The Democratic Party seems to have no earthly idea why it is so damn unpopular [View all]

[appal_jack]

I think all of us here need to engage this problem eloquently articulated by Shaun King of the NY Daily News

The Democratic Party seems to have no earthly idea why it is so damn unpopular

A troubling new poll was just released showing that the Democratic Party is significantly less popular than both Donald Trump and Mike Pence. My gut tells me that Democrats will ignore this poll, or blame it on bad polling, and continue down the same course they are currently on: being funded by lobbyists and the 1%, straddling the fence or outright ignoring many of most inspirational issues of the time, and blaming Bernie Sanders for why they aren’t in power right now.

(snip)

When good people who are frustrated with the Democratic Party express their genuine concerns, I see them being told to shut up and unify. “Now is not the time for public complaints,” they are told. “We must all work together.” But what this apparently means to the people who are calling for unity is getting behind the corporate, suit and tie, lobbyist-driven agenda of the establishment. But let me break it to you – the establishment has almost no grassroots momentum. Virtually every progressive grassroots movement in America right now is fueled by people outside of the Democratic Party establishment and this is a huge reason why the party is so outrageously unpopular.

Huge grassroots movements, made up of millions and millions of people, are fueling the fight for a $15 minimum wage, fighting back against fossil fuels and the Dakota Access Pipeline, fighting to end fracking, fighting to remove lobbyist money from politics, fighting to end senseless wars and international violence, fighting for universal healthcare, fighting for the legalization of marijuana, fighting for free college tuition, fighting against systems of mass incarceration, and so much more. But mainstream Democrats aren’t really a central part of any of those battles, and, to be clear, each of those issues have deep networks, energized volunteers, and serious donors, but corporate Democrats virtually ignore them.

More good points and questions at the full opinion piece:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/king-democratic-party-doesn-unpopular-article-1.2993659

Hopefully, this will be a more popular topic here at the "Occupy" corner of DU than in "General Orthodoxy," er, I mean "General Discussion."

Note: According to Wikipedia, the author, Shaun King, is "an American writer and civil rights activist. He is noted for his use of social media to promote religious, charitable, and social causes, including the Black Lives Matter movement. He is the senior justice writer for the New York Daily News, and a political commentator for The Young Turks. Previously, he was a contributing writer for Daily Kos." Read more about him at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaun_King

We ignore these important collective cognitive dissonances at our peril.

-app