"Liberals" need to abandon the fantasy that punishing Democrats for not being liberal enough by letting Republicans win the next election cycle will have the effect of accomplishing our policy wish lists following the election-after-next.
See, "left-wing" "liberals" and "right-wing" "conservatives" (not all of them, obviously, but bear with me) have one very important thing in common: They both believe -- wrongly -- that the best way to accomplish their policy objectives is to have Republicans win the next election. Each cohort is wrong for a different reason, but they're both wrong.
We've seen and heard this before: The Democratic President/Congress/Governor/whomever has not been sufficiently liberal to suit our tastes, has not enacted the progressive policies we want in any or every area, or any or every subject matter, and has not "pushed hard enough" (whatever that means) for those policies, therefore we will "send a message" to the Democratic party that it and its candidates/officeholders must move to the left, and "push harder," or else we will punish them -- and the country -- by withholding our votes and allowing Republicans to take office instead. Once the country sees just how terrible Republicans are and how devastating their policies are, then we can elect "real" "liberal" Democrats who, having learned their lesson, will give us the far-left progressive utopia they always promise but always fail to deliver.
That's the plan, right?
Pure bunk.
Start with the fact that it's been tried, and it hasn't worked. See: 2010. 2000. 1994.
Then consider that it's incredibly foolish, naïve, and wholly unreasonable to expect anyone you vote for to govern as if you are the only person (s)he represents.
Consider further that there are more ways to exert political pressure on a candidate or officeholder than by simply withholding your vote.
"Conservatives," by and large, don't do this. They save their complaints that this or that Republican officeholder is/was "not conservative enough" until after he's left office and the Democrats have -- temporarily (more on that presently) -- taken over. Remember, conservatism can't fail, it can only be failed by inadequately-conservative Republican officeholders. "Conservatives" don't let Democrats win to punish Republicans for failing to bring about a right-wing utopia; they see Democratic wins as the result of everyone else punishing Republicans for being "too liberal."
But there's a reason why Republicans get that message and Democrats don't.
For both political parties, it's always 1984 (the year, not the novel). That's the year Ronald Reagan won 49 states -- a feat that will likely never be accomplished again by any presidential candidate, incumbent or not -- and cemented in the American consciousness the idea that still persists to this day: That conservatism is self-evidently superior to liberalism, that Republicans are self-evidently better than Democrats, and that the country should always elect Republicans unless there's a really, really, really good reason not to. In other words, Republican rule became the country's "default" setting, the "standard" state of affairs, whereas Democratic governance became something the country should only try occasionally, under extraordinary circumstances, with great caution and trepidation, and under severe scrutiny.
How many Republican campaign ads in 2014 refer to the candidate as a "proud conservative"?
How many Democratic campaign ads in 2014 refer to the candidate as a "proud liberal"?
How many Republican campaign ads in 2014 offer "conservative solutions" to problems?
How many Democratic campaign ads in 2014 offer "liberal solutions" to problems?
How many Republican campaign ads in 2014 use the word "liberal" as an epithet?
How many Democratic campaign ads in 2014 use the word "conservative" as an epithet?
By 1988 "liberal" was a dirty word, and now 26 years later it still is. "Conservative" never was, and never will be.
The "liberal media" of 1974 had ceased to exist by 1992, but here in 2014 the "media" is still assumed to be "liberal." We still assume the existence of "liberal media bias," as if there is not and has never been any such thing as "conservative media bias."
There have been two Republican presidents since Reagan, whose names are practically never invoked by Republican candidates. There have been two Democratic presidents since Reagan whose names are practically never invoked by Democratic candidates.
Republicans are perfectly content to keep things at 1984. Democrats, for some reason, are too. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't vote for them.
Instead of imagining defeated Democrats sitting at home wishing they'd done what we wanted, crying in their soup and writing us each a heartfelt personal apology letter, I've got a better idea.
Again, the prevailing feeling since 1984 has been that Republicans are the default, standard, fall-back option, and the Democrats are something Americans are willing to try once in a while but with great caution and trepidation and under severe scrutiny. What we need to do is make Democrats the default/fall-back option, and Republicans the occasional, cautious experiment. It's happened before. It can happen again. But the only way to make that reversal happen is to keep electing Democrats.
See, this is why Democrats are timid when it comes to enacting and defending their own policies; they worry that if they go too far that the country will go back to its default/fall-back setting. And, thanks in part to "liberals" who can't be patient with anything Democratic officeholders actually accomplish, it does. It did in 1994, it did in 2000, it did in 2010. Irrespective of the role "liberals" played, none of those electoral losses cause the Democratic Party or its individual officeholders and candidates to move to the left. If anything it had the opposite effect.
When Democrats lose, they move to the right.
When Republicans lose, they move to the right.
How about we imagine this scenario instead: If we keep electing Democrats, they'll feel emboldened to pursue more liberal/progressive policies, because they'll feel the whole country moving their way. They'll think, "If I move an inch, and get re-elected, maybe then I can move two inches. Then three. Then ten. Then twenty. Then more Democrats will win elections and pick up where I left off, move another twenty, then thirty," and so on.
The problem now is that they move an inch and then don't get re-elected because "liberals" are upset that they didn't move twenty inches (and "conservatives" are totally freaked out that they did move twenty inches even though they only moved one inch). So the next time Democrats win, not only are they afraid to move more than an inch, they become even more cautious; they'll only move less than an inch. The reason why elected Democrats are not "more liberal" and don't "push harder" for far-left progressive policies is because every time they try to accomplish something even remotely "liberal," we immediately and reflexively hand the country back to the GOP. Which only has the effect of moving Democrats to the right.
We've tried it that way. It doesn't work. Let's try it the other way for a change. If we know that Democrats move to the right when they lose, then maybe the only way to move them to the left is for them to win, and win, and win again.