You know, it’s funny. PUBs (progressive unicorn brigade) and professional lefties constantly complain about things that Democrats supposedly do wrong or don’t do, and they love to apply blame to Democrats for everything, but they never delve very deeply into any issue, to look at the root cause. There’s actually a good reason for that, although they will never admit it. See, if you go deeply enough and look at the root cause of just about every problem is, well… The professional left’s ineptitude when it comes to politics. All politics, but especially electoral politics.

For the purposes of this column, I’m going to dig deep into a series of issues and explain that all of the progressive complaints about certain things that “Democrats” have done or not done are seriously misplaced.

Let’s start with something easy, shall we? Let’s start with Hillary Clinton’s vote on the Iraq War. Now, I know, if you read professional left sources and Bernie Stans on social media, you would believe that there was something inherently wrong with her vote. However, the woman was only one vote of many and she has since apologized for that vote many times and said repeatedly that, if she knew then what she knows now, she wouldn’t have done it.

It’s not her fault, in any case. You see, if you really think about it, why not blame Naderites for her even having to make that vote in the first place. In 2000, the professional left and PUBs spent that entire election year complaining about Al Gore. In 2002, I went onto LexisNexis and I compiled the statistics, and Nader bashed Gore more than 20 times more than he bashed Bush. In fact, his criticisms if Gore were far harsher than his criticisms of Bush. Likewise, the professional left attacked Gore constantly and propagated two major lies during that election season. One was that Gore was a liar and the other was that both political parties were essentially the same.

If the far left and Ralph Nader had worked with Gore instead of against him, not only would Gore have won in 2000, but the Green Party may have gotten the permanent ballot status they claimed they wanted. It never should have been close; Gore was obviously a better choice for president and the Democratic Party was not batshit crazy like the GOP. Without helping Bush get elected, there probably would have been no 9/11 terrorist attacks, which means no action in Afghanistan. Also, the Iraq War never would have happened. Therefore, there would have been no AUMF for Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders to vote on. If you really need to blame someone, blame the people who trashed Gore.

The same thing works when it comes to the professional left’s hatred of “Wall Street.” Democrats were in charge of the government in 1993-1994 and we got an assault weapons ban and a lot of other great stuff passed, including the framework that led to the 1990s economic boom that led to huge job creation and the first upward movement of wages since the 1970s. But progressives complained constantly and dropped the ball, giving Bill Clinton six years of “Republican Revolution.” I know, you love to blame Clinton for “welfare reform,” media consolidation, deregulation and the repeal of Glass-Steagall in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley bill, but here’s the thing; if Republicans were not in charge of Congress, those bills would never have existed. Yes, I get it; blaming Bill Clinton for SIGNING those bills deludes you into thinking that you sound smarter than you are. But you keep missing the fact that, if progressives had made sure Republicans were never in charge, none of those things would have existed. All of the shit that happened in the “naughts,” in which a mortgage market was created that was not allowed to be regulated, is the result of bills that Republicans wrote and passed and that Democrats only signed.

It works at all levels, too. If PUBs weren’t working so hard to elect Republicans, a lot of the things they claim to hate wouldn’t exist. Gays would have equal rights by now and we wouldn’t have to deal with bathroom issues for trans people. There would be no voter suppression laws and we wouldn’t have to fight so hard for things that would seem to be common sense.

Are you getting this? If progressives were smarter and working hard to elect more Democrats, the vast majority of the crap they like to blame on Democrats wouldn’t have even existed. The minimum wage hasn’t been raised in a long time because progressives keep working against Democrats and preventing them from being elected in greater numbers. Do you want to know why there have been cuts in SNAP and why infrastructure projects don’t get created? It’s because professional lefties and PUBs targeted Blue Dog Democrats rather than Republicans in 2010 and 2014. This, despite the fact that Blue Dogs created no discernible problems in Congress. In 2009-2010, with Democrats in charge, Congress passed 375 bills that were blocked by the Republican minority in the Senate. They couldn’t have passed those bills without Blue Dogs.

ISIS probably would not exist if PUBs and pro lefties hadn’t kept the 2000 election so close that Bush could steal it. The World Trade Center would probably still be standing and thousands of people would still be alive. I can go back farther. If progressives had gotten behind Jimmy Carter, one of the most liberal presidents in history, in 1980 instead of putting their all behind Ted Kennedy, we may have avoided the whole Reaganomics thing altogether and the entire Bush family would be a footnote in history. We also wouldn’t have scrapped the energy plans that Carter put in place and we may have electric cars by now and we may be using half as much fossil fuels these days, which would mean no need for fracking.

See what happens when you dig a little deeper? If you want to re-regulate banks and the entire financial industry, then help elect Democrats. Politics isn’t hard; you just have to win.