If the two are reasonably well-matched, you'd expect to see a fairly close contest. Sometimes one might be winning, sometimes the other. If it's a long battle, the lead might go back and forth many times.
But suppose that one - let's say Blue - suddenly changes their approach. Rather than trying to win, they start fighting a purely defensive battle. They never try to land a blow. At most, they try to make it look like they're trying to win, without actually ever attempting to be a real challenge to their opponent. What happens? The purely defensive side will inevitably be defeated. What was once a fair battle between equals becomes a slaughter and a charade.
Of course you've seen through this metaphor. I'm talking about the American two-party system. Ever since the Clintons and the DLC gained control of the Democratic Party, ever since they shifted their fundraising focus (and therefore their loyalty) from the public and labor groups, the Democratic Party simply stopped...trying...to...win.
Think of the major political and social initiatives of the twentieth century. Child labor laws. Food and drug safety. Environmental protection. The forty-hour workweek. Social Security. Medicare and Medicaid. The New Deal. The Civil Rights Act. The Great Society. The Equal Rights Amendment. Can you name any initiative supported by the Democratic Party leadership after 1980 that even approached the same level of significance?
If so, my comment section is open to you. But I'm not holding my breath.
In modern American history, all the passion, all the aggression, all of the initiative has been with the Republican Party and the financial elite - the 1% - that they (and the Democrats) serve. They want control over every state, every legislature, every branch of government. They want to ban abortion, eliminate environmental protections, wipe unions and labor rights out of existence, ban Muslims from immigrating, build a wall which would rival the Great Wall of China, eliminate the social safety net, shove gays back into the closet, end Social Security, allow unfettered religious discrimination by (but never against) right-wing Christians...the list is endless. And behind it all is the never-ending lust of the 1% for more tax cuts and more cash from the public till.
More. That's what it is. They want more.
And what do the Democrats want? Why, they're just playing defense. They want to preserve those things that the 1% and the Republicans want to destroy. But gosh darn it, they just keep failing. And yet they still keep collecting those big checks from Wall Street. You'd almost think they were losing deliberately!
And that's why it was such a shock when Bernie Sanders announced the first major initiative to expand the public good in decades: his proposal to make public colleges and universities free for students. It's not a terribly radical idea, in hindsight. If we can do it for grades 1-12, why can't we do it for the four years following? And any economist (or anyone with an ounce of common sense) knows that it would be a profitable investment of taxpayers' dollars: a better-educated people produce more, earn more, and pay higher taxes.
And infinitely more important, they form an educated population which is the basis of a successful democracy - and a free nation.
Progressives have lost the habit of asking for more. We've become good at cringing, and panicking, and despairingly trying to salvage scraps from the leavings of the 1%...but we've forgotten that in the end, it's the people who are the majority. Not the 1%. Not the political masters of either party. We have the power, if we choose to use it. All it takes is for the people to wake up.
But they won't be woken by pale, pathetic visions of slightly ameliorating the apocalypse. It takes a grand vision, or better still many of them, to inspire a downtrodden people to rise up and overthrow tyrants. Free college is just the start. Single payer is just the start. Why shouldn't the American public enjoy all of the privileges that our European cousins enjoy? More vacation time. Shorter work weeks.
And more! A guaranteed basic income for all. Proper mental health care for every citizen. And dental. Lifetime educational opportunities - not just mealy-mouthed "job retraining", but education to enrich the soul and improve the mind. We're not just economic units; our lives mean more than money!
It's time for us to demand...more.
