The more things don't change, the less they change

Those of us who are, or have been, habitual Democrats have a choice.

We either keep stomaching a party that proudly shuns populism, or we don't.

We either insist on a party (the Dems or somebody else) that's genuinely progressive — heck, liberal — or we don't.

The reason I've been strongly critical of the big blogs' advocacy for "public option" (beyond the direct policy implications) is that I think it's the wrong kind of politics for progressives to play. It's too subtle, too insidery, too fatally compromised, and too easily compromisable further still.

This nation and its citizens are in a deeply precarious state. Obama did us all a massive disservice by squandering a change year, wallpapering over the need for a massive, leftward rethinking of policies with his Village-pleasing comfort food.

In light of our problems, the sort of activism popularized in the blogosphere is woefully incremental.

I'm not criticizing anyone (other than, perhaps, the fellow who got the Changer-in-Chief gig) for not single-handedly changing everything, or even anything.

But what we can change is our ambition, the size of our dreams.

And we must renew the vigorousness of our candor, because if our opinion leaders can and will sell us an Obama as "deeply progressive," we've completely lost sight of True Left.

To get to a world where our — and everybody else's — children live as well as or better than we have requires much bigger dreaming and much stronger medicine than what we've collectively been offering.

Tragically, to ignore that obvious truth is what's known as "pragmatism." Since pragmatism is what gets us the politics we've suffered under since Reagan, is it perhaps time try to something else?


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NOTE: Inspired by this post by Natasha Chart.