General Discussion

Republicans have succeeded in pushing the Overton Window WAY to the right by being unafraid to persistently shout even the most extreme conservative tropes.

Where were the Dems, other than Bernie, shouting about the need for Medicare for All or a public option? If Obama had been out there pounding the case for why we needed a public option, public support for it could have at least given him leverage in negotiating the ACA; instead, he took it off the table before negotiations even began.

Where were the Dems in opposing the law that made it impossible to discharge educational debt in bankruptcy? Biden proudly backed the change.

Where were the Dems in opposing the repeal of Glass-Steagall, which made it possible for investment bankers to gamble with grandma's retirement savings? B. Clinton proudly backed that change; he also override the recommendation of his own Chair of the Commodities Futures Trading Comm's recommendation that credit derivatives, a financial innovation at the time, should be regulated – a decision that fantastically multiplied the losses in the Great Financial Crash of 2008.

Where were/are the Dems in opposing the massive consolidation of media ownership? Clinton happily backed that, too (via his enthusiastic support for the Telecom Act of 1996).

How many Dems have raised strenuous, persistant objections to the evisceration of labor protections through the years?

Are any Dems arguing against the continuing mass surveillance of innocent citizens by the NSA, or is it “out of sight, out of mind”? It’s still on MY mind, and Dem politicians should be making sure it stays on all of ours, in light of the escalating abuses we’re seeing from Trump as he goes after former “enemies,” immigrants, and protesters.

How many Dems are screaming for restoration of antitrust enforcement in the face of the massive consolidation and unfair trade practices of amazon and other megacorporations?

I'm glad the Dems are walking as well as talking about racial, ethnic, and gender-related identities; but for decades, most have acceded with barely a peep of objection to a plethora of changes that have enabled our current wealth and income gaps. Even after the 2008 crash, too few Dem voices were enthusiastically raised in support of Liz Warren's CPFB, which was pathetically weak water in comparison to the protections that we used to enjoy thanks to the Wall St. regulatory regime installed after the Great Depression and which for 50 years had effectively eliminated the boom-&-bust cycles from which the 1% have so gloriously profited.

"A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias."
–– Oscar Wilde, "The Soul of Man Under Socialism" (1891).

If we're not willing even to TALK about what we actually deserve and what it would take to get there, instead meekly being “reasonable" and lowering our expectations, we’ll never get a system that actually works for us!

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
–– Frederick Douglass, "West India Emancipation" speech, Aug. 3, 1857.

We're not asking for utopia; we just want justice and a standard of living commensurate with wealth we've created through our own honest work. I don't trust anyone who says it's "unreasonable" for us to expect this; I want my representatives to demand it and work for it every single day.
I don’t want to “persist” only in the sense of eking out a minimal existence through desperate measures; I want representatives that persistently demand much more every single day.
When it’s this easy to turn establishment Dems’ own slogans against them, something’s seriously wrong.