The Democratic Party is awful and is a huge barrier to any sort of leftward shift, but I think you could write an equally valid criticism of any other strategy for moving leftwards. For example,
In 2020 only 6.3% of private-sector workers (and just 10.8% of all workers) were unionized. Between the rise of gig work, remote work, and new worker surveillance methods, it's harder than ever for workers to organize. When they do organize, the legal protections they're afforded have been steadily rolled back from their high-water mark in the 1930s. Even when unions were at their strongest -- 35% of the U.S. workforce was unionized in 1954 -- the best they could do was a limited form of social democracy.
Everything is a long-shot option. There are institutional barriers everywhere; there's no single strategy that's even more likely than not to lead to success. Writing off one strategy because it has a low chance of success has never been persuasive to me because that would mean writing off everything.
To me, this suggests that we should be trying all of these strategies. Make advances where we can, because a step forward in one area can open up additional room for movement in another, and vice versa. There's no reason to write off one strategy when our other options aren't any better, and when we don't know what will work in the first place.
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The Democratic Party is awful and is a huge barrier to any sort of leftward shift, but I think you could write an equally valid criticism of any other strategy for moving leftwards. For example,
Everything is a long-shot option. There are institutional barriers everywhere; there's no single strategy that's even more likely than not to lead to success. Writing off one strategy because it has a low chance of success has never been persuasive to me because that would mean writing off everything.
To me, this suggests that we should be trying all of these strategies. Make advances where we can, because a step forward in one area can open up additional room for movement in another, and vice versa. There's no reason to write off one strategy when our other options aren't any better, and when we don't know what will work in the first place.