Real Change Requires More Than Voting For Democrats

Electing progressive politicians is important. But we need to hold them accountable to get the change we need.

The Democratic performance in the Midterms last night was impressive. Although they lost a few Senate seats due to an overwhelmingly unfavorable electoral map, low approval ratings for President Trump and exceptionally high voter turnout among young adults and women allowed the Democrats to steal the House from the GOP — a pickup of over 30 seats.

But here’s a vital question that we should all be asking: will the Democrats’ electoral gains actually translate to real progressive change?

Moderation Among Senate Democrats

West Virginia’s Joe Manchin won a key victory in a close Senate election last night, edging out his GOP opponent by three points in a red state.

Manchin, however, is also one of our nation’s biggest roadblocks to enacting progressive legislation.

Although Manchin is certainly preferable to his Republican opponent, former attorney general Patrick Morrisey, the senator has voted with Trump over 60% of the time, nearly three times as often as the average Democrat.

More specifically, Manchin supported Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement, and he voted for both Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

While Manchin certainly occupies the right-most wing of the Democratic Party, some of the most prominent senators in the Party — including Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein—also have a long history of opposing key progressive initiatives.

Nancy Pelosi (left) and Chuck Schumer (right)

In June, as a direct result, 85% of Senate Democrats and three-quarters of House Democrats voted in favor of a gargantuan $717 billion military spending bill — a hike in defense spending so drastic that even Trump argued for a lower tab.

Furthermore, only 16 Senate Democrats voiced support for Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill when it was proposed last year—surely a significant improvement from years past, but nowhere near the majority required for passage. This comes in spite of polls consistently showing an approval rating of 60 to 70 percent for Single Payer.

The disdain for many progressive policies among Congressional Democrats isn’t going away anytime soon, largely due to the lack of term limits for conservative Democratic incumbents and the strong influence of corporate PAC contributions in both parties.

What’s the result?

The result is that politicians on both sides of the aisle — when not held accountable — do a statistically poor job of representing their constituents.

According to an analysis by Larry Jacobs and Robert Shapiro, American Congressmen rarely change their beliefs to represent the interests of their constituents. Rather, they use crafted language to “sail against public opinion and then to openly defend their undemocratic actions.”

Furthermore, a study by Princeton University found that although the U.S. government regularly honors the political views of special interests and elites, it almost never enacts legislation to represent the preferences of average Americans.

At the end of the day, even though Americans regularly poll in favor of progressive policies like Single Payer, tuition-free college, and raising taxes on corporations, voting alone is simply not enough to enact them.

But there’s a catch.

On its own, the American government does a statistically poor job representing the general public, whether under Democratic or Republican leadership. But that can change if those in power are held accountable.

If every Congressman in the U.S. were pressured through acts of civil disobedience like boycotts, protests, and strikes — actions that forced representatives to cater to the demands of their constituents — the prospects of enacting such a platform would significantly increase.

The Case of FDR

To see a perfect example of grassroots organizing leading to progressive political gains, look no further than the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.