Don't Let The Progressive Narrative Get Lost In Attempts To Legislate

It is pretty clear that the Republican party will splinter into two different factions after this election. There will be the alt-right, white nationalist faction and the smaller group of small-government conservatives. But, prior to this election, the GOP mantra after losing another Presidential election has always been that the party did not nominate a "true conservative". 

Hillary Clinton has run her campaign on a pretty progressive platform. She has co-opted many of the proposals from the Bernie Sanders' campaign, which strongly challenged her from the left. I believe that the majority of Democratic voters these days are pretty firmly in the more liberal, progressive camp and quite comfortable with the albeit meaningless Democratic Party Platform that is one of the most progressive in history.

On the other hand, many of the currently elected Democratic party, including Hillary herself, still came of age during the era of the DLC, the Third Way, and triangulation, all of which are an anathema to progressives. Additionally, these same elected officials are actually trying to legislate which means getting some cooperation from an intransigent Republican party and that process will always pull them to the center.

Even if Democrats take control of the Senate and, more improbably, the House, there will still be a fair number of legislators who will be looking over their shoulder at a strong challenge from a Republican in the next election and that group will be able to pull the party to the right because Democrats will need every vote they can get to pass almost anything. My fear is that we will start hearing almost the reverse of the Republican mantra - that the only reason Democrats "got away" with such progressive policies was because Donald Trump was such a flawed candidate. There is still strong support for the increasingly insane idea of coming together for "bipartisan compromises" that comes from not only the media elite but also from some within the Democratic donor class. That view seemingly neglects how far to the right and off the rails the Republican party has gone.

With the margins in the Senate and even the House probably being razor-thin, there will be great pressure for Democrats to "work with" that rump of GOP conservatives in order to get things done. And those compromises may have to be made. I, myself, certainly feel more comfortable with Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders in the Senate and their ability to hold Chuck Schumer's feet to the fire. But progressives can not let the narrative form that progressive policies didn't win the election, it was merely the failure of the Trump candidacy. Yes, Trump has run a truly horrific campaign. But it was progressive policies that inspired the base of the Democratic party, the young, African-Americans and Latinos, and women of all stripes. And these groups now make up a majority of the population and the party. And it is this base that they will need to be inspired in the off-year elections as well. Elected Democrats forget that at their peril.