(edited, from a comment bslev requested that I post as a blog)

Ok, that sounds good.

How about a large public jobs bill, focusing on (green, of course) infrastructure upgrades, to reposition our country to better compete globally going forward, as a key peg? 

I'll back up a bit.

It seems to me that our financial system, as currently structured and operating, is functioning as something of an inexorable national suicide machine, in at least two respects:

*The financial elites and their implementers now, to the extent they think about the existence or lack thereof of middle class, living wage US jobs, think of them as a cost, to be hacked away at it in the service of a better profit picture and stock values.  This is not because they are bad people.  Of course, some have engaged in illegality and other acts which have brought the Street into widespread disrepute of late.  But mainly they are doing what the system we have now is set up to have them do. 

*The financial elites have not yet, and very possibly, it appears, will not, see the need for external government, as opposed to internal only, regulation. In fact, they appear all to willing to resist such efforts, knowing the national Republican Party will exercise no independent judgment whatsoever on what is necessary but will bow in obeisance to the Street's organized power. Alas, too many of today's Democrats will compete with them to do likewise.

None of this should be particularly surprising: people doing their jobs, preferring self to external supervision and regulation, and, yes, aggrandizing power, because they can.  

While there is much anger, it is not yet being manifested in ways that are visible, focused, and likely to be effective in the service of making necessary reforms.

So it is difficult for anyone trying to see the world clearly how this ends, and where.  

Missing right now, it seems to me, is the movement, or movements.

US history is laden with amazing, against-all-odds victories for progressives against heavily entrenched power and/or societal mores. Few of them took place overnight and as a direct result of elections.

In addition to the movement, missing as well is a vision for the future that has wide buy-in throughout our society.

What we have are essentially two teams. In one corner, weighing in at the proverbial 800 pounds, is the Wall Street/financial sector team which is dedicated to producing profits and high stock values regardless of consequence to the US middle class job base, and has enormous resources and an extremely well-organized lobby at its behest.

In the other corner, weighing in at the proverbial 98 pounds, are ordinary American middle class people, entirely at this point unorganized politically (no movement), who are seeing their jobs disappear, their compensation gradually gutted, or both, and have no vision as to how and where this ends, other than in someplace bad. Thus the widespread anxiety and fear, so far unfocused into a movement for addressing it.

As for the politicians, who are supposed to be the referees, well, we have one entire political party rubbing down that guerilla, offering him advice, motivation, and encouragement.  The other political party has a few brave souls in the corner of the 98 pound weakling, looking out to the crowd, hoping, desperately hoping, that some potentially competitive opponent will jump into the ring and give them a new client.  

As the very sharp co-authors of this week's book discussion, on authoritarianism and polarization in American politics suggest, most citizens who are non-authoritarian in their world views are Democrats. We, for I am one of them, were brought up to believe in thinking for ourselves and to be skeptical towards, if not resistant to, falling in line.

Very often that serves us well, especially as individuals. But it presents inordinate barriers to organizing and building mass movements. Which is in line with your comment, bslev, opining that what many on the left are good for is mainly kvetching and lamenting. (Nathan Newman's front page cafe post, on the positive achievements so far under the Administration, is must-reading as a brave attempt at a corrective. We'll see how many recommends and comments it receives.)  There are a lot of workhorses on the left.  But I know what you are saying. 

One notable exception, the civil rights movement, which moved mountains, was led by African Americans, who, according to the data of the book discussion authors, score on the higher end of the authoritarianism measures they use. This surely facilitated the building of the movement that, well, moved things in our society.

Am I suggesting some of us opt for a personality transplant and adopt an authoritarianism disposition?  Hardly, even if that were possible.  Well I am posing as a question, I suppose, whether on our side we need more good followers. 

Garry Wills wrote a book on leadership in which he noted that there are no leaders without followers.  Effective followership in not at all passive or mindless.  Quite the contrary.  And there is no bright line between formal leadership and followership.  Followers are often leaders, essential ones at that, without whom movements simply never take off.  And leaders, good ones, know they need to follow sometimes people who are lower than them on the org chart. 

Look at any successful social/political movement and you will find great followers who are also, contrary to what the history books tell us, exceptional leaders in their own right. 

For any wondering, I am not an aspiring formal leader.  Just a progressive thinking about how our side might be more effective, wondering how the energy and the power that is there in peoples' hearts and minds might be harnessed to take on, with greater effectiveness, some of the juggernauts who see little or no need for change. 

I am certainly wrestling with these questions myself and have no simple "solutions" to offer.  I mean to invite others who have thoughts on this to offer theirs as well.