The primary way to get progressive change done in the United States is through influence w/in the Democratic party. I'm not saying "bend the knee," nor am I saying progressive people have to be happy about it, I'm just saying it's the way it is.

Small-d democracy will never be anyone's fantasy land. You can bemoan the 2-party system & the fact that you have to build coalitions w/ the center-left/moderates, but it's also the case that such coalitions must be built in multi-party systems-just at a diff stage of the process

In a proportional system, if a left party won 20% of the vote, they would have a choice of who to build a coalition with. Typically, that would be the center-left. Such a coalition would involve compromise.

In cases where the far Left acted intractable and unwilling to compromise, the center-left might be forced to build a coalition w/ mods or conservatives, etc. This would be a bad outcome for the far Left

You have to exert influence where you can. You should never cede influence

In our country, w/out proportional representation, coalition-building happens at different (earlier) stages of the political process. If you remove yourself from this process, you are removing your influence.

Luckily for progressives, the Democratic party has been consistently moving in a more progressive direction. And I think that will continue no matter what different "progressive" groups declare about their voting intentions.

I will say that it is baffling to me that, in the face of *some* compromise, prog groups are simply declaring themselves to be not-gettable-votes. As such, they're not just attacking the primary avenue through which they can exert influence, they're ceding considerable ground.

Again, luckily, the gettable votes for Democrats from the moderate side seem to be moving towards the center-left, rather than the Dems triangulating towards the center. I still don't understand why progressives would want to cede ground in this process.