I have a few comments.
First something for all of the hardcore young liberals to think about, I have been socially liberal and fiscally conservative all my life. Indeed during my late teens and twenties, the main disagreement I had with the Republican party was their stance on social issues. I have always been pro-choice, wondered why there was any discrimination by race, religion or gender, figured anyone could marry anyone in any numbers and wanted the government to get out of regulating what people did consensually behind closed doors. So, while I called myself a Republican, I was about as far left on social issues as was possible to be and still be in this party. On fiscal matters, I was as hard right as was possible to be and think there should be some government. What changed? The Republicans went crazy, moved even farther right socially and threw out any sense of fiscal restraint. By the middle of the 1990s, it was apparent that the Democrats (and by any measure the left in general) were both a better fit socially and more fiscally responsible than the Republicans.
On the other hand, I was stubborn and called myself independent for about ten years. So unless you were over eighteen in 2002, welcome to the left not all of us were marchers or flag wavers. Some of us were Republicans when they were the party of reducing government debut.
Second, as Mr. Rushkoff said, Corporations by their nature are designed to look at the bottom line. They are profit making entities, so, large corporations deliberately targeting ad campaigns at issues you support is a good thing. Back in the 1970s one of the tipping points to getting both parties to support the clean water and clean air acts was that major corporations didn’t just stop lobbying against them but starting touting how nonpolluting they were in their ad campaigns — showing the political types that the money was shifting away from opposition to the acts. The same dynamic will happen with the social and environmental issues of today. If significant corporations get in line, for any reason at all even cynical reasons, the money for politics follows, so the votes follow. Money in politics is the ugly truth of our current government. Something that we should work on fixing but for now we need to live with the power of money in politics.
Third, ideological purity is the enemy of making progress on any issue. Politics is the art of compromise, take note of how gridlocked the government has become. How little the hard-core right has been willing to compromise and how little of the actual agenda they have accomplished. I am not saying give in to the demands of the right. Don’t throw away the center-left and the center-right politicians because they are not willing to jump directly to free college for all or the entire proposed green new deal. Find a good enough solution that gets us closer, then next session when we have more seats expand the targets. Face it that was what the Republicans did except they failed because the hard right wing of their party wouldn’t compromise. Don’t make the same mistakes that the hard-right made.
Just some thought from an older watcher of political ebb and flow. Take it as you wish.
