Help me understand what the bar is for progressive change.

[jpgray]

Majorities in both houses and a president in the White House are not enough. A super-majority in the Senate and a large majority in the House are not enough. How many seats do we need in the Senate before a Democratic voter can expect strong progressive policy? How many seats in the House?

The GOP is able to starve and undermine whole generations of policy by holding necessities of the moment hostage, even as a minority party, regardless of what we do. We are incapable of passing necessities of the moment, even as a majority party, without GOP support. The GOP is able to go to the mat with widely unpopular stances on massive institutional policy. Our party is unable to go to the mat with widely popular stances on the barest of nonpartisan necessities.

How do we change this? Because under the current scenario, it seems the best we can hope for is to avoid complete collapse at the cost of losing what our party took decades to build. We have no mechanism for strong policy that would galvanize support. Our argument can never be "but for us, you would lack all these fabulous policies." Our argument is instead "but for us, the losses and disasters our society faces would be even worse."

That's worth our vote, and it's worth volunteering our efforts. But will it engender the epochal shift necessary to get our party out of this dithering spiral of weakness? What we've learned is that electing Democrats slows the collapse of our ideals, but does not reverse it. We need to reverse it.

[polichick]

1. It won't change until we have real Dems in the party, not Dems in name only. nt

[treestar]

2. The elected representatives have to be people who will vote for it.

If the Democratic party is not to the left enough for a person, that person has to work on it or a third party.

[jpgray]

8. This isn't about "left"

We are unable to wrangle UI extension as a majority party in both houses and a president in office. The GOP is able to piss away billions on utterly reviled tax cuts as a minority party. To recognize the awful disparity there doesn't require leftist fervor.

[vi5]

3. We just need a majority of our Dems to actually be Dems

I'd take 49 hardcore, progressive, strong votes in the Senate over the 58 or 59 we have today or even the 53 we'll have come January. You need a political party to stand up for itself, and to fight for it's core values. May not always succeed but if there is consistency of message and consistency of conviction then everything else will follow from that. In other words we're better off with 48 or 49 Frankens than we are 59 or 60 Nelson's or Baucus, or even Reids.

Our elected representatives have gotten too used to the idea of power for powers sake and are actually too afraid to do anything with that power that might make them at some point down the road lose that power. It's a ridiculous, idiotic cycle. And they've convinced far too many people (as evidenced by a large enough chunk of people on DU) that them maintaining this power is a be all end all and that every action, every disapointment, ever capitulation, every everything is o.k. as long as there is even the slightest chance that what they did will keep them in power a little longer.

[paulk]

4. I have no idea, and the "dithering spiral" is not just about the

party, it's about the nation itself. It's going to take progressive/liberal ideas to get us out of our current mess and future problems (global warming, peak oil, etc). I don't see it happening, to be honest. Our government is dysfunctional and I don't see anymore how the system can be changed short of revolution. And there is no guarantee that revolution wouldn't lead to a worse situation.

If I were 20 years younger I would be making plans to leave this sinking ship of a country.

[JVS]

5. The class enemy

[kctim]

6. Get progressives elected where they can't win

Good luck.

[jpgray]

7. In your opinion, then, there is no hope for a progressive majority?

[kctim]

10. Not my opinion at all

in fact, I would argue that we have been moving towards one for decades and sooner or later, 'the dependent' will outnumber 'the individual' types of thinkers.

Progressives can work with us moderate Democrats or they can continue to drive us away and keep prolonging that change.

[tcaudilllg]

11. Tell ya what: stop bowing on one knee to the Republicans, and we'll take your arguments

a little more seriously.

[jpgray]

12. Many progressives worked for moderate candidates in '08. What should they expect?

Speaking for myself, I expected our majorities would be able to pass nonpartisan necessities like UI extension, START ratification, etc., without having to also pass tax cuts for the rich to do so. Is that too much to expect, in your view?

[TexasObserver]

9. We have to return to the basics of what our party does.

The sad truth is president Obama is not a good Democrat.

I'm a good Democrat, and been a good Democrat for decades.

A good Democrat goes to bat for the little guy. A good Democrat knows that the monied interests will always get theirs. Don't worry about them. They have the GOP to carry their water. We don't need Republican Lite instead of Democratic Malt.

We stand for certain things, and the reason we are in trouble is because the president forgot his Democratic compass. He forgot to make our ideals the driving force in his trouble plagued presidency. Instead he worships his own belief that he can get anyone to like him, if he's given enough chances to capitulate to their demands.

We're Democrats. We stand for free health care, no war, unions, gay rights, gender equality, civil rights, fair trade, constitutional rights, and putting the little guy first.