America lost its "opposition" party in the '70s with the Powell memo and elected its first neoliberal President, Bill Clinton, in the '90s. One only has to look at the economic impact that had from the '70s on to see what an absolute disaster that has been.

Without a champion of unions and the working class opposing the shift of production overseas, or at least compensating workers for that, the middle class has been decimated with no let up of the assault visible in the near future. Our misplaced faith in the Democratic party to offer pushback to conservative econ and corporatism has been our downfall and may well spell our end as populism and demagogy have us well on the road to fascism.

We will not get out of this without pain, and to think we can vote our way back to a bygone era with a controlled media and half of the country gone bat chit crazy is foolish. We have allowed this monstrosity to take root and will have to pay for its extermination with sacrifice. Voting for "blue, no matter who" only compounds the problem by admitting we are that afraid of the awful alternatives the R's keep presenting.

The Democratic party is now just a slightly kinder, gentler form of fascism and there is no path to reconciling with fascists that leaves democracy intact. Democratic Socialism is our only hope and it will not be an easy task to establish, but our children's future depends upon it. We have to "just say no" to the DNC and any politician that chooses to run under its banner, regardless of how good they appear or what they promise. The party will not allow those promises to be kept and there are plenty of Manchins around to cash in on our self delusion otherwise.