Things progressives have learned thus far this year:
1. Social media is an awesome way to coordinate, whether it's phone banking or blocking a Trump rally.
2. The Democratic Party doesn't give a flying fuck about them.
3. Heroes take a fall - John Lewis, Tom Hayden, Al Franken, Barbara Boxer, Barney Frank, and even Elizabeth Warren (who erred by inaction, and may well err again if she endorses Clinton).
4. MSM bows to its plutocrat corporate masters. Fox News has long been an adjunct of the GOP, and of course the Murdoch Street Journal and the Bezos Gazette behaved pretty much as expected, but who knew CNN, the NYT, five-38, and AP were subsidiaries of Clinton, Inc? And MSNBC? Their finest have a collective case of cranial rectumitis. Heroes taking a fall there? Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Chris Hayes. And of course, we cannot forget special guest sellout, the NYT's own Paul Krugman.
5. MSM is making itself irrelevant, and is being replaced by the Young Turks, Ring of Fire, Lee Camp at RT, and a handful of solid online news sites. This is a process. It's not happening in one fell swoop, but it is happening.
6. Election hacking has come to America, courtesy of the Clinton campaign. Whine about Karl Rove and Crossroads all you want, it's Correct the Record and possibly other Hillary superPACs that have upped the game and threaten to break democratic discussion on the interwebz. From buying Blue Nation Review and turning it into Hillary's own Pravda to paying legions of commenters to echo-chamber Clinton talking points using fake Facebook profiles, honest discussion has been hijacked. These efforts go hand-in-hand with the corporate-directed spin in the MSM.
7. The framework of democracy remains, but the plutocrats, having hijacked the system decades ago, can no longer maintain the facade that elections are free and fair. The ways and means by which a false choice is presented to the American people have been laid bare, and it is not pretty.
8. The people are on the side of the progressives. Now, you might not think that, what with Clinton crowing about having gotten more votes than Sanders, and Trump walking away with the GOP nomination, but consider this. Trump's getting, give or take, 30 million votes, or a mere 10% of America's population. Clinton, even less. The polls show the disenfranchised agree overwhelmingly with the progressives on a range of issues, but this doesn't get reflected at the polls because of voter suppression and outright election fraud.
9. Memes are fun. See one above. So are hashtags.
10. Well, you tell me. This is the interwebz. It should be an ongoing discussion.