But it’s all a lie, because, in the majority, they have the power to stop the war, to stop the Constitutional violations, to win health insurance for kids who don’t have it, and to impeach the president.
They just won’t use it. And no amount of phone calling, letter writing and protesting is going to make them do it. They lie and claim they need 60 votes in the Senate, or even 67 votes, but look what the Republicans can do with just 49.
There is only one way to get the Democrats to act properly, and that is to threaten their dreams of a 2008 victory in the Presidential and Congressional elections.
If progressives, African-Americans and trade unionists—the whole base of the Democratic Party and the core of its support--were to rise up and quit the party to become independents, there would be such a scramble to the left side of the Capitol building that the domed structure would tilt on its foundation.
Note: these core Democratic constituencies wouldn’t need to decide how they are going to vote next November. Individuals can each make that decision on Election Day. But by cutting that tie to the party, they will put the fear of death on the incumbents in Congress and on the leaders of the Party, who will worry that they’ve lost their grip on voters that they have taken for granted for decades.
Nor do people have to give up voting for progressives in the primaries. In many states, you don’t need to be in a party to vote in that party’s primary, and in the other states, people can just re-register in time to vote, and then quit again.
We progressives cannot wait until November 2008 to elect more Democrats to Congress and to elect a Democratic president. People are dying in Iraq every single day that we delay. The Constitution is being destroyed line by line, article by article, every day. And besides, we have seen just this past November what happens when we just give our votes to the Democrats without demanding anything from them.
They just turned around and screwed us royally. We’ll end the war, they said, and then turned around and funded it through the rest of Bush’s second term. We’ll defend the Constitution, they said, and then threw in the towel and gave Bush permission to spy without a warrant. We’ll fix the mess in New Orleans, they said, but New Orleans is still a dying city.
It’s time for progressives, for African-Americans, for unionized workers, for feminists, to all let these devious hacks know that we’ve had it. Our votes are no longer in their pockets. We are no longer Democrats. We are democrats!
If they want our votes in November 2008, they have exactly 12 months to prove to us that they will fight for those votes. If they want our votes next year, they’ve got to end the war NOW. They’ve got to start impeachment proceedings NOW. They’ve got to get health care for poor kids NOW. They’ve got to stop the NSA spying NOW. They’ve got to fix New Orleans NOW.
Otherwise, next year we may be going elsewhere with our votes.
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Dave Lindorff is a Philadelphia-based investigative reporter and columnist. His latest book, co-authored by Barbara Olshansky, is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net
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