I regard myself as a democratic socialist that aligns in part with the Democratic Party.
I also regard the majority of the Democratic Party in the US as being about as left wing as the UMP in France and the Conservative Party in the UK. They are all strongly influenced by corporations and money, with respect to social issues they are about the same. The progressives would fit somewhere in the center to center left of European politics and the blue dogs would fit into the right wing of most conservative parties here. The Republican party would represent around 11% of the vote and be aligned with the EDF in the UK and the Front National in France; and some of their more extremist views would be regarded as just plain insane.
The simple fact of the matter money drives politics in the US, hence the tax giveaway to the top 0.1 to 1%, hence the slackness of imposing corporate taxation. This also explains why social programs are hit first when "shared sacrifice" is called for and the continued giveaway of trickle down theory.
American politics have drifted rightwards for decades as the republicans sought out the evangelist, wedge issue, tea party and fuck'em all libertarian vote. The Democratic Party then sought out the mythical middle ground, they have now become the "big tent party". What we have ended up with is an isolated left somewhat like the evangelists of the pre-Reagan era, this probably covers around 20% of the population. Polls have also shown that the American people when asked about certain social security nets lie significantly to the left of many of those in DC.
Many of us on the left are somewhat annoyed as we are dismissed out of hand by the vast majority of politicians in DC, it tends to make us cranky.
Hope and change resonated with many of us, this was never really on the cards as there is little motivation in DC to do anything else but veer to the right when seeking out campaign contributions. The left is hardly a profitable area when seeking out the billions of dollars required to get elected.
Until the process and financing elections is changed all we on the left can do is keep fighting for what we believe is right and voting for the least awful/frightening candidate in a two party system.
At this point I would also say that voting for the "lesser of two evils" has got us to our present situation. The counter argument is always "but you cant win in crazy right wing areas", I'm still not sure voting for a blue dog solves any problems in the long run.
Any mention of a third party causes caustic comments, they are indeed right if you take into consideration the current situation where money does all the talking. The reality of the situation is until meaningful electoral and campaign financing reform take place this will be the situation.
We keep allowing financial interests to determine elections the further right we will go the only difference will be based on social/wedge issues and even there the lines are blurring.
The only answer I have is to work at grassroots and educational level and to hope one day to be listened to, however fighting against the noise machine owned by a few sometimes seems hopeless. Change I can believe in seems very far off indeed.
