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I was born to parents who believed if you didnt vote Democratic you couldnt be buried in the Catholic Church. A family joke is that my first word was vote. The Church would later switch parties. Not me. On Tuesday Ill stand at the polls as I do every year and say that if Democrats win, peoples lives will be better.

Each year its a harder case to make, even to other Democrats. Each year the middle class grows smaller, the democracy grows more corrupt and the chance of stopping global warming in time to save ourselves or our planet grows dimmer. You cant run forever on the slogan Die Slower! Vote Democratic! Times running out on the democracy and the middle class, just as it is on global warming.

In the words of political upstarts everywhere, its time for a change. If it comes, it will be from within the Democratic Party, or rather from the progressives who still reside there. But for all the talk of a populist revolt, progressives have yet to spark one. If Democrats win the Senate on Tuesday, thats unlikely to change. If they lose, progressives might wake up, which would be the best thing to happen to the Democrats in a long time. It may not feel like much consolation, but its true.

Let me be clear. There may be scant evidence of it lately, but it matters who runs the Senate. You dont throw away a race on a theory; who knows if even losing the Senate would be a shock sufficient to revive Democrats? But we do know our politics grows ever more vicious and empty and that we are in desperate need of serious political debate. We know Wall Street colonized the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party colonized the left, and that well have no such debate without a stronger, more independent progressive movement to help set its agenda.

This election has been an insult to democracy. The $4 billion spent on it has tightened the grip of the powerful without moving the needle on a single issue. Its ceaseless squalor has startled a public that thought politics hit rock bottom in the last election. The explosion of Super PAC and 527 dark money is one cause of it, but it only strengthened what is by now a 40-year trend.

Rail all you like against the Supreme Court or the Republicans. It isnt just them. If you ever gave money to a Democrat you get the emails that read like pleas from phishing friends robbed in Majorca who need only your bank routing number to get home: Bill, its seconds till our filing deadline. Our extreme Tea Party opponent has Congressman Bob locked in a basement. Theyve shot Fido. So much is at stake. Please send

Most days thats all you get. October marked the first anniversary of the last government shutdown. Ashamed to find themselves tied with a party so recently found in the throes of lunacy, Democrats kept mum. They routinely fumble issues they once owned. Their spring crusade to raise the minimum wage petered out by fall. They cant talk about corruption on which they feast. They cant talk about climate because they shun topics that require any explanation. So they talk of saving the sensible center from extremists, a familiar line for being the central trope of the Obama administration and the very same promise Republicans make.

Democrats call the election historic but cant say why. Its hard to enlist people to an agenda you cant articulate, or make them care who runs a government that has stopped working. Voters see politics as a cesspool and Congress as a sideshow. So do progressives, yet they act as if the next Democrat in line will get us where we need to go. Heres some really good news: the merry-go-round on which theyre trapped cant run without them. Not only can they get off, but if they do, it stops for good.

Regardless of how Democrats do on Tuesday, many progressives will rush to hop on another horse. Someone should stop them. The time has come for progressives to hit the pause button on electoral politics, to take some time to reexamine their agenda, rethink their strategy and recognize their power. Some thoughts for them to ponder if they do:

Focus First on Policy

The rest is here:
Heres how we beat the right: How progressives withstand Fox News, blast Obama defenders, and chart a new future