People need to start hounding moderates that it’s their turn to compromise. They’ve dominated the party for so long they think they can just elect whoever they want in the primaries, refuse to compromise and blame somebody else.
The reality of the situation is that there are a lot more moderate Democrats than there are progressives. They have the bargaining power. If we refuse to compromise, they can just turn to independents and moderates (overall moderates, not Democrats). So we’re left with three scenarios:
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Get the best possible bargain and compromise we can, vote against the common fascist evil.
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Refuse the deal. Moderate Democrats instead try to pander to the center, and if they win, they move to appease the center allies.
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Refuse the deal. Democrats pander to center, but they lose. The fascists win instead and push us further right.
The only way to not move further right is to negotiate for the best deal we can, and take it. Plus, we have seen some progressive initiatives in return, like the IRA (happy to give my spiel on this) and a corporate minimum tax that eliminates loopholes.
I know this isn’t ideal. But we don’t hold the necessary power – yet. My long term strategy is continuing to work with Democrats until the Republican party is no longer a threat. It’s vulnerable, and a decisive loss in 2024 could be enough to fracture the party into irrelevance. Once they’re tiny enough that we’re safe, the Democrats and Progressives split into separate parties. Once enough Boomers die off and Zoomers are mostly all able to vote, progressives should have the numbers to rival moderate Democrats, if not eclipse them.
It’s going to take a lot of time, but I think this is the best case scenario to work towards. If we want to have serious economic changes, we need to first hold strong and defeat the party that constantly tries to fuck with social rights.
