We need a radical left.

LEFT-wing extremists; RIGHT & left (Political science); SOCIAL movements; PRACTICAL politics; SOCIAL theory

Leftists are successful when they refuse to think in terms of compromise with majority sentiments and stake out radical alternatives that generate their own support by creating social movements in their wake. Yet at the same time, the left has contributed to its current weakness by "failing to unite around economic issues of fairness that join together the interests of all but the wealthiest Americans." The cultural left has given left politics a bad name because of its divisive obsession with race and sex, its arcane "elitist" battles over curriculum, its penchant for pointy-headed social theory and its aversion to the socially and sexually conservative values most Americans uphold.