Some Folks Said - 'All We Need Is More Progressive Candidates'
Well, there were a bunch of those running in the primaries this past Tuesday. They were supported by the people who told us that if we ran true progressives we'd be sure to win.
Guess what? Every last one of those progressive candidates lost. Every candidate who was endorsed by Our Revolution, the best known alternative progressive organization, lost. None of them will be on the November ballot.
Here's my idea: Let's put our energy and efforts into a massive GOTV campaign for the November General Election. Let's elect the Democrats who win their primaries and take back majority control of the House, Senate and state legislatures. Let's argue about who is more progressive than whom after we accomplish that crucial goal.
How does that sound?
= new reply since forum marked as read
I don't see the sense in trying to turn somone's realism and honesty into some sort of "attack" or smear. Why so overwrought? Facts are facts. We need the numbers. We need a majority. What do you have against that? What good purpose does it serve to twist a positive message into something that's negative?
and opportunity for the forces against us, though, is political vocabulary. You bet Republicans of mostly made liberal and progressive into swear words.
The Democratic Party's mainstream, and most of the rest, is overwhelmingly liberal and progressive in ideology. Our liberal founding fathers mostly won out over conservative founders of that day, which is how our nation was formed as a liberal democracy.
Yet because of propagandizing, the right has defined both terms negatively, always but especially ever since the Gingrich days of "radical liberal Democrats."
At the same time, a dissident left group tries to differentiate itself iby casting mainstream Democrats as corporatist quasi conservatives and themselves as America's only true progressives. In the process offending many with their rejection of all whose opinions differ even slightly, intolerant obstruction often coming across as fringie/radical and even extremist. The right, of course, pushes those behaviors, and others from the genuinely extreme left, few as those are, as representative of liberalism and progressivism.
So both have projected the wrong idea of what liberals and progressives are, inflicting great damage.
After all, progressive means using the power of government to tackle big problems and create advances that individuals and business cannot, or will not. In this era, the Republican Party believes government progressivism is harmful and wants to leave all to individuals, private groups and business.
And every progressive advance America has ever had was created by liberals. Radical ideas such as unemployment insurance and universal healthcare are a very different thing from radical personality that rejects compromise and cooperation. There is nothing liberal about that.
For shame, MM. 
The Bernie Bros will never relent, not even at the end of the world (which may happen soon for lack of pragmatism).
Don't sit home and pout because your candidate did not get past the primary.
And while we're at it, encourage those candidates to seek other offices, more local offices.
Often, those offices offer greater impact among the constituents.
It all starts at the local level.
And the more progressives you can get into the rank-and-file of the Democratic Party, the more the state and national Democratic orgs will take notice and look at things your way.
Mahalo
