All this rending of garments and gnashing of teeth over the latest outrage at the border is useless. Open your eyes — all the Dem Establishment really cares about is MONEY. Immigrants, working poor and children don’t have any, so why should they care? It’s been that way since the 80’s when greed became good and the Dems got tossed out of power by big money Republicans.
The solution to that crisis was to abandon labor and working families (not enough money!) for the new professional class and big donors. Bill Clinton and the DLC (funded in part by the Kochs!) oversaw the transition, happily making big dollar trade deals and deregulating one industry after another. Obama merely continued the trend, favoring Wall Street over Main Street (How many black families lost their homes vs. how many bankers went to jail?). You can see the centrality of money even now, as Dem candidates are evaluated not by their progressive policies, but by the size of their fundraising rolodex.
Some of us are tired of this bullshit. We want Dems who will stand up for all the pretty things they put in the party platform. We want Dems who will fight with bare knuckles and risk losing for these policies. We want to push the Overton window to the left until it breaks, and everyone has a fair shot at a secure and fulfilling life.
None of this will happen with the current crop of Dem leaders in power — they are too beholden to their donor/owners. They are fine with the status quo and cannot even imagine another way of doing business. If cries for unity mean supporting the current Establishment, they will fall on deaf ears. We are done supporting politicians who do not work for us.
The only way to change the game is to hold Dems fully accountable — with our money and our votes. Fighting it out during the primary and unifying in the general is a lie and a trap. It’s too easy for the Establishment to game a primary with their money and influence to install more of their own. We need to hold Dem politicians accountable for every vote on every issue that affects us, calling out betrayal and abandoning any who aren’t with us. Not one more dollar, not one more vote for those who work for the 1% over the 99%. That is the only way to create a Dem party that works for us.
We don’t have to agree on every issue to achieve this, but we must agree to be ruthless with Dems who don’t clearly prioritize the 99% over the 1%. If they are not making life tangibly better for us, then we need to throw the bums out — no excuses and no exceptions.
Are you willing to commit to this radical change, or do you want to rest secure in all the excuses you’ve been given for why it could never happen?