Many today will start saying, not only on this site but in general, that they are done with the Democratic party. Or politics overall. As a former Republican, who became a long time “A pox upon both of your houses” Independent until Bush / Cheney lied us into war with Iraq, I found I personally needed to go to war against Republican party. l figured out over time there is no possibility of changing government except for changing the Democratic party.
And it has to be from from within, so I joined and remain. We are a 2 party system. Period. Standing outside and shaking your fist at the party is useless. We need, starting in 2026, to find Dems who will stand for Main Street over Wall Street. To recruit the edging towards 50% of all American voters who are Independent, to join us.
I suggest this is what our need for another blue wave should be about. Less about Democrat against Republicans, capitalist against socialist. More about Main Street needs against Wall Street greed.
We need a new overall strategy. I think we do this by going to the voters.
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Focus less on Washington and more on all the voters around us. With a goal towards educating them. Getting them angry at unresponsive government. Getting their heads wrapped around the problem of greed and then teaching them to make demands upon our party to fight it. Reminding them last week taught us we can do that. Hold that November 2025 Tuesday close and cherish it, because it shows we have some unity brewing. Creating a Democratic version of the Tea Party that makes demands on our party and has consequences for not doing so. Using only 3 or 4 simple, universally accepted, focused economic goals. Things liberals broadly agree on.
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My suggestions for the 3 or 4 goals to the exclusion of any distractions away from them?
* Demand higher wages, 5-15% higher, within a decade along with better benefits for the bottom 60%. From the minimum wage group on up. Which keeps pace with US production growth as our go-to metric.
* Insist Democrats create a single payer health care system, or a full coverage Medicare For All system in less than a decade. Along with restoring COVID era permanent child care tax credits. Start with the insistence of a public option to purchase Medicare instead of only a private insurance choice and build out from there.
* And lastly, the real litmus test to see who stands with Main Street:
Demand a 70% 1980s, pre-Reagan household tax on billionaires and a 46% top business tax on businesses’ 1% of profiteers.
Also some start of a wealth tax, as well as using other sophisticated, strategic taxes as being floated as well. I have heard various suggestions that all immediately help to massively disarm the billionaires and profiteers. Taking money ammunition away from billionaires and corporations as means of control over our government, and out of their hands. ASAP. Force them to sell excess assets to pay their tax bill.
Along with one additional pre-1980 anti-Reaganomics tax standard I strongly think be considered;
Adding back at least 4 new tax brackets on both household / personal income taxes and on business taxes. One for the top 1% of earners, another for the top 1/2% of earners, one for the top 1/10th%, and finally, the last for the billionaires and extreme profiteers, the 1/100th of a percent of income acquisition or profiteering.
Be aware these restored tax brackets also raise taxes, a doubling, maybe tripling, of the taxes of any Democrat, in office or not, with tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in personal assets. Let’s see how many of the 8 and their enablers fall into those personal income brackets. I assume a majority of them, or those trying to get there.
Business assets into those levels of millions may be more understandable depending of the size of the business, but a 46% pre-Reagan era tax schedule needs to be applied to those as well.
Admonish voters to do that. Insist every Democrat be publicly counted and tracked on the job à to their progress. Whatever Dem who resists or doesn't work towards fulfilling some 3 or 4 basic Democrat agreed upon goals needs to be replaced ASAP.
Publicly, loudly, putting every Democrat in DC under a microscope to see how they respond to voters demands.
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The Tea Party, MAGA, Freedumb Caucus, for all their downsides have done amazing things. Replaced or forced their leadership, Eric Cantor, John Boehner, Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, all out of government because they did not or would not do the will of those voters. Do you understand the enormous scope of what red voters have achieved? Those were our equivalent of Pelosi, Schumer, Jeffries, Hoyer level expulsions! Which meant any ’pub could be threatened.
Republicans fear the wrath of their voters. We have no such mechanism.
Perhaps Democrats would concede some great wealth easier and work with us, but they would need to prove it. At this point, their jobs must be on the line. By voters taught not to be distracted away from the simple goals.
Voters need a New Deal for the 21st century. That's the last thing the 8 and their ilk are working towards. That's what they fear. It will cost them wealth.
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We need our blue voters, inside and outside of the party, to insist on public pledges and actions from every Democratic politician in DC and beyond. To measure a simple handful of demands from the bottom up. Turn our focus from trying to make the DC politicians doing what we want, instead, much more strongly towards reforming all blue voters.
November 4th, 2025 and No Kings and such suggests they are reachable and partly organized.
Because our big problem is less about Washington and more about our passive friends, families and neighbors around us who are not ready yet to cut politicians out of a job for not delivering.
We complain Democrats give in easily, are passive against Republicans, can't seem to message well. Now, while I believe at the end of the day it is up to the parties to compel constituents to give them their vote, I suggest liberal voters are also getting the government we deserve as well. Because of our generally trusting and go-along to get-along passivity towards the Democratic party which we are presented with. Not making big asks of our office holders as conservatives do.
Demand much more from your Democratic representative if you have them, or even favorite Democrats. Especially if they aren't trying to lead the charge for Main Street. Using a few clear economic tests for Democrats, we could see soon specifically who stands with Main Street by going to war against Wall Street.
Raising wages for all. Medicare or single payer healthcare for all. And taxing and regulating Wall Street greed into Democratic submission for the needs of Main Street. With the goal of eventually limiting the wealth of the richest households, or their businesses to no more than a dozen times or so more than the average household or business. Ideally within a couple of decades.
Because without government putting Main Street first, evidently, nothing changes.
