A solidly Democratic New York, Connecticut and New Jersey have declined to take up single payer, and have also refused to pass legislation closing special “carried interest” tax loopholes that benefit a handful of Wall Street moguls. On the opposite coast, it is the same story. There is just one problem: Democrats are using their power to shut down single-payer legislation as they rake in big money from private insurance and drug companies. Considering that Canada’s healthcare system first began in its provinces, California would seem a perfect place to create the first such system in the United States. With healthcare premiums rising, polls show 70% of Americans support the creation of a government-sponsored healthcare system. Take California: a state where Democrats control the governorship, every state constitutional office and a legislative supermajority. Instead, though, liberal America has often produced something much different and less appealing: Democratic politicians who constantly echo courageous populist themes in speeches, news releases and election ads, and then often uses the party’s governmental power to protect the status quo and serve corporate donors in their interminable class war. Such an agenda in liberal America could rebrand the Democratic party as an entity that is actually serious about challenging the greed of the 1%, fighting corruption, and making day-to-day life better for the 99%.

Laws enacted in these locales can set national and global standards, and in the process, concretely illustrate a popular progressive agenda. These states, plus myriad cities under Democratic rule, collectively oversee one of the planet’s largest economies. Right now, there are eight blue states where Democrats control the governorship and the legislature, and five other blue states where Democrats have often had as much or more legislative power than Republicans. Dislodging those corporate Democrats, then, is not some counterproductive distraction – it is a critical front in the effort to actually make America great again.

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