When will America be ready to elect a progressive president running on a progressive agenda?

[Douglas Carpenter]

When will America be ready to elect a progressive president running on a progressive agenda?

Perhaps some people think my question is silly because we already have one and with Hillary waiting in the wings we are all set to elect another one in 2016. But I suspect most people who think that are those too young or too unfamiliar with the world before Ronald Reagan when Keynesian economics dominated and even many Republicans accepted both the short term and long term agenda of the New Deal and the Great Society.

So when I say progressive It means a campaign that defines entitlement reform and welfare reform as moving our country as rapidly as possible toward a genuinely comprehensive social economic security system such as we find in almost every other modern democracy. It means publically sponsored and completely comprehensive healthcare for all such as we find in almost every other modern democracy. It means a livable wage for all those who work and those who cannot work due to no fault of their own such as we find in most other modern democracies. It means rights for workers enshrined into law that equal or exceeds those in most of the liberal democracies of Western Europe. It means reducing military spending and moving away from the quagmire of an unsustainable military empire.

For almost forty years we have heard that these may be good long term goals - but we cannot run on them now. We need to move more and more to the "center" in order to win. Then perhaps during the next election cycle or maybe the one after that - then finally we be able to run the great progressive campaign.

At the same time during most of the last forty years the rightwing which forty years ago would have been considered the lunatic fringe extreme right - has pushed the boundaries so far to the right - the "center" at least on economic issues is now being defined in the mainstream of the media as something pretty close to where the far right used to be. While what is being called liberal or even "far left" is more or less close to what thirty to forty years ago would have been considered moderately conservative. After all in 1976 Gerald Ford picked Bob Dole as his running mate to appease the rightwing of the Republican Party - the Senator who along with George McGovern designed the Food Stamp and School Nutrition program. That is how far our public debate has drifted to the right.

So, when can we have a progressive campaign again? Can we do it in 2016? If not - when?

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Please excuse my melodrama - but sometimes when I think about these questions I recall this campaign song Johnny Rivers wrote way back in 1972 for the McGovern campaign. It seems to me the words are even more relevant now than the were then.

[Douglas Carpenter]

1. kick

[truebluegreen]

2. I think we are ready now...but the money primary will prevent it for the foreseeable future. nt

[MissMillie]

3. Probably not until

the GOP and the Tea Party drive us into the depths of hell.

[treestar]

4. and a progressive Congress

This board makes it look like Progressives intend to rely on the Presidency alone, hoping for a Messiah. That feeds into right wing progressive bashing. While the right wing goes out and gets Congress, not depending on coattails or mesmerizing bully pulpits.

[Lisa D]

7. We need to start at the local level.

Elect progressive candidates at the local level: school boards, city councils, mayoral offices, etc. Then we'll start seeing progressive change at the state and national levels. You can't elect a progressive president and expect to see progressive changes to happen if you still have conservatives controlling the senate and house.

[treestar]

14. Exactly, which is how the right wing got so far

and has such disproportionate influence.

[hatrack]

5. When things are far shittier than they are now, but not before

After all, we wouldn't want to do anything . . . radical, now would we? We might upset the Global Economy (TM).

[edhopper]

6. I think they were ready in 2008

After the debacle of the Bush years they would have welcomed it. And if Obama had been a true progressive and not embraced Wall Street and taken people from there and ex-Clintonites but rather gone after them and a few members of the BCF. If he had tried for true financial reform and used some of that anger the Tea Party had co-opted, the Dems would have kept Congress in 2010 and we'd live in a different country.
It will take a new crisis brought on by another Repug.

[geek tragedy]

8. When white people are a minority. White people are fairly rightwing, and while they're

the majority this country will be centrist at best.

Mitt Romney won the white vote in 47/50 states--white folks are as conservative as they were under Reagan. It's just that minorities have gained in their share of the electorate.

[ProSense]

10. Rich, White, Healthy People Are More Likely To Oppose Obamacare

Rich, White, Healthy People Are More Likely To Oppose Obamacare
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024602235

The 47 percent must not benefit.

[ProSense]

9. Never

Congress will never be 100 percent progressive and the ankle biting of any President will continue.

In Obama's case, people on both sides seem to believe he was elected King, one side expecting him to act that way, and the other pretending he's acting that way.

If Congress had been more progressive, even in 2009, there would have been a lot more advancement of a more progressive agenda.

In 2009, if there were no Blue Dogs/DLCers in the House and Senate, there would have been a public option and quicker path to single payer. There would have been a climate change bill, creating millions of jobs and upgrading the infrastructure.

Unfortunately, the House is now in Republicans' hands. Unless there is significant change, in 2016 anyone elected President is going to be dealing with a right-leaning Congress.

If the President-elect is a progressive, he/she will spend the time giving pretty speeches and will have less to show for it because the expectations will be even higher.

[PhilSays]

11. 2008 and again in 2012.

Will do it again in 2016 with Hillary.

[reddread]

12. 1932

1936
1940
now

[BainsBane]

13. Not at any time in the near future

It simply isn't in the character of the country I've known my entire life. We are not Europe, and in fact many Americans loathe European-style government. I have always thought, and continue to think, that if this country were to have a dramatic shift in politics, it is more likely to go in the far right than toward social democracy. In the next few cycles, I think it likely it will continue to hobble along with a completely dysfunctional government.

[AgingAmerican]

16. The country is ready for it

People have been conditioned to believe that everyone wants 'Right Wing'. Polls consistently show otherwise.

[Douglas Carpenter]

23. issue be issue most Americans do agree with many if not most Social Democratic principles.

No doubt many people - both left and right assume albeit inaccurately that is what the Democratic Party supports. What I like about Sen. Sanders is that he is able to bring the conversation down to earth to such meat and potatoes level that even many conservatives start agreeing with social democracy.

[Autumn]

15. In 2008

[AgingAmerican]

18. Ding! Ding! Ding!

We have a winner!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. When we rid ourselves of the corrupt 2 party system and become a democracy.

[AgingAmerican]

20. Now your talking

...and the way to do this is to get rid of the electoral college. The electoral college guarantees that the dysfunctional two party system stays intact. It squeezes out the chance for any other parties to have a shot at the presidency. It is rigged.

Get rid of the electoral college and when we are faced with the choice of bad and worse, other choices will be viable. One person, one vote.

[Enrique]

19. we definitely can do it in 2016

we could and should have in 2008, and the environment is even better now. Even the GOP, at CPAC for chrissakes, are talking about income inequality.

[Marr]

21. They already voted for a progressive agenda.

It's just that we have corporate Democrats who act like liberals during campaigns, then switch back over to DLC mode once elected.

[Douglas Carpenter]

22. I'm afraid there is a lot of truth to that