This is a comment I wrote in response to the OP, dmalrajab in the diary ‘How to make the Dem party realise I won’t vote for a centrist?’
I was an Independent for a long time. I realized that no matter how bad it gets in this party the Republicans are simply dangerous. They were looking pretty fascist in 2003 & 04 and today it's far worse. I saw the failures of the Democratic party clearly enough and yet they are the only game in town when it comes to stopping the Republicans. I realized that standing outside of the party and shaking my fist at them for not being more progressive is as good a stance as yelling at clouds. I also realized that after what is now the better part of 250 years there will be no alternative 3rd party to rise up in the near future, perhaps even our country's far future, that will be able to do what only Democrats can do now. No other progressive liberal party is able to deliver on anything politically or culturally. Most Independents are unaffiliated without a party and don't speak as a body.
So I helped campaign for the Democrats and John Kerry even still as an Independent. Oddly it was his loss and the failure of the Democratic party to upend the George W Bush administration and Republican Congress which pushed me into the Democratic party. Because, enough of that kind of incompetence. Screw that crap, I decided to Occupy before Occupy was a thing because inside the party I had my small bit I could do to help change the party. The simple weight of encouraging or even criticizing Democrats as one of them has value. As a Democrat it gives me that small bit of authority to try and make changes.
And guess what? Since that time the party has been edging back leftwards bit by bit until we're on the cusp of several progressive breakthroughs. Our opportunities have not been better for dozens of years. I also learned some history of this party I joined. It was never perfect but from the early 1930’s until the end of the 1960’s it accomplished amazing things. Programs that used to stand the test of time, not been struggling since being enacted to survive as today under the GOP because we’ve lost our edge. I keep arguing that we were a progressive worker's party which by today's standards qualified as pretty socialistic, certainly a party that heavily regulated corporations and banks compared to today's standards. More in any one of four decades than we have since Reagan.
Protecting workers and growing our country's social justice and wages, benefits, and modernizing our commonwealth and standards of living. Did you know we kept Republicans from holding a single majority in Congress, both Houses, for nearly 50 years because Democrats were so effective? We also kept them out of the White House most of the time before Reagan? They had to be sufficiently liberal enough to acquire that seat. By today's standards Eisenhower was a far left Republican even though he considered himself a moderate. And now, now we are in reach of getting back to using that template. And possibly improving it in ways people's grandparents and great-grandparents wouldn't believed if we also cling to lessons learned from any of the failures of that era.
I knew from the start that Obama wasn't a progressive. I anguished over him not taking down big banks and going all FDR in early 2009 which would have not only ended the great recession earlier as witnessed by FDR and his cousin Teddy. I believe his presidency would have been far more effective. I also think it would have ultimately broken the back of the Republican party if we restored mortgages instead of mega-banks. And could have killed off the nascent Tea Bagger movement which formed over anger at Republicans for giving tax money to the big banks. 2010 could have been a very different election year if he'd done what would have been popular in general and expected by Democrats in the past. What if we'd turned some of their anger against Republicans to our advantage? Dick Armey may have never been able to weaponize them. I voted for Barack Obama twice anyway. Despite my disdain for all the damage the Clinton’s did to the party and its progressivism as I watched from outside, I voted for Hillary. And if I have to vote for weak tea like Joe Biden I will do that too.
But I'm going to fight for a return to Green New Deal politics and principals to try to start crossing some finish lines for the win (here's a hint — we need both Sanders and Warren and AOC and her freshman associates with their plans, policy proposals and progressive vision at the top of the party's power structure in the White House and Senate and House of Representatives. to ever have a chance at finally overturning Republican dominance of our political system and culture). Working with all the other presidential candidates that we have who pull for this side that I bet you and I are both on. And there are quite a few who would be helpful. Progressive has gone from an insult here to what you likely run on. Because it worked so well before. Unquestionably.
I'm staying here until that leftwards momentum starts moving like a freight train. If you live in a state where you cannot vote for a Democrat when the primaries come I think you ought to re-register. I am staying here to fight to make it a welcoming and safe place for liberal Independents who start to realize they throw their political power away by not engaging as Democrats. I see more of my fellow Democrats figuring it out as well that moving left is our best solution. I want to grow this party. I want us to repeat history. Because you'll never have any kind of progressive America until the current Republican party is heavily beaten down election after election after election. Until their Neocons and Tea Partiers, libertarians and Trumpistas have nowhere else to go but into their own 3rd party irrelevancy.
If you don't help with that then you're just trolling us. Help us. The difference is if you are a Democrat you get to talk with them as equals in their eyes. Because you also put your squiggle on the paper I guess and then if you speak up & participate a little more Dems come on board. We need people coming in not leaving. Don't recreate the wheel. Put what's probably more than half of the party who agree with you into the driver's seat behind the wheel of this vehicle already is in motion. You can't do that from outside. Not as efficiently. Maybe never. The people who agree with you in the party need more voices, not fewer. I say rejoin and bring a couple of people with you.
Then we have a good chance at a progressive America.