As long as our elections are about the lesser of two evils, as long as our elections are about which corporatist to vote for, we have no chance for any real change.
The only effective strategy for real change is to work at the primary level to get qualified, uncorrupted people on the ballot. If our ballot choices are only between the lesser of two evils, we have no choices at all.
The tea party, as psychopathic as they are, have shown us the road to success and have proven that it can be done. Progressives need to copy the tea party formula for success, and have to be just about as dogmatic as them in selecting candidates. The tea party will fail because they are essentially a group of batshitcrazy warmongering bigoted theocrats whose policies only appeal to a small minority of Americans.
But think about a tea party styled movement that wants every American to prosper, and that believes in an economy that benefits everyone in America. Think of a tea party style movement that would actually govern rather than obstruct. The tea party does not represent a majority of Americans, and yet, they have an incredible amount of power considering the minority that actually subscribes to their beliefs.
The tea party's basic strategy for success was to take control of the primary process to ensure that their candidates were the ones on the ballot. They were so successful at this strategy that they were able to increase their power exponentially by putting fear in the hearts of all other republicans and demanding that they either tow the tea party line or face being beaten in their primary. When the tea party can beat Eric Cantor, you know their strategy is successful. When the tea party can control our government holding only an illegitimate claim to one sector of the government triumvirate, you know they have been successful.
Progressives don't need to reinvent the political wheel, we only need to copy a proven strategy for success.
There is, however, one major obstacle to progressive rule in America, and that is that progressives need to get on the right side of the immigration issue. Open borders and legalization of illegal immigrants is a corporatists dream. It is not a coincidence that the stagnation of American wages began with the Reagan amnesty and the influx of illegal immigrants waiting for the next amnesty that it created. We need to secure our southern border and the way we need to secure it in the long term, is the same way our northern border is secured, by having a prosperous country to our south. America has enough consumer demand to accomplish this in ten years. All we need to do is tear up all of the multinational corporatist trade agreements we now have and move the trade we do with Asia to Mexico and Central and South America. This would return good jobs to America and bring prosperity to our southern neighbors, to the AMERICAS rather than to just a handful of greedy Americans. It is also the most humane solution to the immigration issue because it benefits all Mexicans and all Latin Americans, not just those lucky enough to sneak across our border.
One cannot hope to win the hearts and minds of the working class while espousing policies that condemn the working class to a lifetime of low wages. Wages are a product of supply and demand. Anyone who ignores that principle, or thinks that they can somehow overcome it, is not fit to govern. Anyone who cannot see that the immigration debate is controlled by corporatists to the detriment of every working person in America is not fit to govern. Anyone who cannot see that the solution to the immigration problem is prosperity south of the border is not fit to govern. Anyone who chooses the side of amnesty in the current immigration debate is a tool of the corporatists, whether they willingly choose to believe so or not.
Progressives can gain control of our government and change our country back to the dreams envisioned by FDR. We already have a proven method of success. Demonstrations may play a role in in the transformation, but good policy followed by successful election strategy is the true key to success. If every talented progressive in the country were to put their efforts behind success in the primaries, we can gain control of our country. Trying to influence our current crop of legislators is noble, but it is a fool's errand; our current legislators are corrupted beyond any hope of salvation. The only way to change our country for the better is to take control of the government, and that starts in the primary elections.