"Are you a liberal first, or a Democrat? You can�t be both."

By Steve Hynd

"Are you a liberal first, or a Democrat? You can�t be both." That's the way our friend Ian Welsh sees what the upcoming midterm defeat means for the future of liberals, and for liberals who vote Democrat. He sets out a timeline for the next four years which sees the GOP winning in 2012 and in 2013:

 in charge of the judiciary, Congress and the Presidency, and with hard right crazies as a substantial caucus, the Republicans finally repeal the new deal.  SS is turned into privatized accounts (older folks will keep most of what they have), Medicare is slashed going forward, regulatory agencies like the EPA are cut to the bone, education is turned over to the private sector as the Feds withdraw virtually all support for public schools and move to a voucher system.

But that's no good reason for voting Democrat, when Democrats are doing nothing to make these moves untenable but instead are backing a president and D.C. leadership who are at best spineless and at worst right-wingers, only not crazy right-wingers. Ian writes that even if voting Dem was capable of delaying the Republican agenda in 2012, it cannot prevent it forever given the current crop of Democratic party leaders.

Republicans ARE going to to  win again, Dems are not going to stay in charge for 20 years.  If Dems don�t do the right things when they can, the country will still slide into ruin.  The status quo of Dems moving slightly to the right, then Republicans rocketing to the right leads America to ruin.  All �Dems at all costs� partisans are doing is making the process go on somewhat longer. 

Ian's solution is that liberals must - must - repudiate Obama and the Democratic party. He notes that Jerome Armstong, of all people, already has done so.

Armstrong himself writes:

I've ended my hyper-partisan allegiance to the Democratic Party. In moving beyond the past decade's partisan affair with Democrats, I am ready for a real revolution to happen in this country.

It has got to happen over the next two years, and its going to take progressives, libertarians, tea partiers, coffee partiers, conservatives... everyone that is not part of the problem (the financial/political/military elite). Get radical, first by moving beyond attachment to a single party or a political identity. Radicalize them both, go independent; whatever, and if that's not you too, then get out of the way.

...There's a moment in Crashing The Gate, where near the end of writing the book, I realized, and shared it with Markos, that we had referred to "progressive" without ever even saying what that meant for Democrats. What I realized was that it was trust and hope that held it together. Trust that the Democrats, once they gained the majority, would put the people ahead of the most powerful. The movement got the majority.

But once the Democrats decided that the banking cartel of Wall St. wealth deserved to be completly unhindered from any loss, by making the public carry their debt, and restore their credit by balooning the deficit with trillions, that trust was broken. Yes, it started with Bush, but the leadership of both parties has little different in those mis-placed priorities.

And what Obama Democrats have done with Afghanistan, by accepting the Pentagon's demand of an occupying force of over 100,000 troops and a deep war, while sending daily bombing drones into Pakistan; I just cannot turn a partisan eye to that debacle.

Nothing has changed in my personal outlook; I'm still interested in participating in politics by crashing down the gates with a revolution. I've just accepted that its bigger than the small-mindedness of thinking that Democrats are the only political solution any longer, and that its time to act different.

Armstrong has yet to realize that the only movement that has ever "put the people ahead of the most powerful" is a true labour movement, something the U.S. hasn't had in generations. I suspect Ian already knows this, though.