Written by Robert S. Becker   

Enduring waves of staggering, bipartisan fiascos, progressives can hardly blame the absence of an impactful "populist movement" on the absence of golden opportunities. What could trigger more outrage than the tangle of multiple, self-induced military dead-ends, aggravated by multiple, self-generated economic implosions -- smacked down by years of anti-fixes? Behold: ham-fisted austerity, gratuitous tax reductions, deregulation rife with hidden costs, and unConstitutional privacy abuses. Not to mention, corrosive fracking, the XL Pipeline, reliance on dirty coal, and flagrant, abusive spying. If we only had dysfunctional government, filled with craven hypocrites, a progressive firestorm would doubtlessly break out.

Nor can activists miss clear-eyed, tested roadmaps. Hardly alone, veteran Jim Hightower just reminded the left, especially online, what it conspicuously undervalues: "to have a mass movement, we have to go to the masses." Hightower lays down assumptions that reformers disdain at their peril:

Don't forget cultural shifts produce political change, not the other way around.
Building a people's movement takes the long view.
Expand the movement by connecting with [populist] movements that don't identify as progressive.
Don't dump [progressive] "talking points on every person we meet." Replace "issue-speak" with "core values" full of "personal stories that paint pictures in people's minds."

Squandering Golden Opportunities

These truisms reinforce my observations that too many on the left persist in dumping "issue-speak" along with overwrought hyperbole and sweeping declarations that offend the audience we should most engage. Must we hear from prominent voices unerring proclamations of done deals: the end of America, of electoral politics, of capitalism, the collapse of empire, even the end of the world? Must we demonize personalities, scorning individuals as magically both puppets and tyrants? Must we reduce complex conditions to morality plays between good and evil? Must we impugn all mass media as sellouts, hire mainly to obscure implausible conspiracy theories? Will hardline, leftwing dogma, however principled, persuade the vast majority of non-leftists to come aboard, even hear us out?

And yet alongside zealots are extraordinary, progressive voices unafraid to stir the pot and bolstered by heroic whistleblowers. Are not a handful of rational, humane, elected officials doing their best to educate on big issues? Did not a progressive, if idealistic Congressional caucus just publish people-driven budget, tax, and financials reforms? And yet, where is the concrete, real-world evidence the progressive left is gaining strength, amassing new converts (or regaining lost ones), achieving electoral leverage in battleground states or impacting the national dialogue? The evidence is conspicuous by its absence.

It's not as progressives aren't confronting the question, "whither the left." Why then, after five years, does no progressive force yet challenge the electoral punch that discredited, dinosaur Tea Partiers cling to? Reactionary money alone does not explain it, and the TP doesn't dominate WI, MI, PA, OH, FL or NV. Why does the midterm augur such dread: extremists to retain the House as the Senate lurches rightward, with or without GOP control. Nothing tarnishes the glory of "majority rule" beyond imagining Mitch McConnell and John Boehner as twin Majority Leaders. Where are the new Elizabeth Warrens eyeing the Senate this election or next? Where are more Snowdens of yesteryear?

Not only do I find the left, despite enormous energy, treading water, but have progressives yet found the domestic leverage to shift national tectonics? If obscene income and asset inequality has not exploded widespread confidence in our economic system, what will? Not government spending, settled for years. Nor Social Security or Medicare. Obamacare plods along, bleeding profusely, but no life-line for the right or war cry for the left. Ditto, foreign affairs: will conflict in Syria, Iran or North Korea further expose our imperial contradictions? Will the Ukrainian tragedy, besieged with assaults inside and out, illuminate western interference or morph into the latest, symbolic elbowing among imperial powers?

Don't Bank on Millennials

In this context, imagine my shock when listening to NPR's "Millennials And The Next America:" three young voices proposed (without prompting) libertarianism as a definite generational prospect, in sync with the 18-33 year-old group's religious and racial tolerance, support for gay rights and marijuana. It is no compliment to progressives that millennials, twice voting for Obama, are still oblivious to the unholy Ayn Rand-Rand Paul con game. This unnerving notion evoked a 2012 campaign comment when NPR quoted a Georgetown graduate student on millennials, "This is the most libertarian generation that has ever existed."

Egad and little fishes. By this spotty measure, the left isn't just not winning but losing the next generation. If regressive libertarianism, distorted by today's propagandists, attracts the young, who by 2020 will compose 28% of potential voters, we turn our back on "evil" government. A second Pew Research stunner: less than one-third of millennials call themselves "environmentalists," though over 40% of ALL other age groups so identify. If not "environmentalists," then what? Rampant consumers? Blind leading the blind? Do they assume naively some magic technology will resolve the implacable dilemma of climate change or repair the oceans? What a scary package: libertarianism plus complacency about indelible damage by earthlings well underway.

Where's the Progressive Beef?

Despite cosmic challenges, papered over by the status quo, who then smartly questions authority? If the left does not blunt maniacal American exceptionalism, plus rightwing fables about the "free market," or the Pentagon's insatiable needs, whence cometh change? A crucial, unifying challenge must be voiced by progressives to awaken the next generation to vote as if their future literally depends on it.

Thus, I question when the left sounds as insular as the right. Of course progressives won't ever match the bubble-headed fixations of today's extremists, with hidebound rejection of evidence and method. Like Thoreau, I do not prescribe to strong and valiant personalities, but consider: is the left stronger now than in '08? Are progressives winning or losing the messaging wars, gaining or losing the critical new mass without which populist movements die?

For years we've heard the comforting platitudes that demographics will destroy the Rightwing Party and favor the left. But demographics are not destiny, especially with Republican attacks on voting rights. If potential progressives are not embraced in a language that connects with their worlds, we will sabotage our quest. A first step is a collective, progressive "clearinghouse" that refines how and what to address growing populations. Populist movements that do not grow shrink. If a change movement fails to disrupt the status quo, entrenched oligarchs win by holding their own.

Time to take stock, facing strenuous, uphill battles against rightwing control: in the House, the federal judiciary, the media, state leadership, and perhaps the Senate. Let's reconsider how we talk to each other, even what "we" means, so we embrace populist "movements that don't identify as progressive." Either we take the winning of power seriously or face more years talking to ourselves and about ourselves. Only last week the annual CPAC circus revved up, outlandish enough to feature Sarah Palin and Donald Trump. How is it that two yokels get national attention while brilliant leftwing minds are shunned by mass media? Change begins by getting the word out to those not in the choir, which demands new battle cries and battle grounds.