We participate on this site and others. We understand the value of Bernie Sanders or OWS. We understand that "the Economy" isn't something that just happens, but that it's a result of deliberate government policies. We see the blatant corruption of the dem party. We know that trump is a vacuous buffoon. We know who paul ryan and mitch mcturtell and Merrick Garland and rahm immanuel are. We know what's wrong with chained cpi and private prisons and school choice and tpp. We know what's bad about goldman sachs and general electric and walmart and koch industries. We know our Government has been sold out from under us. Some or most of the people in our circles will know or have heard these things. We know we have fellow travelers all over the country. But we're a minority in "knowing" these things. Our discussion of these things is "Inside Baseball". It's academic. It's preaching to the choir. We'll need to expand outside our group to prevail.

Here are quick justifications for my opinion - like 'em or lump 'em... TOP and the politically engaged folks who frequent it are a minority, and we are a minority subset of them; (Shenanigans aside), we got less than half of the dem vote, which is maybe around 25% of the overall vote. In terms of the general electorate as opposed to the primary, that's about the same or a little less than the amount that consistently thought w was a great president...

My fear is that the largest political block may be the people who don't vote and are ignorant of all of it. All they know is that it's all fucked. They can't be bothered to participate, and can't see any justification for doing so. I believe encouraging such beliefs, while discouraging participation, has been a deliberate, central, and very successful part of the vast right wing conspiracy...

There are the people who will vote for the likes of rmoney or ted cruz, and who turn out for every election. They apparently vote more reliably than liberals, since many of the states are run by regressives from top to bottom, and the house is firmly in the hands of people elected for their promises to halt or reverse social progress (without regard or even awareness of the policies those people, once elected, actually support or enact). (I suspect the entire corporate media apparatus aims at these people as ground zero, and assumes the surrounding zones of fallout will get enough of the rest)

That leaves the "liberals" and others who vote democratic party. (I believe they're the majority) They turn out in presidential years. It's been my experience that they don't look much beyond the narrative, whether it's because they don't have the time, or because it doesn't occur to them, or whatever. They get the bulk of their information from corporate media. They understand times are bad, but if you start getting in to details, you lose them. I have sisters that are socially liberal, but they hadn't heard of Bernie. The one feels that the best place is the center, and that both dems and repubs have good ideas, and she tries to teach her children to be open to everybody. If I tell her there's no such thing as a good repub, or that we're where we are because we've had 40 years of conservative policy, I lose her. She becomes defensive. Blue collar types I encounter seem to buy into conservative talking points without knowing that's what they are. They may understand their boss has the game rigged against them, but if you start talking about unions, you lose them. White collar types think President Obama is a great guy, that he gave us health care reform, and they may know that he's been largely obstructed by the gop. They look forward to hrc as being more of the same, and see it as a good thing. If you point out that he's sold us out to Wall St, that he's running a perpetual war, or that he's just another neoliberal opportunist, and that BTW hrc would be worse, you lose them. These are the people Bernie didn't reach, and the reason hrc was able to hold the line. They might have thought it was better to go with the known quantity because otherwise trump might win. They still believe in the democratic party brand and what it traditionally represented. These are people for whom a message and policies that are "self evidently" good are not enough.

Those groups don't share our perspective in any major way, even though there is potential overlap. The key is to recognize that although many - likely a majority of - people agree with and support progressive policies, that's not enough to elect a majority, nor to enact those policies. Expanding the reach of progressive ideas exponentially is necessary before we can defeat even the repugs, let alone the rotted corpse of the dem party. I'm not here claiming to have an answer to this. But I believe the answer will have to involve the traditional dem electorate and a significant number of the non participants. Breaking through the media embargo is vital. Aside from a small potential number, I believe conservative voters in general won't come around until progressive policies are in effect and well enough established as to be thought of as conservative.

Somewhere, there are republicans having an equal but opposite discussion.