Progressives continue to sabotage themselves with inaccurate ideas about how democracy works
Progressives continue to sabotage themselves with inaccurate ideas about how democracy works
Maybe it's time we take research from Political-Science seriously? Maybe organizational theory can teach us how to build the political parties needed to push the system in the best direction?
Over the last 100 years, democracy has been studied. As with other disciplines, we now have deep insights into complex interactions that used to be poorly understood. But unlike other disciplines, there has been little effort to take these insights and use them in the real world. We now know that the “folk theory of democracy” does not work in real-life: the idea of a well-informed citizen who has knowledgeable opinions on every issues does not exist. And yet people’s political preferences continue to be shaped by the folk theory.
Democracy for Realists
Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government
By Christopher H. Achen & Larry M. Bartels
Copyright © 2016 by Princeton University Press
Page 50
Unfortunately, as we have seen, this populist ideal in both its scientific and popular incarnations suffers from grave logical and practical problems. Both the remarkable theoretical insights of Arrow (1951) and his successors and the seminal empirical research of Converse (1964) and many others punched significant holes in the romantic populist notion of democracy.
These scientific findings have had little effect on practical politics. Joseph Schumpeter (1942, 250) argued - perhaps wishfully - that “today it is difficult to find any student of social processes who has a good word for” the simplistic notions of the folk theory of democracy. Nevertheless, he added, “action continued to be taken on that theory all the time it was being blown to pieces. The more untenable it was being proved to be, the more completely it dominated official phraseology and the rhetoric of the politician” (Schumpeter 1942, 249). More than seven additional decades of demolition work have done little to alter that picture.
No one doubts the benefits of democracy, which have been amply documented. We covered this in detail in Liberal democracy (not capitalism) is the only way to corral money to its best social purposes. But the benefits of democracy do not come from the mythical “well-informed voter.” So why don’t we take what we’ve learned and use it to design a better version of democracy? And in particular, why aren’t progressives more interested in this task? Many who want to “improve” American democracy want to commit to even more populist experiments, despite the damage done by previous populist experiments. The USA has seen many left-of-center reforming movements, many of which have defeated themselves because they were committed to an incorrect idea of how democracy actually works, or because their paranoia regarding the inner decision making of large-scale organizations has ensured that left-of-center movements die out quickly.
Pages 59-60
[In the late 1800s and early 1900s] The resulting tensions between ideology and organizational needs were to bedevil the Progressives’ attempts to displace the two major parties: ultimately the Progressives went the way of the Populists. However, the progressive wings of the two main parties, under the leadership of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, took a page from the Populists, enacting very limited versions of “trust-busting,” labor rights, the income tax, and direct primaries, all of which had their initial legislative success in this period. Without third-party competition, however, the two principal parties soon lapsed back into political quietism.
The democratic theory animating the Populists and Progressives was the folk theory of democracy. Those ideas directed their reform efforts along a particular path, providing a script for American reform movements that was to have fateful consequences for them and their successors down to the present era. Their allegiance to the folk theory hindered both their theorizing and their practical political efforts. However, to be fair to them, the central theoretical and practical dilemmas they faced remain thorny ones: What is the appropriate role of political parties in a democracy? And when parties stray from that role, how are they to be reformed?
These are important questions where it would be natural for progressives to play a leading role in creating innovative answers. Yet many progressives seem to have an anti-intellectual streak that keep them from taking this research seriously. (Or alternatively, the progressives are anti-elite and regard political-scientists as elite, therefore tainted, and therefore biased in ways that make them easy to dismiss — a set of beliefs that mimic anti-intellectualism but which are perhaps somewhat different.)
These problems of misguided strategy, and misguided theory, are not just problems of the distant past. Progressive movements continue to sabotage themselves today with inaccurate ideas about how movements come together. Since 2015 we’ve seen a revival of left-of-center activism, but these activists continue to build campaigns that are based around particular charismatic personalities, and which make inaccurate assumptions about how the voters will respond to their ideas.
Page 336-340
The role of identities was even more frequently overlooked in commentary on the Bernie Sanders campaign. Adopting left-wing, populist themes, Sanders mounted a strong challenge to Clinton for the Democratic nomination. In primaries and caucuses, he offered anti-establishment rhetoric and themes of economic renewal, similar in some respects to Trump’s. Many political observers saw Sanders as the leader of a new mass movement that would push the Democratic Party leftward, toward firm opposition to both corporate capitalism and the neoliberal international trade order. In their minds, this was an ideological campaign, firmly in the Old Left style, focused on economic changes that would benefit ordinary people of all races and ethnicities. Identities, with the possible exception of class identities, were not seen as central to the Sanders campaign.
This view of Sanders’ voters was mostly illusory. To the extent that exit polls can be trusted, those conducted in primary and caucus states revealed ample evidence of the importance of group loyalties to the Sanders vote. He did just nine points better, on average, among liberals than he did among moderates. By comparison, he did eleven points worse among women than among men, eighteen points worse among nonwhites than among whites, and a whopping twenty-eight points worse among those who identified as Democrats than among independents. It is very hard to point to differences between Clinton and Sanders’s proposed policies that could plausibly account for such substantial cleavages. They are reflections of social identities, symbolic commitments, and partisan loyalties.
During the 1960s left-of-center activists helped make state primaries the universal and binding method by which parties chose their candidates. And yet, even at that time, many people pointed out that such primaries would increase the importance of political television advertising and therefore would increase the amount of money a candidate would need to win. In most European democracies they do not have primaries, and this helps European nations limit the role of money during political campaigns. In Europe, each party picks its own candidates, using an internal process.
Page 64
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the apparent unresponsiveness of the delegate selection process to the dramatic events of 1968 provoked demands for democratization.
~~
One of the consequences of the McGovern-Fraser reforms was to dramatically increase the share of convention delegates selected in primaries, from 40% in 1968 to about 60% in 1972 and more than 70% by 1976 - a dramatic change in the mixed system of primaries, caucuses, and conventions that had persisted since the Progressive Era. The consequence seems not to have been intended, or even foreseen, by the reformers themselves. According to Ranney (1975, 205), himself a member of the McGovern-Fraser Commission, “most of the commissioners strongly preferred a reformed national convention to a national presidential primary or a major increase in the number of state presidential primaries. And we believed that if we made the party’s non-primary delegate selection processes more open and fair, participation in them would increase greatly and consequently the demand for more primaries would fade away. But quite the opposite happened.”
While progressives often complain about money in politics, many of the populist reforms of the last 100 years have increased the importance of money in politics. Again, the advent of national primaries meant that political television advertising suddenly became central to the USA political process, and television advertising requires tens of millions of dollars.
And yet, there is zero self-reflection about this. Many progressives continue to advocate for a style of populism that has repeatedly failed to bring about progressive goals. And worse, the progressives then blame greedy oligarchs for corrupting our politics, even though it was the progressives who opened the door and invited in the oligarch’s money. This lack of self-reflection is a type of self-sabotage on the part of the progressives.
The open primaries have made candidates dependent on expensive television advertising. By contrast, the old style, where all candidate decisions were made at a national convention, required very little money for any particular candidate. And within those conventions, the demands made by individuals who could bring money were balanced out by groups who could deliver votes. The poorest labor union could win an argument against the wealthiest oligarch, if the oligarch only had money while the labor union could deliver 100,000 votes. And it was up to the party leadership to balance the different factions. But we gave that up that kind of internal party balancing with the advent of binding primaries. And keep in mind, in most Western democracies the parties still chose their candidates internally, at some national convention, and many of these countries have done a better job enacting progressive goals than the USA has.
As soon as the primaries became binding many wise commentators predicted the rise of someone like Donald Trump. For instance, in the 1970s, the historian Richard Hofstadter suggested that the wide open primaries weakened the parties and thus allowed outsiders to hijack the parties for uses that would make sense only to those outsiders. It is well known that in 2016 the Republican establishment hated Donald Trump and they would not have allowed him to become the party nominee if they still had the power to reject him. But that power had been given up back in the 1960s.
Political scientists often emphasize that democracy is largely a creation of political parties, and therefore anything that weakens political parties also weakens democracy. Even those nations that have a long history of tyranny can establish vibrant democracies provided they can develop strong political parties that can engage in constructive, rule-based political competition. The outstanding example that political scientists like to point to is Panama, which we looked at in The Panama Exception. But contrariwise, almost any argument that can be made against political parties is also an argument that can be used to justify the kind of demagogue who is most likely to end a democracy.
Page 342-344
Populist candidates of all ideologies are often impatient with democratic procedures and constitutional norms, which they see as tools of the corrupt establishment. For their part, most ordinary citizens have never been all that strongly devoted to democratic norms and civil liberties. Political scientists have long recognized that most people have only a tenuous grasp of “the presuppositions and complex obligations of democracy, the rights it grants and the self-restraints it imposes,” as Herbert McClosky put it. The evidence on this point goes back to the 1950s and ‘60s, when social scientists shaken by the rise of fascism in Europe began studying American public opinions. They discovered that well-informed commitment to democratic values was largely limited to the most active and best-informed sliver of the population, though it was by no means universal among them. Below that stratum, large majorities expressed strong support at the level of broad generalities but quickly abandoned their principles or simply became confused when it came to (even slightly difficult) concrete cases.
All of which suggests that the most lasting forms of democracy are the anti-populist forms of democracy. After all, for democracy to survive, no one side can score a permanent victory. Rather, there must be constant churn in the national leadership, which suggests that whoever has power must respect certain rules and limits, so that those groups that are in opposition can organize and potentially win the next election. Indeed, in the modern era we do not celebrate pure “democracy” but rather we celebrate “liberal democracy” where the “liberal” is supposed to suggest protections for political minorities.
Page 341
In the United States, we have drifted far from the view of the Founders that popular sentiment needs to be respected, but also tempered and refined by experienced, well-informed political judgment. The Founders were neither elitists nor populists; they sought a balance. In the current presidential primary system, that balance has tilted too far toward empowering popular sentiment. But we, the people, like the power, and we are resistant to sharing it with those more knowledgeable than ourselves.
The Founders understood the importance of demoória — a democracy of limits. And they understood that to get anything done in the real world requires leaders who have actual skill at the art of politics, and in particular, the difficult art of politics in a democracy, in which every citizen is allowed a certain amount of independent agency. And the last 100 years have only increased the complexity of our society and the need for leaders to be able to work in close concert with those who have technical expertise. See In our highly specialized and complex world, all real political power needs to move to specialized committees. This is what I’ve been calling demodexio — a democracy that reconciles technical skill and democratic leadership. It is an anti-populist version of democracy, a version of democracy that fully commits to building institutions that are necessarily elite, at least to the extent that they enable those of great skill and knowledge to be protected from immediate, short-term majoritarian pressure.
I first became interested in political-science when Donald Trump was President. I wondered, “How did we get into this mess, and how do we get out of it?” Over the last few years I’ve learned a lot about what researchers know about how the public learns, and fails to learn, about political issues, and I’ve learned about the benefits of democracy, and the evidence that those benefits do not come from the mythical “well-informed voter.”
At that time, as I was learning, I made the assumption that my fellow progressive activists would also be interested in what insights we could take from political-science and use to better protect our democracy. I was disappointed with the reaction I got from other progressives. For instance, I tried to discuss these issues on various progressive forums on Reddit, but quoting books like Democracy For Realists eventually got me banned from all of those forums.
Most progressives are strongly committed to the folk theory of democracy. In this, they reject an abundance of evidence. Deciding to believe in the folk theory, in the year 2023, makes as much sense as believing in the Flat Earth Theory in the year 2023. And I’m left wondering, why would progressives want to do this? Why are they not eager to use all possible research to increase the effectiveness of our movement?
This week I wrote a tweet with a short version of the main idea of this essay: what if we roll back some of the populist reforms that have damaged our democracy? This is one of the responses that I got:
The ignorance and anti-intellectualism here is so deep that is it is difficult to know where to start. Bad history seems to be at the root of this kind of misguided analysis: the great age of wealth inequality is right now. With current trends, within 5 years we will surpass the old peak and establish the USA as the most unequal democracy in history. And this disaster has been predicted for decades by those who understood how democracy actually works.
In “Raiden’s” tweet they suggest that undoing populist reforms would take us back to the bad old days when property owners controlled everything. An obvious question is why, exactly, progressives would fight for a world where property owners control everything? Why that particular dark scenario? Why would progressives use the Political Science research for that purpose? Why would we not, instead, use the research to be more effective at building a progressive future? The irrational paranoia of the tweet suggests an irrational fear of political-science. A rational fear of ignorance is completely missing. If I say “Progressives should study Political Science and use the research to build a better democracy” then it is entirely paranoid to respond “This will take us back to a world of smoke-filled backroom deals where hidden elites decide our fate.”
As the tweet above shows, there remains a fear of backroom deals. Many progressives believe that populist methods are the only methods that lead to real democracy. Many continue to believe that direct referendums would give us the highest levels of democracy. And yet, in real life, researchers have documented this pattern many times:
a normal election happens, and 70% of adults vote, and one party wins 60% of the vote, and therefore represent 60% of 70%, which is 42% of the adult population.
the victorious party passes a law
some group hates the new law and so, to destroy it, they campaign for a referendum and successfully get it scheduled.
only highly motivated people participate in the referendum, so 40% of adults vote, and 60% vote against the new law. That's 60% of 40%, which is 24% of the adult population.
So a law supported by a party that won 42% of the population has now been defeated by just 24% of the population. Is this real democracy? See Should populist techniques, and direct referendums, be part of the progressive strategy?
Finally, progressives refuse to take seriously the question of how to build large organizations that can have a big impact on big politics in a big nation. Rather, the progressives sometimes seem attached to an almost Zen view of politics in which citizens should be brought to a sudden and exhilarating state of Enlightenment through debate and moral suasion — at which point the citizens will finally discover The Progressive Way. Yet the decades go by, and the only time in USA history when the progressives were winning were during the decades of Big Labor. Because in the modern era, only big organizations can win.
We can say with confidence that progressive movements in the USA will continue to sabotage themselves until such time as they get serious about the literature regarding how to build large-scale organizations backed by an efficient bureaucracy. Or, to put that differently, so long as progressives rely on “pure democracy” techniques such as referendums, or rely on specific charismatic personalities, such as Bernie Sanders, then progressives will continue to fail.
How will we make progress?
Eventually the progressives will realize that they cannot do an end-run around the political parties, so at that point they will hopefully get serious about the question of designing internal processes for the political parties that will make it more likely that those political parties will enact progressive legislation.
As in business, the design of a bureaucracy determines the output of the bureaucracy. A specific system of committees will produce one result, whereas a different system of committees will produce a different result. And this applies very much to political parties. An outstanding example of this is the German CDU, designed as a “decentralized corporatist catch-all party” . We should ask how it was that a party founded by conservative pro-life Catholics took the lead in legalizing abortion in Germany. The CDU has a committee devoted to women’s issues, and this makes the CDU responsive to women’s needs such that women’s concerns often triumph over any party ideology. And this is true in a general way: the CDU has many internal committees that represent the major demographic groups of Germany, and because of this the CDU is often forced to put ideology aside and instead respond directly to the real needs of those demographics. Perhaps it is because of this excellent internal organizational design that the CDU has dominated Germany politics since World War II, being part of the government from 1949 to 1969 and from 1982 to 1998 and from 2005 to 2021.
The CDU and the Politics of Gender in Germany: Bringing Women to the Party
By Sarah Elise Wiliarty
©2010 Cambridge University Press
Page 55
One of the reasons that the CDU was able to dominate German politics so thoroughly during the 1950s was that the party successfully reached out to and integrated societal groups that might have offered opposition. The party recognized important groups by founding auxiliary organizations that were affiliated with the party. The CDU originally had seven auxiliary organizations: the Youth Union (Junge Union), the Women’s Union (Frauen Union), the Social Committees of the Christian Democratic Workers (Sozialausschüsse der Christlich-Demokratischen Arbeitnehmerschaft), the Municipal Politics Association (Kommunalpolitische Vereinigung), the Middle Class Association (Mittelstandsvereinigung), the Economic Council (Wirtschaftsrat), and the Refugees Union (Union der Vertriebenen und Flüchtlinge). In 1972 the party added an additional auxiliary organization, the School Pupils Union (Schüler Union), and in 1988 the newest auxiliary organization was created, the Seniors Union (Senioren Union). Additionally, two older CDU organizations do not have the official status of auxiliary organizations, but often act similarly: the Protestant Working Circle (Evangelischer Arbeitskreis) and the Ring of Christian Democratic Students (Ring Christlich-Demokratischen Studenten).
Progressives often complain that the Democratic Party is not progressive enough. And yet progressives are oddly unwilling to learn what architecture for a political party is most likely to give progressives the results that they want. They rely on moral suasion and very little else. They complain bitterly but they never put in the real work of figuring out what system of committees would give them the political party they actually want. But if they want to build a party that is forced to respond to the real demographic groups of the nation, then they would be wise to borrow ideas from the CDU.
Pg. 40-42
My concept of the corporatist catch-all party differs from the concept of the classic catch-all party in four ways: 1) party organization, 2) leadership, 3) membership, and 4) party policy making. These differences are summarized in Table 2.1.
A classic catch-all party has the following features. First, the primary internal party division is horizontal. In other words, the party has a leadership and a membership. Second, in a classic catch-all party, leadership is unified. Third, the membership of a classic catch-all party can only affect the party negatively by forcing leadership to follow a losing strategy. Fourth, a correct, i.e. winning strategy exists and the leadership knows what it is. The important question is whether or not the membership can prevent the leadership from pursuing this correct strategy.
Sarah Elise Wiliarty offer this example of a party membership that can cause the party’s defeat via their extremism. It is worth noting that this exactly mirrors what some Democrats fear most about the supporters of Bernie Sanders.
Pg. 33
Another possibility is that an overly “entrenched” membership will force through an inappropriate response. Both Kitschelt (1994) and Koelble (1991) examine the difficulties of the British Labour Party in the 1980s in this light. A takeover by the radical left rendered the party unelectable, even against the less-than-congenial Margaret Thatcher. If either constraint - insufficient leadership autonomy or overly entrenched membership - prevents the party from responding to voters (rather than members), then the party will lose electoral support as its position becomes increasingly disconnected from the preferences of wide segments of society. These theories share the ideas that membership acts only negatively on a party and that leaders should try to deactivate membership (though they may not succeed).
But a decentralized corporatist catch-all is completely different. It actually draws strength from its membership, which attempts to mobilize members to achieve wins. Since a decentralized corporatist catch-all has committees that represent many different demographics, there is no risk of extremists sabotaging the party, so long as all of the committees engage in an equal amount of mobilization.
Pg. 43-44
The third feature of a corporatist catch-all party is that members can help the party win elections rather than just hurt the party’s chances at the polls. Because of its distinctive internal organization, a corporatist catch-all party responds to new issues and electors in a different manner than the classic catch-all party. When a classic catch-all party reaches out to new groups, it demobilizes membership. For classic catch-all parties, this demobilization is necessary because of potential conflict between loyalists and floating voters. Loyalists would prefer that the party remain true to its founding ideals. New supporters are interested in the party only if it changes its original doctrine. Theories based on the classic catch-all party model assume that when a party appears internally conflicted, it will suffer at election time. The conflict is resolved by making the new tenets of the party so abstract that everyone can subscribe to them and by decreasing the power of both loyalists and potential new supporters, so that neither can significantly influence the party’s actions. Because old members will resist the move to broaden the appeal, classic catch-all parties must limit the power of membership if they wish to adapt successfully.
Corporatist catch-all parties operate according to a different logic. They respond to change by incorporating the groups advocating change into the party’s governing structure. Instead of weakening the links to both loyalists and floating voters as a classic catch-all party would, a corporatist catch-all party maintains organizational links to the loyalists, but also offers links to floating voters as these voters coalesce into interest groups. Through its recognition process, the party controls which groups gain representation. Pre-existing groups may or may not attempt to resist the party’s recognition of new groups, depending on whether they view the new groups as potential competitors or allies. The recognition process will therefore likely be contentious. Once both loyalists and new groups have access to the party’s decision-making structures, however, they must reach some kind of compromise with each other on what the party’s position will be. Represented groups are central players in defining party policy.
Unlike a decentralized corporatist catch-all, the modern Democratic Party is like an older, centralized catch-all party, of the type that was innovative in the 1890s but which seems obsolete in 2023. And even if the Democratic Party has gone through some modernization, the attitudes of an old-fashioned catch-all party continue to guide the party:
Pg. 34
This vision is problematic on two counts. First, like spatial voting theory, it assumes that only one best strategy is available and that leadership knows what it is. Second, the only role allowed for membership is as a negative constraint; members may or may not prevent leaders from implementing the “correct” strategy, which is identified by the leadership. This vision ignores the possibility that successful new ideas and strategies might come from membership groups, rather than party leaders. As Mair points out, decoupling membership from the party organization makes catch-all parties vulnerable to a decline in voter loyalty.
If progressives want to insulate the Democratic Party from the influence of wealthy donors, one potential path forward is design the Democratic Party as a decentralized cluster of committees, each of which represent the core demographics that the Democratic Party believes it can best serve. If the committees are strong enough, then they can push through their agenda regardless of the agenda of donors. All of which is to say, the Democratic Party could borrow some ideas from the CDU.
Pg. 38
As noted previously, the CDU was founded as a decentralized party. Although Adenauer was a powerful party leader, he had to bargain with multiple internal groups when making decisions for the party. One of the CDU’s primary strategies for managing rival tendencies within the party was to institutionalize representation for various groups on the party’s internal decision-making bodies. To give just one example, in an effort to convince Protestants to support the party, the CDU formed an internal group for Protestants and guaranteed this group access to party policy making. While the party’s goal is to win elections, its strategy for achieving that goal is to represent and balance societal groups internally. This strategy led the party to develop what I call a corporatist catch-all party structure.
Since the Democratic Party is a left-of-center party, it can also borrow ideas from those left-of-center parties that were also designed as decentralized corporatist catch-all parties. Sarah Elise Wiliarty offers the example of the French Socialist Party:
Pg. 223-224
From 1969 to 1971 the French Socialist Party embarked on an internal transformation that would allow it to cooperate with the Communists from a position of strength. Beginning with its July 1969 conference, the Socialist Party committed to a strategy of attempting to unify forces on the left, including negotiations with the French Communist Party, the PCF. This was a clear rejection of the party’s other choice, attempting to ally with parties in the political center.
Between 1969 and 1971 frustrated groups on the left came together in a new party, the Parti socialiste (PS). At the Epinay Congress in June 1971, the new party elected François Mitterrand First Secretary. The PS also adopted internal proportional representation for ideological factions (or currents) on the party’s decision-making bodies. Prior to the transformation, the old Socialist party’s internal structure had been based on territorial units. The party’s leadership had been able to use this organization to exclude opponents from having influence within the party. After 1971 the units that were represented internally were primarily ideological currents. A five percent threshold required for representation was chosen to be low enough to ensure some voice for internal party minorities.
Under the PS’s new structure, ideological currents compete with each other for votes at party congresses. The results of these internal elections determine membership on the party’s National Council, which picks the top leadership. Ideological currents are generally led by powerful party leaders and are frequently (but not necessarily) rooted in a particular geographic territory.
The new internal party structure was a key component in forging an internal coalition to support Mitterrand. Some of the currents backing Mitterrand were small enough that they would have been excluded under the previous form of organization. These currents wanted to come together in an effort to win power, but were fearful of losing their identity within the larger Socialist Party. Internal representation was a solution for bringing these groups into the party while allowing them to maintain their original identities. Following these changes in internal organization, Mitterrand was elected leader of the PS.
The new internal structure gave the PS increased dynamism. The variety of ideologies represented within the party allowed the PS to appeal to diverse constituencies. The multiple ideological tendencies within the party also made the party appear open to internal debate, which was an exciting prospect. Membership increased from 75,000 in 1971 to 160,000 in 1977.
With new leadership and a new internal structure, the PS commenced writing a new program and opened negotiations with the PCF. The Common Program of the Left was signed in 1972. The ‘Union of the Left’ (which included the PS, the PCF, and a third left-wing party, the MRG) went on to do well in the parliamentary elections of 1973. Backed by the Union of the Left, Mitterrand nearly won the presidency in 1974, gaining 49.2 percent of the vote, compared to Valéry Giscard d’Estaing’s 50.8 percent. For the Socialists, the strategy of an alliance with the Communists was paying off at the polls. While this alliance experienced some rough patches in the late 1970s. It went on to victory when Mitterand won the presidency in 1981, the first candidate of the left to be elected in the Fifth Republic.
Conclusions
I’m making two different points in this essay:
Populist theories of democracy have given us a series of damaging reforms that have backfired, over and over again, taking us further and further from the kind of democracy that might give us real progressive reforms. We should aim to undo some of these reforms.
Progressives keep making the same mistakes over and over again. Studying the actual literature of political-science can help us break out of this unhealthy pattern. Ignorance is our enemy, whereas imbibing modern political theory, and organizational theory, is the best path forward.
We should focus on how bright the future can be: once a large portion of the American progressive movement adjusts its attitude and starts to focus on a correct theory of change — then we can expect big breakthroughs and dramatic positive change.