As the Tea Party is to the Old Guard Republican power elite in business circles, so the Progressive wing is to Old Guard labor and liberal interest group power elites. Obama and his burocrats now see Progressives as the spoilers of their control of the White House and Congress and not their source of ideals and democratic values that shapes their policy agendas.

Tea Party extremists are pursuing their negative agendas by taking over the Republican Party and installing their rigid, ideological values in a “Damn the Country and the People. We’ll take the country down if we don’t get our way” approach to government.

How should Progressives deal with being labeled as ”extremist” within the Democratic Party?

For one thing, the Progressive Wing needs an organization and instrument to articulate its alternative vision and ideals separate from the Obama White House and the Democratic Party establishment. Our voices are being drowned out by our own White House’s demand that we back it or else the Tea Party will take over.

Second, while the Tea Party has chosen a negative approach to its campaign to change America, using anger, violence, racism, class-warfare, a right-wing ideology very close to social anarchism, and fundamentalist religiosity, Progressives need to articulate a vision that lifts people up, holds up higher values such as cooperation, compassion, and common cause. Progressives should avoid rigid ideologies…in fact, avoid ideology at all…and advocate practical and simple approaches to dealing with the consequences of predatory capitalism in America and the world.

There is no need to advocate socialistic approaches to solving problems, but there is a need for Americans to recognize that corporate dominance of the political process in America, the law making function in congress, and the Supreme Court have corrupted the American political model. And the people are not going to change that. The fear left in the wake of 9/11, the war mentality of so much of the American political body, the paranoia about losing jobs, homes, and lives has put democratic ideals and the concept of equality and justice in jeopardy in this country. The people are choosing security now over their own rights under the Bill of Rights.

So what might Progressives do in this upcoming election. My own answer is to refuse to participate. Obama is recognizably not the answer for America’s future. He has lost the heart and trust of liberal and progressive America, and he has failed on so many counts that he cannot be trusted any more. To put him back in the White House again compounds the problem he has created through his own lack of leadership and backbone.

So where does that leave Progressive America. Propose in the Democratic primaries a Progressive Alternative and Vision to the Obama White House, arguing that Obama can no longer be trusted to fulfill his promises nor to follow liberal or progressive values. A whole new leadership team is needed. The old one has lost the trust of too many of us.

There is a probability that Obama will lose the coming election anyway due to his incompetence with the economy. If Progressives already feel Obama cannot be trusted, why support him? The biggest enemies the Tea Party and Wealthy Elite Republican Party have is themselves…their intolerance, arrogance, ignorance, naivete, ideological extremism and meanness will do them in. Let them take the White House and the resulting chaos and destruction of the middle class in the United States and loss of trust internationally will make them a one-term winner…just as Obama’s incompetence has done to the democratic party. If America can survive 8 years of the Bush Administrative, and endure the tragedy of the current administration, it can survive a lesson in more right-wing political values from the Tea Party and its cronies running for President or Congress.

There is such a crying need for a new politics in America…not only for domestic political processes but for international policy as well. If we don’t find that new way, the future does not look promising. My only question is, “Will the progressive wing of the old party of democracy, high ideals, and common cause be the source of this new politics or the victim of the old politics?” Will the politics of extremism take us down as it did the Soviet Union or the old Weimar Republic of Germany? Or might a phoenix rise from the ashes of the failure of the old politics and bring a better alternative for America?