The Progressive Populist Moment Has Arrived

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The good news is that the Democratic candidates have been ratifying a consciousness that Americans were deceived into invading Iraq, that the war itself is a many-sided blight on America's future, that Iraqi elections must be held quickly under international auspices, and that we need an exit strategy from quagmire.

None of these questions should muddle the fact that American politics is being realigned swiftly and unexpectedly in a progressive direction. On war and peace, jobs and trade, civil rights and civil liberties, and the environment, the Democratic Party is being shaped more by its own insurgent constituencies on the ground than by its internal leadership, consultants and pollsters, fundraising professionals, revolving-door law firms and their clientele.

Such a realignment was envisioned in the Port Huron Statement of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) when human hope was in the air 40 years ago. The early SDS strategy was that independent social movements (civil rights, students, peace and labor) could shape a progressive political majority, force white Southern conservatives from the party, and spark a new governing coalition in the tradition of the New Deal. Assassinations and the war in Vietnam ended those hopes. But now the same fault lines have appeared in American democracy once again, and those whose ideals were forged in the 1960s may have one last chance to, so to speak, accomplish their mission.

Tom Hayden writes on social movements and politics for AlterNet. He is an adjunct professor at Occidental College, a former California state senator, a six-time delegate to Democratic conventions, and a four-decade activist.

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