Opinion: The Democratic Party has failed Progressive voters

The American two-party system has allowed for the creation of only two vaguely distinct political parties, both controlled by corporate interests.

Opensecrets.org provides a list of corporations and special interest groups who have donated to the Democratic and Republican parties. In total, $1,682,370,381 was spent in the 2016 election cycle alone.

Some Democrats run campaigns based on getting money out of politics, and while simultaneously pocketing millions from special interests.

Hillary Clinton, despite having higher “strongly unfavorable” ratings than any other presidential candidate from the last ten election cycles, was still chosen by the Democratic National Committee to be the party nominee.

The DNC did this while knowing that Hillary Clinton received millions of dollars in donations from governments all over the world, even ones that systemically kill gay people, according to Politifact.

The DNC did so, knowing that Clinton had a history of supporting laws that disproportionally negatively affect black and poor communities. According to The Washington Post, mandatory minimum sentencing laws oppress people of color by contributing to mass incarceration.

Even Senator Bernie Sanders, the new progressive face of the Democratic Party, voted for the same bill in 1994, again according to The Washington Post.

How are people of color supposed to be represented by the Democratic Party at all if both of the nominees have supported discriminatory legislation?

A few short months ago, however, Sanders was polling better than Clinton in literally every poll against Trump, according to Politifact.com.

Instead, the Democratic insiders decided to nominate a moderate candidate with a very problematic history full of political baggage, appearing to not care about what would be in the best interest of the party’s supporter base in favor of propping up their preferred candidate in the face of a underestimated opponent.

The Democrats lost the election by prioritizing the elite over the oppressed — but Democratic failures don’t stop there.

Just last month, 13 Democrats joined with Republicans in Congress to block a bill that would significantly reduce the cost of medicines, according to Raw Story.

Ironic, considering that these representatives were elected on a party platform that “fights for economic fairness,” according to the official Democratic Party Platform. I guess affordable medicine doesn’t fall under the category of what is worth fighting for.

In the meantime, three members of the Democratic Party voted to appoint Rex Tillerson as Sectary of State, according to The New York Times. Tillerson is the CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp., the largest publicly traded oil company in the world. Economic fairness must mean something very different to top Democratic leaders than it does to me.

All in all, the Democratic Party leaves much to be desired, but the Liberal base in this country seems to idealize some Democrats, which is dangerous since they are rarely, if ever, held accountable.

Beloved President Barack Obama, for example, has deported more undocumented immigrants than any other president in U.S. history, according to the Pew Research Center. According to the Guardian, the United States government dropped 26,171 bombs in 2016 under his watch. If I’m not mistaken, there was not any widespread outcry to either of these realizations.

This rate of aggressive military action is what happens when Progressives go to sleep, and the elitist, corporatist, Neo-Liberals control the “party of the people” and large portions of the mainstream media.

We need parties built for all people, not ones built on foundations of deception, elitism and big money.