Elections COULD matter if there was something other than the two party duopoly in power today. Both parties are sold out to rich donors. Democruds have been firmly in power in California for at least 30 years and they have managed to grow a homeless problem and prove themselves worthless over and over again. I voted for Jerry Brown for governor to be even more disappointed with him than with Obama. He is sold out to special interests. In the 80's he had a series of radio programs where he critiqued the corporatocracy on KPFK and other Pacifica stations...where he pointed out how corporations have taken over our government from top to bottom with donation...then he climbed on the gravy train himself. I regard Brown as a traitor to working people and integral to the problems California is experiencing today...not for being "progressive" or "socialist." Oh no! Just plain SOLD OUT.
If we can't get progressives elected, the problem will only get worse. How to do this. I wish I had an answer. To my way of seeing it...elections are just locking in pollution, income disparity, lack of public education, and particularly real estate speculator domination of our state legislature. I am a retiree writing from Texas because I cannot afford to live in my home state where I have lived for more than 70 years.
The Democratic party has gone off the rails, but not because they have sold out to corporations. The country has moved to the right. The only Democrats who have won elections are the ones who moved to the right with the country, the DLC, blue dog Democrats. Obama ran as a progressive but governed as a conservative Democrat largely with Clinton's advisers.
The progressive left has been losing in all of the Western Democracies. The only exception is Trudeau in Canada, and I don't think that he is considered to be very far to the left. This is the reality that you have to face, that no matter how progressives organize themselves, a new party or continuing to work inside the increasingly conservative Democratic party, progressives are swimming against the tide of Americans' opinions.
To change this you have to change that reality. In my opinion, you would have to completely abandon identity politics. Conservatives are killing you on identity politics, the only area that progressives are currently willing to battle conservatives on.
You would have to adopt the single most powerful position in survey after survey, tax the rich. Tax the rich to balance the budget. Tax the rich to shore up and to expand Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Tax the rich to provide affordable, high-quality health care for all. Tax the rich to redistribute money down to the poor, the disabled, the unemployed, etc., the economically disadvantaged.
Raise the minimum wage to reduce profits and to make sure that no one who is willing to work has to live in poverty. You would have to learn some economics to do these things. You would have to able to give up the campaign money from Wall Street. You would have to understand why you have lost the workingman when the single Republican policy is to fuck over the workingman to lower their wages to increase profits and the incomes of the already wealthy. You would have to ignore the political people's advice. You would have to stick to these things for years to convince people that you really mean them.
I don't think that our modern progressives have the stomach for consumer level politics. I live in a suburban Atlanta county that voted by a small margin for Clinton in 2016. And yet there was no Democrat running against the Congressman that has represented the district largely made up of this county for more than twelve years. A representative who has been listed as one of the five stupidest in the Congress. A representative who has never worked outside of politics.
