'poorsplaining'

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. Establishment Dems have bought into the line that because Republicans win in those states,

Democrats need to be conservative to win.

FACT: Most poor and working class people don't vote at all, and who can blame them? Nationwide, 50% of Americans don't vote at all. It's not because they're stupid. It's because their lives get worse and worse, no matter which party is in power, with the Republicans playing top-down class warfare and the Democrats either playing half-hearted defense ("We shouldn't make people quite that miserable. How about only a little miserable?&quot or rolling over and playing dead ("We had to vote for that because it was going to pass anyway&quot , rarely coming up with bold ideas of their own. Yeah, those bold ideas wouldn't necessarily pass the first time. Neither did abolishing slavery or women's suffrage. But somebody had to start the fight and bring those reforms out of private conversations and into the public sphere.

The Establishment Democrats and the Republicans end up battling for the votes of the soccer moms and office park dads, and given the strength of the fundamentalist megachurches in the suburbs, the Republicans almost always win.

Note that Bernie Sanders won both Kansas and Wisconsin this year. This says that there is an untapped strain of frustrated left-of-center people who have been just waiting for a politician who has a track record of fighting for what he believes in.