Marc J. Dunkelman

So the thing that I want those of us on the left to think about is the degree to which our primary zeitgeist for the last 50 years has been to speak truth to power.

We see big institutions, we see powerful people, and our instinct is to say, there's something wrong there, they'll do something wrong, they're somehow smooshing little people, and we need to, out with the bad things they're doing, figure it out, call it out, stop it.

And that is largely at odds with what progressivism began

As a mission, which was how do we create big, powerful institutions that will do big things for people who can't do for themselves?

Those are two totally different missions.

And Trump...

has come into office and he's got control over this huge bureaucracy and he's done things with it.

Like, you know, the sort of the quintessential thing just to, it's not the most important thing that he's done.

It's not something that I particularly like, but he just knocked down the east wing of the White House.

He just did it.

And that is sort of a powerful example of a guy who sort of said, I'm not going to go through the process.

I'm not going to bow to the whims of all the boxes I need to check, all the T's I need to cross, all the I's I need to dot.

I'm just going to do things.

that progressives in many cases don't think to do.

I think that in order for us to be popular again, we need to show that government can work.

I think we are already, by default, the party of government.

Our movement is the one that wants government to work.

And so that if we're going to try to

glean a mandate from the people, we need to make government work in the first place.

And that means that they need to have a sense that when they want things to be done, government is going to actually deliver.