let’s get started!

Folks, we shit on our kids. Our party did not do for them what it did for many of us. I can’t live with that. In fact, my own kids, who I taught well, have challenged me. My own rhetoric thrown in my face, and they won!

I can’t sell establishment incrementalism and compromise to them. I can’t sell it to myself either. Not anymore.

Truth is, this last couple months has been filled with frank, engaging and personally challenging conversations about this coming election.

It is an establishment referendum election.

Young people see one body of corruption owning both parties. They see the Democratic Party as offering the shit sandwich with cheese and the Republican Party going with the usual plain old shit sandwich, no frills. Neither of these things are compelling enough for them to value party politics at all.

Wonder why independent registrations are up, not counting the temporary moves to Democratic registrations to vote Sanders, as a percentage of the voting population?

This is why.

The party bluff is getting called. Millennials, right along with a lot of the former middle class, have had enough. They don’t have much today. Their future is bleak at best too. For these reasons, they don’t respond to fear and shame arguments.

A nice, big slice of these people are not going to vote establishment politics this year.

Why?

Don’t they understand this is very likely to hurt people? In fact, they do, and they don’t care.

They know people are going to age out. If this is not the time, next time will be the time. They also know if they do validate the establishment, it’s likely to stay validated for a long time, and that’s not going to work for them.

Many are putting off marriage, kids, can't even think about owning a home, and they are joined by the growing body of people who were members of the middle class too.

What does this mean?

It means this election, for Democrats, isn’t about attracting these people to the party. Right now, given establishment dominance, the party won’t really be meaningful to them. Yes, Republicans will be worse, and hold that thought. I’ll get to that in a minute.

It is all about the party coming to them. Not the other way around.

Maybe, and this isn’t my preference, but it is reality… a failure here means a whole lot more people like them. And with that, a much stronger incentive to finally let go of “trickle down” and “third way” politics.

I can’t blame them at all. Yes, it’s going to hurt. Maybe it should hurt too.

We are all going to find out, right now.

Truth is, my party has shit on me as well. I’m a Gen X’er. Way too many of us ignored politics in the 90’s. I’ll own that. It’s true. Clinton showed us a way for Democrats to get back in the game, and it worked! Sort of. We got the 90’s Internet boom, but we also got things like NAFTA. You know, these trade deals have forced career changes on me. It’s been damn tough to stay ahead, jumping just in time to stay somewhat middle class. I’m in the middle of one right now too. I could fail, and fall out of the middle class.

Our family got hit by medical issues pre-ACA. That wiped out all my hard won gains, and I’ve never been able to make any ground back up. The money just isn’t there, and no matter how much I work, I just can’t seem to get back to a place where progress is meaningful. This has impacted how I take care of my own too. As a father, I cannot condone the same sorts of policies for my own kids, soon to be fathers and mothers, given they can afford to even do that.

I’ve tried. Hard. I can’t sell this shit. Can’t sell it to myself, my kids, or many of my peers. Young people are speaking out frankly, winning arguments. As they should! They have nothing to hide, they didn’t do it.

We did.

So I’m tossing in with the downtrodden and youth among us. This progressive gets it. Do you? Let me explain, just so you are clear:

A nice, big slice of these people are not going to vote establishment. They have no reason to, as explained. Who will this harm? Truthfully, it’s more likely to harm those of us doing well right now far more than it will them, and they know that.

Without them, our party will lack the strength to go for meaningful change. Worse, assuming it could, the money will prevent that from happening, just as we’ve seen happen the entire time so far.

Doubt me?

Well, you should.

Remember the ACA? Our friends over in the GOP did us a solid. They voted “NO” across the board, the whole party going anti, whole hog, no can do. Who did that leave?

Democrats. And we had the power then. People gave it to the party, and Obama, who ran on change. What happened?

Our own party couldn’t do what really needed to be done. What we got was the possible, and it’s good make no mistake, but it’s no where near enough. I think we all can be honest about that too.

What this showed people was the one body of corruption owning both parties. I’ve never been able to shake that thought from my mind since that time. We had it, and just could not do the right thing, just the possible thing.

Money people. It’s why the ACA isn’t something more than the tepid reform it is.

Democrats have just as big of a money problem as Republicans do! And with us, it’s not so bad as it is with the GOP. But it’s bad enough that young people and that growing body of people who have fallen out of the middle class don’t see the value of the party.

We all know what happened next. Big losses, Tea Party sweep, and here we are.

Clinton isn’t an evil person. Her intent is good. She’s working the formula the party establishment believes is possible too. I get it. Most of us do.

But it’s not gonna do our kids right. It’s not gonna do many of us right either.

And there is the conflict right there. This won’t be pretty, but it is going to have to play out.

Time to take the party!

Sanders and young people are showing us the way. They are showing us like Bill Clinton did. Bill got us back in the game, and now it’s time to take it up another notch and take our party back to labor and ordinary people where it can do some real good.

Time to do right by our kids.

Again, without them, we may actually lose! We may suffer another regression like we did in the Obama midterms, where we lost Speaker Pelosi. We may suffer worse than that too.

But, with them?

We may be stronger than we’ve ever been! Sanders is showing us that ordinary people money can compete with the big, establishment money! That changes everything!

This isn’t about selling the party. It’s about taking the party.

Those kids and other disgruntled voters aren’t coming to us. They are standing firm, asking us to join them.

And I’m not sorry. Not one lick. No fear, no shame. All in for change, and that means getting Sanders elected to begin the process of real change, starting with the Democratic Party itself.

This is our party, not the big money party. Time to take it back.

Kids have grown up. They are savvy, ready and willing to work for it. As am I and many other Sanders supporters.

Are you?