Ready for Hillary? How About a Mass Populist Party Instead? [View all]

[RiverLover]

Ready for Hillary? How About a Mass Populist Party Instead?
4/14/2015

Following Hillary Clinton’s long-heralded announcement Sunday that she’ll be “Getting Started” on a 2016 run, American progressives are facing a tough choice about who, if anyone, to support in the next presidential fracas. Thankfully, there are more choices available to today’s movements than might seem obvious. With relatively little federal electoral promise in our own backyards, those interested in contesting for power and an unapologetically left-leaning agenda can start looking abroad.

Certainly, a mass populist party along the lines of Syriza in Greece or Podemos in Spain — each of which has already or is poised to take over their country’s top office — is not on track to appear here, in the United States, before 2016. That said, Americans grasping for a third way can learn important lessons from the recent successes of Syriza and Podemos — lessons that point to more than a totally marginal Green Party candidate or centrist Democrats that say but rarely do the right things. No, Syriza and Podemos show that it’s possible to mount a real, fighting challenge to the political establishment....

...As liberal-left media jumps at the chance to lampoon Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, movements interested in engaging with a broader base might take inspiration from European populists’ commitment to meeting the needs of working people, and their ability to rally masses around it in the streets and at the polls.

Plenty of great articles have been written over the last several weeks — and many more over the past couple days — on the flaws of positing Clinton as a hopeful or even liberal candidate for Commander in Chief. In short, there’s plenty left to be desired: Her ties to Walmart and Wall Street, her not-so-secretly neoconservative foreign policy agenda, and concerted efforts to scale back welfare for the “working families” her campaign is now targeting. The debate over Clinton’s liberal credentials is already being had. A topic that has graced relatively few headlines, however, is how progressive movements can respond with a real alternative....

...As Jeb Bush seeks out the Republican nomination, voters in 2016 might face the unprecedented dilemma of deciding between the heir apparents to two of America’s most powerful political dynasties, each directly related — by blood or marriage — to at least one former president. Even if the storied Bush vs. Clinton showdown doesn’t come to pass, the fact that it’s possible illustrates the simple, eerie reality that our country’s electoral process was not designed to represent the interests of its population.

So what is to be done short of half-hearted calls for “the revolution”?

As Syriza’s ongoing battle with the Troika has proven, according to Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias, “It is essential that we understand that winning an election does not mean winning power.” There will be no revolution in November or in any ballot contest — only an opportunity to use the race to further a vision of real hope, from grassroots movements fighting for justice on a number of fronts. Therefore, movement practitioners who choose to throw their hands up at, or, alternately, get them entirely too dirty “Readying for Hillary” will be choosing options that cede too much ground to an elite political class who would like nothing better....

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/04/14/ready-hillary-how-about-mass-populist-party-instead

Posting more to show we are not alone in our frustration of not being represented by our party. This OpEd doesn't offer any concrete solutions, but I believe it does point to the fact that our numbers are greater than DLC/Third Wayers/DU admins would have us believe.