Jon, I enjoy your thoughtful posts to this list, and this one is no exception. One may want to ask, however, why there isn't enough of a progressive climate of opinion in this country? I do not think that it is a coincidence that the US is perhaps the second (after Nazism) most reactionary force in the modern times hiding under the veneer of hollow democratic slogans.
One can think of many causes of that situation, but the root of them seems to be grounded in the unusual power of business, which by its very nature is anti-democratic. In fact, the grip of business interests on every aspect of life in this country is so thorough, that most citizens can be with reasonable certainty expected to support business interests without any over coercion, even if such interest conflict with those of their own. That is why the US can maintain a façade of democracy - but if any serious challenge to business interests emerges, this country will be transformed into an overt police state virtually overnight.
One may further inquire what factors let to such unusual concentration of business power in the US. One of my prime suspects is the fragmentation and compartmentalization of the US society along racial, ethnic, religious and geographic lines. While peons were fighting amongst themselves who can use which drinking fountain or who can have sex with whom, the business leaders worked hard to consolidate their power.
Another prime suspect is the political organization that facilitates fragmentation. This includes the winner takes all voting system and gerrymandering, but also the federal structure that severely restricts if not altogether eliminates the sovereignty of the individual states. From the big business point of view, it is much easier to capture the federal government and use its power to advance business interests in individual states than do so on the state-by-state basis. State politics are by nature more susceptible to popular influences than the federal entity, mainly because only big centralized organizations have sufficient resources to influence the federal entity.
So if anyone is serious about reforming this country, the place to start is re-gaining the sovereignty of individual states and reducing the federal entity to a handful of agencies charged mainly with economic and scientific data collection. Anything that brings us closer to that goal should be high on the agenda of those who place themselves left of the center. An interesting twist is that many right wingers will also support that goal - which makes it look like a real possibility.
Wojtek