Republicans As Populists- Democrats as Elitists?

The greatest myth is being perpetuated by the Republicans is that they are populists and the Democrats have done little to disuade the public otherwise. Republican tax cuts benefitted the top 1% of the population-which created the biggest budget deficit in history. The Republicans plan of deregulation of financial institutions led to the greatest global crisis since the great depression. Republican's started an unnecessary war in Iraq without raises taxes-the first time in history that a war was conducted without raising taxes. The soldiers of the war in Iraq were from a small part of the population. No draft..no shared sacrifice. No one at risk from the elites of our country. Republicans are for the elimination of the estate tax which effects less than 1% of the population. The party of "no" made it very clear that they are against the expantion of health care for 39,000,ooo Americans when 45,000 die each year for lack of health care.
While Republican decry that Democrats are tax and spend, Republicans are spend and not tax. This is populist? Now the Roberts Court (basically an extension of the Republican Party as Gore v Bush has shown) just overturned a 60 year ban on corporate spending on campaigns. Where are the Democrats on this? What are they doing to pull the curtain on what is really happening? Where is the fight by President Obama to stop trying to negotiate with people who have shown that they would like to see him fail no matter what the cost?
Where is the courage by the Democrats to let the Republicans fillibuster and let Americans know that they stand for nothing? Where is the courage to stand for something and at least if you lose,lose on principle. Rachel Maddow made a great point last night. Policies and politics are two different things but are intertwined. Politics is about winning elections (which is a lesson Al Gore forgot-another story) and policies is about governing and getting things done. If you have good policies, that wins elections. Democrats have to remember that they have a majority-a huge majority. This is not the time to withdraw and say poor me. In a democracy its 50 plus 1 to get things done. As all of us know growing up, the only way to deal with the school yard bully is to stand up and fight back.
Its time for Democrats to not worry about the next election and their jobs. If they don't do their job now, it won't matter anyway. Republican's as populists and Democrats as elitists? How did this happen?