GIVEN MY LIBERAL ADVOCACY IN THIS SPACE AND ELSEWHERE, I should probably say a few words about the defeat of the Democrats in this year’s midterm elections.

Before I give some free advice to the Democrats — which may be worth no more than what I’m charging them for it — I’m a good enough sport to say congratulations to the Republican Party for an unassailable triumph. They won back the Senate in convincing fashion, and now have a large majority of state legislatures and governorships.

In the Senate, 2014 was always going to be a tough map for the Democratic Party because many more Democratic than Republican seats were up for re-election, with many of the Democrats having been elected in the Democratic wave year of 2008. Those seats in more conservative states that tend otherwise to vote Republican were always going to be vulnerable.

This does not, however, fully explain the scope of the Democrats’ defeat on Nov. 4. Reuters’ bleak summary:

“The Republican wave that hit the U.S. Congress in Tuesday’s midterm election also boosted the party in state races, where it gained control of 10 chambers and could be on track to holding the largest number of legislative seats since before the Great Depression.

“Democrats lost their majorities in the West Virginia House, Nevada Assembly and Senate, New Hampshire House, Minnesota House, New York Senate, Maine Senate, Colorado Senate, Washington Senate and New Mexico House to Republicans, who also won enough seats to tie control of the West Virginia Senate, the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) reported on Wednesday.

“‘Everyone knew it was a Republican year, but they really blew away expectations at the state legislative level,’ said Tim Storey, the bipartisan group’s election analyst.

“With Tuesday’s vote, Republicans took over the U.S. Senate, beefed up their majority in the U.S. House and won the governor’s office in several key states. The vote also increased the number of state legislative chambers with Republican majorities to 67 from 57.”

A similar pattern obtained during the presidency of the last two-term Democratic president, Bill Clinton. Clinton won a convincing victory in 1992, but two years later his party lost control of Congress as Newt Gingrich rode a Republican wave all the way to the speakership of the House of Representatives. It would be 14 years — in the wave election of 2006 — before the Democrats regained control of both houses of Congress.

All that aside, though, this year’s election convinced me of one essential and inescapable truth: The Democrats are a failing political party. They are failing because they are not representing a viable alternative to the Republican Party.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich correctly described the economic situation faced by working people in America:

“Jobs are coming back but wages aren’t. Every month the job numbers grow but the wage numbers go nowhere.

“Most new jobs are in part-time or low-paying positions. They pay less than the jobs lost in the Great Recession.

“This wageless recovery has been made all the worse because pay is less predictable than ever. Most Americans don’t know what they’ll be earning next year or even next month. Two-thirds are now living paycheck to paycheck.

“So why is this called a ‘recovery’ at all? Because, technically, the economy is growing. But almost all the gains from that growth are going to a small minority at the top.

“In fact, 100 percent of the gains have gone to the best-off 10 percent. Ninety-five percent have gone to the top 1 percent.”

The Democrats — and I’m speaking here of the apparatus of the party — are in a terrible bind. To represent a clear and convincing (and popular) alternative to the Republicans, they need to put forward a policy agenda — a vision, for lack of a better word — that will challenge the dominance of the people who finance the campaigns of both parties: Wall Street and the plutocracy.

What would that vision look like?

• Raise the minimum wage — substantially. This will add demand to the economy and lessen the desperation of millions of workers who have gone from barely getting by to life being more or less a constant economic emergency.

• Undertake a massive public works program. Repair and upgrade infrastructure across the country, which will have the immediate effect of putting idle workers to work and the long-term effect of setting the stage for future economic growth. Leaving aside the aesthetic quality of suburban development for the moment, it is obvious that in purely economic terms it was Eisenhower building the interstate highway system that set the stage for the development of suburbs across the country. Southampton would be impossible without I-780.

• Enact real tax reform. Structure the tax system so that it rewards work and penalizes idly sitting on piles of money and collecting interest. Have you built a factory employing people to make things? Great! Here’s a tax break. Are you spending your time sitting around coming up with exotic financial instruments that pose a threat to the entire financial system when everyone figures out that no one has any idea of what those exotic derivatives are actually worth? Uncle Sam has some bad news for you.

• Actively encourage the unionization of large swaths of the workforce. If you do not have the power to hire and fire workers, you ought to have a union negotiating on your behalf for a fair slice of the profits.

If the Democrats worked for even a fraction of the above, the situation of millions of workers would immediately and tangibly improve — conceivably setting the stage for decades of political dominance, as Democrats enjoyed for roughly 50 years after FDR was elected in 1932.

The thing standing between the Democrats and this future is the people who do the lion’s share of financing campaigns, Wall Street and business interests, because, it is true, business and Democrats’ interests are not always perfectly aligned.

Those of us who believe that a strong and activist federal government is the only institution capable of restoring justice and fairness to the economy need to admit, foremost to ourselves, that the job of changing this country for the better is in our hands, and not in the hands of the leadership of the Democratic Party. If reform happens, it will be because you and I insist on it in a way that can’t be denied or dismissed. We liberals are not busy enough. Not nearly.

Matt Talbot is a writer and poet, as well as an old Benicia hand. He works for a tech start-up in San Francisco.