Who decides what policies the DNC chooses for their national platform? Obviously corporate donors effect the bottom line of the organization, but who are the power brokers internally at the DNC that make the decisions to create those policies that favor corporations over people?
This is their leadership team, but something tells me they’re not the ones making the decisions to not advocate for Medicare for all, or other widely popular left wing policies.
If the Democrats are fundamentally unable to respond or adapt to what people want, then they are doomed to fail and become irrelevant, and the only way forward is by abandoning them and building a different party. I would prefer it if they just learned their lesson, or if they could just be reasoned with at all, but if not then I don’t see a reason to bother with them in the first place.
The Democrats are not a monolith.
I think a good way would be pushing to change the system so that it won’t naturally fall into being a money-fueled duopoly, supporting progressive Democrats and semi-Democrats like Sanders, and limiting the damage that the Republicans can do in the meantime. If you want to call that “bothering with them,” then I would want to bother with them.
What I am criticizing is this idea that we have to keep doing our best to have Republicans win, until the Democrats “learn their lesson” as you put it.
I’m more than happy to support progressive democrats, and I voted democrat downballot. But “limiting the damage that Republicans do in the meantime,” while a valid goal, is not worth sacrificing efforts to replace the duopoly. Time is not on our side, and as conditions decline, it is inevitable that the Republicans will gain strength because Democrats are associated with the establishment and the failing system.
We should not “be doing our best to help the Republicans win.” That would mean voting Republican, which would make no sense whatsoever. What we should be doing is building up an alternative party. Had more people who stayed home come out to voice their support of a left wing third party, it would serve the dual purposes of affecting the narrative by making it harder to pretend the problem was the Democrats weren’t far enough right, while also paving the way for the replacement if they continue to stick their heads in the sand.
The idea that a third party could never be viable or replace an existing party is a self-fulfilling prophesy. But in my mind, it’s a simple fact that organizations either adapt or die, and so if the Democratic party cannot be made to adapt, it is doomed and the focus should be on preparing to take advantage of their eventual collapse. Yeah, it might be a longshot, but to me, “keep voting forever for people who are fundamentally incapable of listening to you,” is an even clearer dead end.