Time is short. The stakes are enormous. The nation is angry. The jobs are dying. The mood is depressed. Democrats must get off their knees and fight. They should cancel the week of recess before Labor Day, go to the floor of Congress and fight for American jobs, rally the party base, and go to the country with a campaign worthy of the Democratic Party.

I am fed up with the lack of fight, lack of spirit, lack of energy and lack of cojones of a party that must renew its right to call itself the party of the people, and renew its fight to stand up for the hardworking, law-abiding, good-hearted patriotic men and women who have been shut out of the corridors of power for far too long.

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I stand with the vast majority of Americans, who believe that Washington has become a fossilized town that is sickeningly out of touch with an America that hungers for leaders who lead, a Congress that acts and a president who stops telling voters they need teachable moments from him and starts listening to what voters, including many of his friends, are telling him.

The president has gone rogue. And Democrats. And Republicans. And everyone in this capital with eyes that don’t see and ears that don’t hear what an unhappy nation is telling them. Voters pray for action, but all they hear is self-praise from those who don’t listen, and all they see is vanity and self-indulgence from those who don’t care.

The American economy is becoming a factory of economic unfairness. Those whose greed almost caused a depression make giant fortunes, demand gargantuan bailouts and gorge on gluttonous bonuses paid for by hard-hit Americans who find their jobs destroyed, their hopes crushed, their dignity insulted and their voices silenced.

In this audacity of greed, the few with the most demand even more, while the many who pay the bills and suffer the pain are sold the great big lie of our times: that the cruel and unusual economy that is a factory of pain for patriots is “the new normal.”

The Federal Reserve Board rewards massive hoarding of money from bailed-out banks that refuse to lend, while Mount Olympus from Washington to Wall Street tells Americans to downsize the dream.

Throughout the nation there is outrage in the land, revolution in the air, insurrection in the wind from the left, right and center. The political ground is shaking from gale-force winds of a national demand for powerful change in the way our corrupted and tone-deaf capital does business.

Regarding the Democrats, Frank Rich nailed it in the Sunday New York Times about the party that seems determined to lose an election without really trying. Democrats can stand up and fight, or stand pat and lose.

Democrats should spend the week before Labor Day fighting and voting for American jobs. The Democratic base should rouse like a volcano and vote on Election Day, because it is too early for the dream to die, and then convene a national midterm convention for the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

There is revolution in the air. The epic political question of our times is who will lead it.

Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen and Bill Alexander, then chief deputy majority whip of the House. He holds an LL.M. degree in international financial law from the London School of Economics. He can be read on The Hill’s Pundits Blog and reached at brentbbi@webtv.net.