Progressives Coming Out

ITS CALLED THE "DEMOCRATIC PARTY", but conservatives, led by the nose by their guru Rush the Gush Limbaugh, have taken to calling it the "Democrat" party, as if doing so constitutes some greatly effective, immensely clever insult, the implication being that the party is not "democratic", presumably. Surely these master of insults could do better. These are exciting and interesting times for the more progressive wing of the American electorate, with a record number of candidates having already declared their intention of seeking the presidency, perhaps smelling the blood of a severely politically wounded incumbent demagogue with faltering approval ratings and a growing litany of corruption, dishonesty, self made enemies, and disastrous policies. I've been a Democrat all my increasingly long life, though I took what proved to be an ill advised detour in 1968, when Hubert H. Humphrey's incessant verbal assaults on Richard M. Nixon inspired my bleeding heart thirteen year old mentality to switch loyalties, and "vote" Nixon. I repeated the mistake in 1972, as high a school senior, but, looking back, Nixon was not altogether a bad president, and was in fact quite progressive as far as Republicans go. What's a little gangland style criminal corruption among friends? Humphrey, and several former presidents agreed at his funeral in 1978, would have made a great president, being exceptionally conversant with the mechanisms of the legislative process, as LBJ had been. It galls me to think that I passed on Humphrey only because of his acid tongue, and on George McGovern only due to blind, unreasoning loyalty to a crook in denial. Finally, a mere fifty years down the road, arrives my opportunity for atonement. Hillary Clinton was more moderate than liberal, a war hawk, and a corporate puppet, just like her husband, just like Obama, corporate property all. Bernie Sanders ignited the progressive instincts of the left wing, and quite likely would have won the nomination and the presidency had it not been for the nefarious machinations of Hillary Rodham and Donald J.Trumped Up. Trading on the Sanders legacy, it seems that every left winger in the party other than Bernie himself has already tossed a hat into the proverbial ring, or is expected to quite soon, in this era of never ending political campaigning. Oh my, how does one decide? The women, including African-Americans of the most impressive credentials, are out in force; registered to vote, running for office, ready for the fray, determined to excise the cancerous Trump movement from the political landscape. Kamala Harris has the early lead, by a large margin. So far no less than five United Stats Senators have declared, although historically the U.S. Senate is a poor platform from which to seek the presidency. it may be that the constant engagement by Senators in national and international issues tends to taint them with bad reputations and built in opposition before they ever get started. Governorships are better launch sites for presidential runs. More candidates are on the way. As many as thirty or forty democrats will end up in the early primaries a year from now, all having traversed back and forth across the country, stirring things up, getting their names into people's minds. and, most noticeable of all; most of them will be hard left liberals, with but a few moderates and no conservative in sight. Some might say this spells disaster for the Democrats; another theory is that the millennials are coming of political age, will soon be registering in record number, already outnumber eh dying baby boomers, and are, as a whole, very whole, and very conspicuously unaffiliated with hard right conservative evangelical Christianity, republican style.