The political, social, and economic recall of popular leftist idealism has come full circle. The 2010 election was more than realignment, it was a swan song. That fateful November marked not just the end of the Southern Democrat, but also the continued destruction of Democratic strongholds in the Rust Belt. The heartland of the United States continues to bleed more and more red, but how? In the pursuit of intellectual, cultural, and social superiority, we Democrats have lost the men and women that we began our journey trying to protect. Auto, steel, and other mechanical manufacturing centers strain and collapse under the weight of stifling environmental regulation and taxation. The blue collar, Midwestern voter, which at one point exemplified what it meant to be a member of the Democratic Party, has been replaced by a Coastal Elitist. Where our focus should have been jobs, and the protection of vital American industries like steel and autos, we instead gutted our competitiveness with Free Trade Agreements and environmental standards that made it financially impossible to operate in the United States. Our heartland is slowly transforming into the dilapidated ruins of a once great nation, while our conservative rivals soak up the benefits of the information age and our fellow Democrats on the East and West coasts watch as what’s left of their share in the American economy jumps ship. 
For those with me on the left, the idea that blind taxation and regulation can somehow yield a prosperous economy and a voter friendly to our agenda must be stifled. Demanding equal burdens and fighting for our social safety net must go hand in hand with fostering a climate more conducive to business and manufacturing. We are a caucus of diversity, an organization of many factions, and embracing the difference over ideological purity is the true path to success.
The Manufacturing versus Environmentalism Battle
The vital fight for the life of the democratic party must come from within. Extremist environmentalists and others in the party, who have come into a leadership role in states like California and New York, have left nothing but economic devastation in their wake. The Leftist economic model is not wrong, but the model that these fringe idealists have set is. A Democratic party that sets its priorities in favor of American workers and Jobs over the demands of the environmental lobby is one that will win the votes of a great many of the blue collar defectors of 2010. 
The Ivory Tower of overregulation and “carbon taxes” must be brought down. A newly unemployed autoworker does not see the “X metric tons of carbon” that the tax that cost him his job prevented, all he sees is his family now without vital financial support. All of what was said above could be said by a John Boehner or even a Jason Chaffetz or Ron Paul, but the agenda items that will set us apart in the eyes of voters and lobbies alike should include our commitment to organized labor as well as to a strong entitlement spending base. Private sector unions need not be singing their swan song, and the rallying cries of school teachers, fire fighters, and other public employees in the Wisconsin union battles should stand testament to the still very robust showing of support that unions generate among blue collar workers. The time for draconian overregulation is over. New Democrats must strike the balance not between manufacturing and the environment, but between workers’ rights and manufacturing output.
Our Potential Allies on the Right
It does not take a political scientist to know that the George Bush model Republican is flirting with total annihilation. Every day, Speaker Boehner is thrust greater into circles of right-wing ideological insanity by the purists in his party. The paleoconservatives, like Ron Paul and Eric Cantor, have seized leadership positions held for decades by neoconservatives. Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and other more moderate Republicans who have not been as bull headed as their newly arrived Tea Party brethren see their existence threatened more and more by challenges from the right. Once our own house is in order, accommodating those Republicans who made programs like the Prescription Drug Plan a reality is vital to continuing our electoral survival. Neoconservatives know larger government is an inevitability, and adding their hawkish foreign policy view to the Democrat platform should not be difficult given the relative silence of the anti-war movement within the Party after the election of President Obama in 2008. Democrats would rather be in power and sell out their anti-war supporters than be out of power and hold true to a pseudo-idealism. For as long as I personally have been a Democrat, I have likewise supported a liberal interventionist foreign policy, and I think that the early widespread support for the War in Iraq and the ongoing support for the War in Afghanistan is testament to the views of the American people. To establishment Republicans, the invitation of friendship is looking nicer and nicer. Senate Minority Leader McConnel’s division with House Tea Party Republicans is testament to the growing divide between the establishment and fringe Republicans, and the decisive victory that Democrats pulled in the Payroll tax cut battle may soon be one of many as the divide grows larger. We have accommodated a caucus of fiscal conservatives in the Party since its founding, and in their wake reaching out to the remnants of the neoconservative movement may the best thing the Democratic Party ever did strategically.
Winning the “Drive for 25″
One year ago, Representative Steve Israel (D-NY) was discouraged, underfunded, and altogether unsure of how to lead his party out of what was starting to look like permanent minority status. On a large scale, Republicans controlled a redistricting throughout a great part of the United States, they controlled the political momentum and message, and they controlled the money game. Today, in spite of the Republicans’ redistricting edge, Democrats have held a lead in the RCP (Realclearpolitics) generic congressional ballot for months and the payroll tax battle is indicative of a new political message taking hold: the harms and reality of massive-scale income inequality. We can win back the House of Representatives and hold on to control of the Senate precisely if we continue to win the momentum and control the message. Yet we cannot win back our blue-collar base unless we settle matters at home first. Our flirtation with environmental elitism should have ended a decade ago. The Green crowd will vote Democrat no matter what we support, so long as we continue to remain “better than the other guys”, which truthfully is not hard at all. Our muscle, our voice, and our momentum can all be found in the hearts of those who supported us all along. Large-scale Unions are not a thing of the past, but the way of the future. Winning the message of 2012, fighting income inequality and saving our country from a decade of regression requires that we first find our true friends.
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