A few links could not possibly address the question of whether Democrats are "bashed" more than Republicans here.

One would have to take every DU post that "bashes" anyone and then break them all down by party.

you know...science.

No surprises there.
What I bash is when democrats act like Republicans.
Can't march in lockstep like a Freeper or a faux viewer, cheerlead no matter what.

number of Democrats who embrace and promote Republican policies - too many of them.

Discuss.

Are "Democrats" getting bashed or just DLCers?

to any registered Democrat a person doesn't like.

it closed up shop after its victory in 2008. Now that the DNC IS the DLC there is no longer a need for a separate DLC.

I'll believe it is extinct when Democratic politicians stop promoting what USED to be Republican economic policies.

You know, like Obama proposing tax reform with one of his leading principles being - "lower tax rates"

Apparently we are all Reaganites now.

The DLC went out of business because no one wanted to be associated with it.

A DLCer was elected President, pushing DLC policies from the bully pulpit and a DLCer - Tim Kaine was appointed to the head of the DNC. Making the DLC doubly redundant. But their policies are still here and still being embraced by all too many supposed Democrats. And those policies and the Quisling sell outs who embrace them are sill hated by self styled progressives and liberals as well as the far left, which is a tiny minority in this country, but less so on the web.

long term members that are Democrats to the hilt for disagreeing with Obama. If one can't have a discussion with fellow members of the Democratic party about where the party is going, be critical when it is due, and have a frank discussion without resorting to accusations of attrition to the party, then it's pretty clear that it is rowing against a whirlpool for anything to move forward.

I would think "Obama was never DLC" would be a fairly inoffensive comment.

and pretending he isn't is an insult to the intelligence of just about everyone here.

People that voted for him can disagree with him. They don't have to be characterized as Paulites, Alex Jones fanatics or followers of the latest whack-a-doodle.

And you aren't some pathetic little victim for defending Obama, no matter how much you might like to paint it.

You are absolutely, positively, 100% right on.

He was supposed to be significantly to the left of Clinton. That's why the left blogosphere got behind him so strongly. Yet once he was elected - his cabinet and his rhetoric all slid right into the DLC groove. We the gullible voters thought he wasn't a DLCer, but his record after the election proves we were duped in that regard. The DLC - they knew better.

But I said very early that Obama was talking like a 3rd wayer - distancing himself from the left.

on foreign policy.

He won the primary because everyone else had supported the Iraq war except for ... Kucinich.

Obama attacked Clinton in the name of the middle class. http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2618869

It was not all about the war. In the begining, Edwards supporters, including myself, dominated DU. This, in spite of the fact that Edwards voted for the war. When Edwards dropped out, many of us switched to Obama. But the war was never the only reason to oppose Clinton. There was also NAFTA, Glass-Steagal, the Clinton tax cuts of 1997, the end of welfare as we know it, the era of big government is over, etc., etc., etc. and for me, Clinton's constant pushing of tax credits for the upper middle class and the rich.

DU was never representative of Democratic primary voters.

'If you criticize Obama you support Ron Paul and Alex Jones'.

and this whole "you are a Paulite" shit needs to stop. It's insulting that you can't even have a conversation without someone screaming that you are a lunatic, Ron Paul racist in the vein of Alex Jones.

It's offensive.

stop calling people "Ron Paul" advocates when we disagree with them, too? Because I'm just as sick of that as you are of DLC, apparently.

today. FYI.

with a wide-swath insult every person on DU because someone is on here liking Gary Johnson? I only know who he is because I study politics. I doubt even a micron of a percentage of American voters know who he is. That doesn't give me an allowance to insult Democratic voters that both worked to get Democrats elected, but criticize them when they don't act like Democratic public servants.

What gives folks on a Democratic message board the right to insult, defame and ridicule other Democratic voters because they hold their Democratic politician's feet to the flames? That is what is has come to. You either adore without caution or scrutiny, President Obama, or you are not a true Democrat.

Not a true Scotsman. I reject that simplicity.

in bad faith.

when it is lodged at every single person on DU that disagrees with anything President Obama does.

I say that many have been using such a charge in bad faith. I'm a Democrat. I've seen such a charge - the old "you wanted a pony" charge - being lodged at a lot of faithful Democrats.

I reject that.

including by you. You are a solid member, GT, and I agree with you on a lot of issues, but when it comes to defending everything our Democratic leader does, you have a blind spot. At least you are respectful about it, though, unlike others that attempt to label anyone that disagrees as an Alex Jones fetishist, a Ron Paulite or a Gary John...

Hmm.

comes with the territory.

of attacking people when you do it.

We all have blind spots. It is helpful to recognize them. I have mine. I'm no different.

His guilty conscience is getting the better of him imo.

Mr. From said that with the group's C.E.O., Bruce Reed, joining the Obama administration's debt commission last spring, the board of directors had decided to suspend operations.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D06E2DE1030F93BA35751C0A9679D8B63

That is the problem - Not enough Democrats that legislate like Democrats. Period.

Talk about seeing only the downside.

one huge downside - the bulk of the Bush tax cuts being made permanent, happens to be very, very, very important to me.

I've been fighting the Bush tax cuts since about September 1999 or whenever they were first proposed. I happen to think they were very bad for the country. I also happen to think that making most of them permanent is also very bad for the country.

So, yeah, the downside kinda sticks in my craw.

some here will not STAND for it! They love them some knee jerking!

I gave up talking about them long ago. When we were told to just, 'move on and forget about the past'.

The perfect is the enemy of the good for those that *aren't* ideologues.

The problem comes in when you have a party that is too cowed to advocate for any kind of good. We might all strain for perfect, but when all you have is mud in your hands, that's not exactly straining.

To the Greenwalds and Naders of the world, not solving everything at once makes you part of the problem. Improving the system makes you part of the problem, because it extends the system's life.

The average of good and bad is mediocre at best.
The average of mediocre and bad is bad.
Compromise is me saying 10 and you saying 5 so we agree on 7. Capitulation is me saying 10 and you saying numbers don't exist, so we don't just don't count.

Setting that aside. We have a Democratic President and Senate. The party in power ALWAYS gets more criticism. When bush was president, your OP would be wrong and meaningless.

attacking other Republicans, or attacking Democrats?

The party in power is where the majority of people focus their attention, and for good reason.

attention.

How many Republicans are high officials in the Obama administration?

term, as was Gates.

Bush had some token Democrats as well.

It's an annoying tradition started by Clinton.

I'll check back.

Though the undersecs aren't cabinet level.

at any given time. IIRC Obama early on had 3 but gave up on that quickly

Fixed!

that the small minority here who consistently defend Bush Policies for some reason.

What I see is how DIFFERENT DU/Democrats are from Freepers. They do not march in lockstep and support bad policies, the way Freepers did (and we used to trash them for that remember, or maybe you don't).

I'm very proud of being a Democrat, not a Feeper.

Blind loyalty and Progressive Democrats do not mix, thankfully.

Very proud of DU lately. I never thought we would have the problem of having to show how different we are from Freepers, but it's politics, so I should not have been so confident that our party would never do something I would disagree with. And I am proud to discover that most Democrats have not allowed the 'my party right or wrong' desease to infect them. This way we make a better Party.

Surely you are not advocating that we become Freeper-like in our 'loyalty' to the team are you?

maybe FreeRepublic is the wrong comparison.

you lose credibility. It's offensive, and you should stop doing it, because it doesn't reflect well on the site or upon yourself.

win an electoral vote or a percentage above 2 outside their own batshit crazy right wing districts. They like to build up the idea that Paul supporters exist in great numbers, when there are a handful of same old windbags that man his tables, they are a niche market and I have to think they plug him to plug him, to make it seem like Democrat fear those two twits who can't take a State.

Sid

Like that girl under the bleachers...

There's nothing you've ever posted, or will ever post, that I would rec.

Sid

Got a link?

The obviously false claim that Democrats are "bashed" more here than Republicans is indicative of confirmation bias, and the question becomes, why do you want to believe that?

at their positions by thought, as opposed to knee-jerk "whatever Obama says is right, and anyone who disagrees is a poopyhead".

Here, to state the bleeding obvious. Stop whining.

and the House GOP goes virtually unscathed here compared to Obama and Harry Reid?

It's common knowledge on DU that Obama is guilty of worse offenses than Watergate, is a domestic terrorist, etc etc etc.

Other message boards aren't educated enough . . . they still think "Democrat" = "Liberal" (or worse yet, "Commie&quot , when the truth is that no one can name 20 honest-to-goodness progressives among 535 members of the Senate and House. I'm talking nearly 90% of the positions they hold benefit the working, the poor, the students, the seniors, the mothers, the unemployed, the children . .. and their futures.

Domestic spying, one-sided free trade, continuing wars, taking away human rights, putting the squeeze on seniors, giving more and more and more money and fealty to the wealthy in hopes that they'll stop loving megaprofit, . . . sorry, these aren't Democratic positions.

However, you are right when it comes to so-called "independent" voters on these boards: Republicans, their historically damaging economic policies, corporations and the wealthy never, ever, ever, EVER get taken to task or assigned blame in 2013. It's pretty much 95% "how's that hopey-changey thing working out", "Fourth Term Bush", etc.

Corruption, graft and upward wealth transfer is a near-34-year systemic problem. If the idea is that "they're all the same", then why blame the person unless their actions are intentional (like Bewsh's)? If they're all controlled, why not blame and destroy the controller?

Myself, I think the general problem is that we still worship the "me-only" economics of Milton Friedman and that everyone that has any kind of power has an authoritarian, greedbag conservative bent to varied degrees.

My biggest criticism of Democrats is that they not only voted for bush's wars (Kerry!) but they didn't impeach bush or later put him on trial.

They are both disgusting scum. They are both guilty and we ALL suffer because our leaders are SOOOO misleading this country every single day!

... a speech in which he says nothing objectionable, gets more angry posts, than a thread about GOP governors and state houses trying to restrict women's reproductive rights.

That's the new norm around these parts.

The very word "Obama" throws many here into a spittle flecked frenzy of posting.

Threads detailing the very real sins of the Republican Party drop like stones with nary a comment.

Trollery run amok.

OTOH it's very entertaining to observe...

ANY of that and are accusing the OP of either imagining things or having "wasted their precious time."

crap out of conservatives and bash them more than democrats.Both are huge forums.

YAWN.

Stand and cheer for your team like a true fan.

Winning is so much more important than trivial shit like the constitution or economic disparity.

Didn't you read the TOS?

If you aren't lockstep with Reagan economic ideology, you don't belong here. This is the new and improved Democratic Party.

You better find somewhere else to go.

/Facepalm for those that scream GOTV in the same breath.

than conservatives/Republicans/right wingers. We are looking for improvements/changes/gains and we get........................... nothing to speak of.

systematically trying to shift public opinion with a constant barrage of negative comments.

It would only take ten people in here, reccing each other's posts to keep them high, having multiple accounts would mean those ten people, with five or six accounts could rec each other's posts onto the front page with only a few disgruntled DUers buying in and bouying the conversation along to get attention. I've seen two people in an argument keep a topic at the top of the list for an hour before.... imagine if that was simply your intent. It would be easy.

So... maybe we hardcore DUers just make sure we balance all of that by making sure everything else stays in the news. Keep us focused on what they are doing. While, yes, we constructively figure out how to keep our own party from those constant attempts at influence from business and the right.

I just want it to be pushing us forward and making us stronger...not tearing us apart and weakening us going into 2014, 2016 and on.

does what on the internet, why do you? I worry about this COUNTRY and the PEOPLE who have to live here, that's what we worried throughout the disastrous Bush years, that's WHY we elected Democrats, to END BUSH policies.

If you are asking that we now act like Republicans and march in lockstep with our 'leaders' even when they are wrong, you are confusing us with Republicans. Democrats don't do that, they never have and they never will, thankfully.

And don't forget, all the lockstep marching in the end, LOST Republicans the House, the Senate and the WH. And they would NEVER have regained Congress had DEMOCRATS acted like Democrats and stopped funding wars and ended Bush policies, are at least stopped STRENGTHENING them.

What you are asking it seems to me is that we just be quiet?? No, to that. We will jump for joy and be as vocal when we see our leaders end their support for Bush's horrific policies and the only people who, imo, are supporting those policies ALWAYS supported them.

The goal is to shift public opinion. And in a fashion that helps the GOP and hurts Democrats.

The media (and then the blogosphere) sell two versions of outrage.

Outrage Version 1: Energize the RW ... these memes are along the lines of "Obama is a socialist commie from kenya who hates America" ... the intent of this meme is to anger the RW voter and get them energized to vote.

Outrage Version 2: Demoralize the LW ... these memes are along the lines of "Obama is a corporatist who hates the middle class" ... the intent of this meme is to frustrate those on the left, get them to be discouraged, and stay home come election time.

You see this play out here on DU every day. One article designed to demoralize the left will be posted in 4 OPs on DU.

You get lots of "Dems are the same as the GOP" OPs.

You get an endless stream of "Does anyone else feel like we're doomed" OPs.

And this occurs on issue after issue. Take Obama's recent statement on the Zimmerman trial.

RW says ... "How dare Obama mention race!"

Travis Smiley is brought on to say ... "Obama didn't say enough".

The goal is to energize the RW and demoralize the LW. Influence and shift turnout rates.

Because if you can shift voter turn out to favor the GOP some, and then add voter suppression techniques, the GOP to hold on a little longer.

Sid

Beyond that you pull out of your....