Democrats, Nader argues, must “crack down on corporate crime” and fight for a living wage and Medicare for All if they hope to defeat GOP in 2018 and beyond

If Democrats are wondering why they lost to reality television star Donald Trump and the deeply unpopular GOP in the 2016 elections—and why their advantage in 2018 polling continues to slip—longtime consumer advocate Ralph Nader argues the party must stop searching for scapegoats and start fighting for a bold and progressive agenda.

With a rare invitation to appear on cable news, Nader told MSNBC host Ari Melber, Nader said that instead of blaming third party candidates like himself and other external factors for losses that resulted from their own incompetence and inability to articulate an inspiring platform, Democrats must embrace widely popular ideas like Medicare for All and a living wage if they are to oust the “corporate indentured” Republican Party.

“I think the Democratic Party should take the third party agenda away from it. They should have a living wage, crack down on corporate crime, full Medicare for All,” Nader toldMelber. “Democratic Party: stop scapegoating, look in the mirror, and ask yourself why you cannot landslide the worst, the most ignorant, the most corporate indentured, the cruelest Republican Party in history. Look in the mirror.”

This blunt advice from the veteran progressive champion and politician comes as a new CNN poll finds that the Democratic Party’s “2018 advantage is nearly gone,” bolstering Nader’s recent argument on the “Intercepted” podcast that the Democrats’ efforts to both blame others for their losses and stamp out “any kind of insurgent effort like Bernie Sanders” has rendered their party “sick,” “decrepit,” and unable to effectively “defend the United States of America against the worst Republican Party in history.”

As Norman Solomon, in a column for Common Dreams, noted on Thursday, the latest alarming CNN survey, “comes on the heels of other grim national polling. Released last week, a Reuters poll concluded that ‘enthusiasm for the Democratic Party is waning among millennials.'”

With so many voters, both inside and outside the official ranks of the party yearning for a bolder and more visionary progressive agenda, writes Solomon, it should be a serious concern that the Democratic Party remains largely “dominated by elected officials and power brokers who appear to be deeply worried that a future progressive upsurge of political engagement could loosen—or even end—their corporate-funded grip on the party.”

Posted with permission by Common Dreams