Thanks for proving my point. Obama is the quintessential example of failing to effect change. He was a bland centrist who never did go to bat for the ideas he ran on. For instance, he abandoned the public option before health care negotiation even started. Now, people are required to buy products from the private health insurance industry, and with out of pocket costs for most plans under-insurance is as much of a problem as it ever was. Then there is the FACT that Democrats have been taking corporate money and shorting the middle class for a generation. Incrementalism wasn’t something we needed to rely on when we were giving the wealthy everything they wanted in the 80s,90s, and 00s. The double standard for responsiveness to the public’s needs is sickening.

You’re the one using a straw man. None of us object to compromise, what we object to is a supposedly progressive political party that hasn’t tried to stand up to the middle class for a generation, and has often aided in its decline. When I object to the Clintons supporting free trade, it’s not because I’m dissatisfied that they aren’t being liberal enough or “bringing progress” fast enough, it’s because I have serious objections to them moving us in the wrong direction. The Democratic Party isn’t too centrist for Bernie supporters it’s too right wing.

Your whole argument is based around the idea of lowering standards, lowering expectations, rationalizing the failure to try. You’re either not paying enough attention to notice what’s really going on in this country, or you know exactly what I’m talking about and are using an intellectually dishonest talking point to belittle progressives’ dissatisfaction at being abandoned by the political process. Either way, we’re done here.