What are the PROBLEMS Populists want to fix?

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13. Hear! Hear!

Electing more progressive Democrats isn't the solution if being "progressive" means reverting to the policies of 80 years ago. We need genuinely new ideas.

I'd also point out that the New Deal wouldn't have been possible if there hadn't been people to the left of the two-party system. The socialists and others served as a source of ideas for Democratic progressives -- and also as a club that Roosevelt could use to intimidate the establishment by pointing out what they might be facing if they didn't accept the New Deal.

These days, the Republicans seem to be on generally good terms with the extreme right -- to the point where ideas that were once limited to the John Birch Society have now become mainstream GOP doctrine. But at the same time, the Democrats have been cowed into denying, running away from, and twisting themselves into pretzels in an effort to avoid being identified with the "extreme" left (as if there even was such a thing any more.)

So part of what's needed to create a genuinely progressive movement within the Democratic Party is to find people who who are willing to look outside the party and entertain ideas that have been beyond the pale.