NOTE: This is the first in a series of articles that will lay out an action plan for uniting the populist movement.

The Political Landscape

To accurately gauge the efficacy of the Democratic Party base as a political entity, you need to understand how deeply compromised its members are by “magical” thinking.

Liberal activists on the Daily Kos – the PR arm of the OFA -- frequently post comments that serve as useful benchmarks for measuring the level of wishful thinking used to conceal the moral bankruptcy of the party:

Hillary may have accepted millions of dollars in corporate cash, but she says she is a liberal, so I believe her, and I’m all in for Hillary!

Barack Obama may be working to pass the TPP, but the Republicans forced him to do it, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

One of the best examples of mythical thinking is the frequently repeated meme asserting that populists can force Hillary Clinton to “move left” once the Democratic presidential nomination has been resolved. Nothing could be further from the truth. The most likely scenario to be played out at the 2016 Democratic Convention, will be an inter-party challenge led by a token populist; he or she, will be soundly defeated, and then the DNC leadership will chastise progressive members to stop making it easy for Republicans to win; they will then tell the party faithful: “You’ve had your chance, you lost, and now it’s time to start supporting the democratically elected candidate.” And in the end, the common progressive mantra will become: She wasn’t my first choice, but she’s the Democratic nominee, so I’ll support her over a Republican candidate.

And the progressives will have lost again, and they will have learned nothing.

In the current political environment, the only available avenue for creating viable political change exists outside the control of either major political party. Party strategists know there is little to fear from members of the Democratic base. They monitor our blog sites to gauge the level of populist disaffection; and they know more about our complaints and proposed solutions than most populist activists; and they have developed contingency plans to counter our every move. They understand our predictability, and they know the policies we prefer; and they are prepared to do anything in their power to see that we never stand in their way.

An OWS style, grassroots uprising is the type of movement they fear most. They know it is difficult to compromise voices that refuse to be influenced by money and political spin.

And despite spending millions in campaign cash to hire think tanks and focus groups to preempt resistance, Hillary Clinton has made a strategic mistake by opting to rebrand her image. She is not a populist, and if her duplicity and true ideals are exposed, she will become vulnerable.

But still, the party elite control the money, they control the media, and their spin machine is next to none. So our opposition is formidable.

Where Do We Go From Here?

If meaningful lessons can be gleaned from the collapse of the Occupy movement – lessons that might influence the direction of a new grass roots model of activism -- they would have to be culled from the failure of the movement to re-emerge as an effective entity following the FBI’s brutal attack on its members.

The easiest and most obvious weakness to identify was a lack of meaningful action; instead of advancing clearly defined objectives, OWS activists continuously moved laterally, effectively dooming the movement to expend energy floundering in a state of perpetual motion that left no achievable end in sight.

If its only objective was to draw attention to inequality, then it realized a moderate level of success, but even within that narrow latitude of accomplishment, it produced no meaningful results.

Its main strength -- recognition that each member was an equal partner – was also its biggest weakness. In the end, it was nothing more than a runaway train with locomotives attached at both ends, straining to move in opposite directions. But because injustice fuels unrest and unrest leads to change, equality has long been a building block of grass roots movements. And even though securing an equal voice for each member was a lofty goal, when realized, it created confusion and a lack of clarity that led to the loss of common purpose.

And therein lies a basic lesson for the new populist movement; we suffer from a similar state of self-inflicted inertia. In our current form, we are amorphic, lacking even a basic framework to identify our coalition as a political entity.

And as much as progressives like to emphasize inclusiveness; as a political entity, we actually exist more as a coalition of disparate parts united in a quest to achieve a few common objectives. The idiom commonly assigned to liberals -- trying to organize them into a cohesive movement is like trying to herd cats -- is not unfounded. Our innate nature is to resist conformity.

And that lack of common vision, and that natural resistance to structural processes presents the first major obstacle to creating a viable populist movement.

Fortunately, the problem is solvable, but it requires a fresh approach, a new paradigm based on the current trend to create a “sharing economy.”

In the initial stages of development, adopting a modular structure instead of creating a third party entity could mitigate problems associated with linking disparate causes. A more modest definition of the movement’s objectives might be needed in the beginning, but the modular structure creates the perfect environment for facilitating rapid growth. For example, it seems unlikely the movement will convert enough voters before 2016 to win a three-way election (unlikely, but not impossible—especially if Elizabeth Warren enters the race), but creating an alliance that could exert enough clout to defeat an unpopular program, such as the TPP, is a realistic goal. And by eliminating the requirement to merge into one entity, and focusing instead on concatenating them to construct a united front with enough power to influence members of Congress to vote for populist initiatives, generates momentum, and it creates breathing room to build a larger coalition based on the successes we achieve.

To be successful, we don’t have to win the 2016 presidential election; we just need to create a political entity that can exert enough pressure on members of Congress to create the change we desire. Both major parties have become dinosaurs; they are cumbersome and much too slow to adapt to the rapid changes that are reshaping the political landscape. All we need are enough members to guarantee the defeat of either party. That creates clout. Twenty percent of the electorate could swing an election in either direction, and reaching that number is much more achievable than attaining the forty plus percent of votes needed to garner a majority in a three-way election.

An example is the impact Ross Perot’s candidacy had on the 1992 presidential election. Prior to Perot’s entrance into the campaign arena, Bill Clinton had a commanding 58% to 37% lead over G.H.W. Bush, but when the final votes were tallied, Clinton’s lead had dropped to 43%, with Ross Perot capturing 19% of the vote. It was close enough to catch the attention of party leaders, and it is the prime reason third party candidates are no longer given a place at the podium during presidential debates.

But a 20% slice of the pie in today’s environment would equal substantial clout. Obama’s 2012 victory was won by a margin of less than 5% of the electoral vote. And capturing 20% of the electoral vote is an achievable goal for the populist movement. Any surprise surge that might sweep a populist candidate into the White House would just be icing on the cake.

Objective One: Create a modular framework for structuring the populist movement

Action Plan:

1. Create a database of individuals, organizations or groups that support populist causes.
2. Ask each entity to identify his/her/their objectives
3. Have them identify current leaders or potential leaders within that organization.
4. Identify common objectives that might unite all members.
5. Identify issues that might cause contention.
6. Create a hub that will facilitate interaction among populist members, and create an information network to keep members abreast of important changes in the political landscape. We need a way to bypass the mainstream media.
a. Agree on common terminology to limit confusion.
b. Organize major populist writers under one umbrella
c. Create an app to facilitate the sharing of ideas and critical updates

Part Two will address the issue of creating a hierarchy of leadership