Populist Reform of the Democratic Party

Hillary Clinton as president of the United States is an idea that all Democrats concerned with democracy should very much oppose. Unfortunately, a recent NYTimes/CBS poll found that over 80 percent of regular Democrats already support Clinton for president in 2016, not to mention the numerous superdelegates cited above. It is not good enough for progressives to simply prefer someone like Sanders but that Clinton is acceptable in the end. No, Clinton should be adamantly opposed, not accommodated.

If Democratic neoliberalism wins, Americans and the world lose. If the GOP wins, Americans and the world lose. Both destroy economies and seek reckless, often illegal military intervention abroad, among other horrors. So it is much wiser, and imperative, to oppose both of these options by running a truly progressive candidate in the 2016 general election, which will help seriously build alternative political parties that can challenge this disastrous political stranglehold in which we find ourselves. True friends of Bernie Sanders would not encourage him into the dead end of the Democratic primary. True friends of Sanders would instead encourage him to realize the vision he has expressed of an American political revolution. It is convenient and naive to think that political revolution will happen over a period of a few months within the Democratic primary by appealing to a tiny sliver of America—that is, to progressive Democrats who participate in the primaries. The reality is much more challenging, but it’s also more exciting.

A majority of Americans want an alternative political party. A majority of Americans consider themselves independent of the Democrat and Republican Parties. A significant percentage of Americans do not vote because they feel they have no reason to vote. If Bernie Sanders joins the Democratic Party in 2016 to run for president, he fails to capitalize on all of these sentiments. A political revolution will not happen in this country unless a massive electorate is presented with the option of electorally challenging the duopoly.