powerful interests, says Joseph Geevarghese, director of One Revolution,
“Because some of their funding depends on corporate donors, moderates have to pull punches. They are not able to articulate the causes of people’s problems. You’ve got progressives who are able to call out the corporate class and the corruption of our politics and how that affects people’s standard of living.”
Norman Solomon, director of RootsAction and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, said: “One might say that hell has no fury like corporate Democrats scorned. I’m thrilled by the results in Michigan but at the same time I’m a bit apprehensive about the blowback from the powerful forces that have been accustomed to literally running the national Democratic party for many decades, arguably since the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) was so successful at the beginning of the 1990s.”
The DLC, founded by Al From, has the progressive movement in its sights.
From reflected this week: “We’ve been focusing on beating Republicans and the democratic socialists have been focused on beating us. We’ve got to fight back. We’ve got to make it harder for them.”
As well, the rhetoric from the Republican Party paints progressives as true threats to the very foundations of America.
Trump and the House speaker, Mike Johnson, have been seeking to revive a cold war-style panic by branding democratic socialists as “radical Marxists” and “godless communists”.
The Democrats have a history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Continued internecine attacks against the party's progressive movement may well accomplish what Trump and his minions alone cannot. In my opinion, only by embracing a diversity of views that, yes, challenge the status quo so favoured by party traditionalists, can they stand a real chance of gaining power in the near future.
This movement was ready to roll when Bernie Sanders was on the election trail. He had a large number of young people fully engaged, using social media and at events. He was the one who would have beaten Trump handily.
ReplyDeleteWe'll never know, Anon, given the timidity of the Democrats to new ideas that would benefit the people.
Deletewhen the Democrats and other world democratic parties moved to the centre then the right moved even more to the right.
ReplyDeleteNow moving to the centre is becoming quite right wing!!
This move has been creeping into our politics for some years aided in part by a consolidation of news outlets controlled by advertising dollars.
TB
Corporate interests hold sway over many things, TB, including media and politics.
DeleteWell, obviously one problem the Democrats have is they cannot even spell "centre".
ReplyDeleteI get the feeling that until the Democratic Socialists of America got themselves a bit organized, started expanding, and had a few candidates hit the hustings there really was no left wing organized group in the USA. Bernie Saunders does not a social revolution make.
I do not think that I had ever heard of the Democratic Socialists of America before Mamdani hit the news. A bit of googling and listening to a New Yorker Hour interview with Megan Romer, a co-chair of the DSA, I got the impression that the DSA is approaching something like a Canadian political party.
I cannot see their candidates running under a Democratic Socialists of America banner any time soon, given the stranglehold the Democrats and Republicans have on the election process. What other country keeps official state lists of professed party affiliation?
Getting another party registered and able to field candidates in an election seems to be a state by state process and is a Herculean task.
@ AnonymousAugust 10, 2026 at 11:32 AM
At the moment the Establishment Democrats are probably to the right of Pierre Poilievre and 90% of his caucus. Heck, probably most Establishment Democrats likely would consider Danielle Smith a dangerous socialist.
If they actually moved towards the centre they probably would pick up support. As I see it, the major reason Trump got into the White House was because he offered something different which neither of the established parties were doing. I suspect it was not particularly his actual policy statement s as much it was that he was offering change. That said, I do think his "No More Wars" was a real vote–
getter. I actually tended to believe him because I did not think he could develop a good way to make money from a war. I was wrong!
Some very interesting points, Anon. If the Democrats were really a big tent party, they wouldn't fear views that diverge from their corporate fealty. Nonetheless, should the Social Democrats gain even greater traction in upcoming primaries, the party conceivably could yield to the inevitable, after much kicking and screaming. It will be very interesting to see how all of this unfolds.
DeleteThe USA democrats and Republicans are both fighting over the same scraps the Billionaires allow them to.
ReplyDeleteAnything left from the scraps is thrown out to the slave states for further distribution!
It's becoming the not so united slave states of America!
Other than Mamdani and a few others , the USA has NO idea of what Socialism is.
Even amongst the "nice" Democrats I have have met there is a limit to just how much they will give back to humanity.
Giving is tied to a tax receipt or saving an obscure African rodent! preferably with lots of positive media and likes on social media...
TB
The Democrats really need to see things the way many Americans do, TB. Offering a clear-cut alternative to the traditional corruption and graft might yield results they would be surprised by.
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