I just put this up for future reference purposes. Lofgren, who describes himself as an Eisenhower/Reagan Republican, left the party to become an independendt. In this interview he isn't saying anything that anybody with a lick of sense doesn't know already, but here's the crux:
Bill Moyers: The title of your book is "The Party Is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy." How did Republicans go crazy?
Mike Lofgren: I think they went crazy when they started identifying Obama as the Antichrist.
Bill Moyers: Meaning?
Mike Lofgren: Meaning, "He's not a legitimate president. We must do everything we can to obstruct him."
Bill Moyers: The second subtitle, "The Party Is Over: Democrats Became Useless." How did Democrats become useless?
Mike Lofgren: I think they got complacent during the '60s, '70s, and '80s. And then finally after that period, they woke up, found they had lost three straight presidential elections. So they had to retool and make themselves more corporate friendly.
Bill Moyers: Corporate friendly?
Mike Lofgren: Absolutely. And it certainly helped Bill Clinton get elected. And while he did some good things like balancing the budget, he also unleashed Wall Street by repealing Glass-Steagall, and he signed bills that would end regulation on derivatives. So he is at least to some degree responsible for the Wall Street debacle.
Bill Moyers: And that's how, to quote a third of your subtitles, "The Middleclass Got Shafted"?
Mike Lofgren: Both parties don't really seem to care about having a vibrant manufacturing base in this country, regardless of their rhetoric. I remember throughout the '90s the Clinton administration was lobbying relentlessly for free trade deals. And the promise for each one was, it will bring jobs to America. And in every case, the jobs left.
And later:
Bill Moyers: But what do we do about it? Nothing seems to tame the power of money in politics.
Mike Lofgren: The only thing that will achieve it is fundamental political reform. And the only way you're going to get that is mass defection from the parties. Because the parties simply do not serve our interests anymore.
Is a third party is realistic as a solution? It happened before, of course, when the Republican party was formed from disaffected Whigs and anti-Slavery Democrats. Perhaps something similar could happen in which anti-corporate Dems join with sane Main Street Republicans like Lofgren (I know there are more like him out there).
In the meanwhile, the best approach is to get involved locally with the Dems and make sure the corporate types don't even get nominated.