Reply #7: Preserve A Progressive Democratic Party

[justinaforjustice]

One of the downsides about the Republican Party's conversion into the theo-publicans and the neo-conservatives is that the liberal Republicans have fled their party. Where will they go? Likely into the Libertarian and Democratic Parties. This could mean that the Republican-lite DLC will regain power in the Democratic Party and try to defeat a progressive agenda. As a result, progressives are going to have to work harder to organize their base to push the Obama administration (how nice it is to be able to say that!) to carry out its progressive mandate.

In sum, Digby is quite correct. We need to forcefully organize and lobby Obama on progressive issues, such as universal healthcare, wholesale revision of the bankruptcy act, re-regulation of Wall Street and, perhaps most importantly, divestment of large corporations from ownership of all the major media outlets. We need to restore the fairness doctrine and use anti-trust legislation to dilute the terrible concentration of media control which has allowed the Bush-Cheney administration to demolish our democracy. We must pass strong legislation to protect universal access to the internet.

We have a real chance for significant change with the Obama administration, but we are going to have to fight for it. The conservatives will certainly be fighting to preserve their ideological hegemony, we need to fight back hard.