On the question of a left politics in America today

Comment published on New York Times online blog in response to op-ed article,"The pragmatic left is winning," 8/10/18:

What the left needs is political organizations that are like the left-wing parties in days of yore: Running candidates but not as the sole or even main focus of their activities. They can organize people in lots of other ways to do many things. The left historically had trouble with elections, but to the question, work within the government or outside it?, the only answer is: yes. The DSA is the organization that is now best positioned in this regard. They are both a faction of the Democratic Party and a separate entity that does not depend on it. This also enables getting around somewhat the absence of a multiparty system guaranteeing minor parties representation.  

Any left worth its name will not take existing debates among politicians and mainstream media as setting the agenda. Liberal Democrats do that, and this ties them to less important matters as they market themselves as nothing more than the anti-Republicans. The Democratic Party lost its dependence on a formerly left-of-center labor movement, and it chose to embrace both cultural issues appealing to rich urban liberals and identity politics, making itself in theory the coalition of all the disadvantaged groups. But this is corporate liberalism: inclusion and bans on insults. This politics failed.

The left must be inventive as well as pragmatic, and it should draw freely on political thought in Europe and elsewhere. If "there is no alternative," as Thatcher said, we must construct one.