I'm a Democrat by default but it is becoming increasingly difficult with all the corporate influence.

one percent have now...

They reap benefits from all society while we struggle

is that it never becomes viable if nobody is willing to be the first to jump-in with both feet. It's not going to become viable unless a lot of us make that jump and work our asses off to make it viable.

The Republican Party is being torn apart at the seams by the "I'm-more-fanatic-than-you-are" crowd. It is being held together only by the fickle (if effective) glue of limitless right wing money, blessed by the smug smile of a faux-benevolent John Roberts.

Where I agree with Will Rogers' assessment of the Democratic Party, I still prefer "agree to disagree" to "agree to arrange for your political assassination." Being open to discussion is, for me, the very definition of "liberal." If I want uncompromising rigidity, I'll move to Saudi Arabia.

loyalty over policy for so long that the party no longer bears much resemblance to anything liberal, as far as economic policy goes. Social issues that cost very little are used to hide this - Hate the TPP? Well, DOMA!!!!!! As if one had anything to do with the other.
The Dems use social issues pretty much like the GOP does, just in a different manner - the GOP uses, for example, the "specter" of gay marriage to fire up the troops and hide the real agenda, the Dems use the enactment of gay marriage laws to quiet the troops and hide the real economic agenda. IMO and all that.

Those are the ones that angrily demand their own way, and have no room for people in (or with) any other position.

"My party right or wrong" is just as useless as "my party, wrong until I say it's right."

The broad economic policy, at least as it was put to me by the nominal head of the party, is a reduction in the budget deficit through reduction of bloated health care costs caused by our system, and less expenditure on fossil fuel through investment in renewable energy. The devil is in the details, as always, but that doesn't mean every detail has been suggested by the devil, or that all proposed details are not legitimate subjects for discussion.

Ending only 18% of the Bush tax cuts and implementing HeritageRomneyObamaCare in lieu of real health insurance reform could be characterized as compromise.

OTOH, the TPP and Obama's other "free" trade deals, fighting to cut Social Security, attacking public schools and teacher's unions... those are leading the charge. The other team's charge.

I am all for more progressive taxes, pro-union legislation, a stronger safety net, etc. but I don't view social issues as a distraction but a core part of the liberal message.

It is certainly true that the GOP uses social issues to fire up its base, but they also use 'austerity' and 'anti-immigration' - not just gay marriage - to do this. But the GOP uses any type of 'change' to fire up its base since the base wants things to stay the same or even go back in time to the 'glorious' 1950's.

to advance conservative economic issues. And when someone keeps saying But Doma! when others criticize the TPP, for example, that, IMO, minimizes social issues by using them as a wedge and as a smokescreen.

they are busy tearing down the fundamental pillars of habeus corpus, due process of law, privacy, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly - to "keep us safe" from the "terrorists," of course.

They get lots of good press for the former (which is their motivating goal), and work tirelessly to minimize exposure of the latter (which is why there is such an effort to smear Snowden and Greenwald).

demands lock-step devotion to BO or HRC. The Democratic Party that Will Rogers was referring to is now the Warren Wing of the Party. The Conservatives that fled the R Party as it went over the cliff are now strongly influencing the Democratic Party.

I think it's very interesting when the demands of the left for rolling back the un-Constitutional Patriot Act, establishing single payer Health Insurance, being free from the disastrous trade agreements, and controls on Wall Street, are viewed as radical.

If you dont want "uncompromising rigidity" you best vote for the Warren Wing of the Party. The left has never stood for "rigidity."

I know you hate the BOG, and it's pretty obvious in your posts, but can you actually prove that the members of the BOG actually have stated that all the things you just posted are "racist and treasonous"?

Just the facts please.

individual policies. By the end of the year, I expect to be condescendingly and angrily told that to hate the TPP, for example, is to hate Obama and Hillary and undermine the Democratic Party. This is what we used to laugh at Freepers for doing - lockstep, no matter what.

I am a proud member of the Warren Wing; I don't think the rigid lockstep people understand, as yet, that it is what Warren stands for that is important, thus the ad hominem attacks and the failed attempts to dismiss Warren out of hand by asking, for example, if we are calling her a liar. Was Obama a liar when he said he was not going to run? Pfft. Nothing said about Warren will convert me into a Hillary fan.

that is important..."

I'm not sure that's true. I suspect that at least some of the people who scoff at a Warren candidacy understand only too well that it's what Warren stands for that's important. But if you could successfully chain those ideas solely to Warren, and then eliminate Warren from the picture, those awkward ideas would go *poof*.

"The game is rigged" is a simple expression of a potent truth that many Americans recognize. It's an idea that a lot of well-heeled backers don't like. The first line of defense will be repeated attempts to discredit that concern. The second line of defense will be to pretend to address the concern, with no intention of doing anything more than rearranging deck chairs.

I'd thrilled just to get Wendy Davis in as governor so we can start to undo DeLay's gerrymandering and get our state represented in Congress to a degree that somewhat reflects the purpling in progress. Of course, unfortunately, the same could be said of Pennsylvania. When you can compare the ground situation in PA to that in TX, it is a sorry thing to have to say to begin with.

When an organization subjects its member to purity ideals where they "must" comply to be one of them than you got a problem. That's exactly what the GOP Party have become.

I just hope we don't make the same mistake as the Republicans. Long term progressive goals can't be realized if we never get the votes to implement them, and 2016 will determine if the Supreme Court remains a rightist tool for the next 20 years or not. It's a step by step slog, which Howard Dean as DNC chair realized and manipulated deftly. His predecessors did not, and look where we are now--fearing a loss of seats in the Senate whereas the country as a whole wants us to hold on to it.

have no desire to implement progressive legislation.

To quote my crazy but insightful Uncle G: : "You can't get to Minneapolis from Detroit by rowing towards Buffalo." (He was being literal...there was a canoe involved.)

If we want to implement progressive legislation...we need to stop supporting conservative agendas. Well, we don't...we never did...Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama need to stop supporting conservative agendas calling it moderate.

However, if we don't nominate candidates skillful enough to be palatable to a majority of the people voting in their district/state, then it won't matter what their good intentions are. It's easier if you are a Republican putting up some maniac in a district/state that will vote for the manic every time. We don't have it that easy. There aren't a lot of States that would give a Bernie Sanders a shot at a Senate seat, and the People's Republic of Vermont has yet to be declared.

that then proceed to screw us. When time comes to elect them again, we do.

They quickly learn that there is no consequence for screwing us and great reward from their corporate benefactors for doing so. So the cycle continues.

We've been at this "Lesser of Two Evils" strategy for quite some time, and it has definitely not delivered results.

and not just buckets of Hope(tm), in return for our votes.

Well said.

You don't like rigidity, OK. But when you start believing that the ACA is health care, that fracking is OK, and approve of drone murder, TPP, KXL, for-profit schools, off-shore drilling, teacher purges, union-busting, and so on, what is left? And why did you vote Dem in the 70's if these things are OK with you?

Thanks to the ACA, more than 140,000 citizens of my state, West Virginia, have health insurance for the FIRST TIME under expanded Medicaid.

Sorry it's not overnight utopia, but we're working on that.

Hatched from the Heritage Foundation.

How many more in your state would have reliably have shelter and food on their table if Democrats had fought for the 99% as mightily as they fought for banker bonuses to be saved in 2009?

the answer could have easily been ZERO, because if the aca was not signed, then the GOP, with full Kockj banking, would have held ground and simpky giuven the millions of diabetics and others served under the aca jack diddly.

Everybody wants to slam Barack O for battele he should have fought, includign myself at times, but if he did not win them, thanks to those same blue dogs that are defended loudly on here, we would have pilloried him and dealt the lowest cards in our decks at him, especially the age and race ones, as Hillary did her "see, I coulda gotten ya all that if ya voted fir me" dance that we are beginning to see the first steps of now, deep in the heart of the 2016 presidential campaign (and yes, it started a while ago.)

Your post is nonsense, because there weren't going to be any republican votes anyway. What he should have done was held his ground for once, and said, "two more Dem senators in 2010, and will have Medicare For All like we should have". Instead he actually said, "your friends and neighbors need those insurance jobs". The jig was up at that point. He'd lost all of the HOPEful voters from 2008, and signaled to the Repukes that he could be had.

in stead, he woudl have been blamned for the GOP rise as the Koch brothers shoveled in the cash to buy TV ads. Then he would have had NOTHING to show for it except for feel good stuff.

the legislature passed it over his veto. I dare say the Heritage Foundation would have been even less happy with the actual Massachusetts law that liberal Democratic legislators passed than Mr. Romney was.

“Of course the bill isn’t 100 percent of what anyone in this room wanted... But the differences between us are relatively small.”

The Heritage Foundation attended the signing ceremony and gave a speech praising the bill.

Some good coverage at http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/04/12/463097/romneycare-6/

This is what the centrist "misunderstand" consitently.

If the insurance is nothing more than a national guarantee of health care for every citizen, that is still insurance--the best kind, i.e. not for-profit insurance. France has it. Germany, by the way, does not, although their patchwork system covers most of their citizens. My wife and I would have been ruined if she had to pay for her cancer treatment 13 years ago, and her employer tried like hell to get rid of her because of it (he failed, but he's a sick asshole for trying).

simply because an insurance company refused to pay for something that would have saved that life while simultaneously thanking God for the ACA that enabled said insurance company to do so.

I was more than a bit empathetic as my wife was similarly killed by Blue Cross in '06 for the same reason, they delayed a procedure for eight months (surgery) that every single member of her health care team deemed necessary to be done and at a precise time after chemo was stopped (just long enough for her system to strengthen) but no longer. during that delay, the tumor shrunken by chemo prior to surgery to remove it began to grow again after three months and by 8 months had doubled in size and metastasized. The time it took for the insurance to lose the battle to fight an expenditure of a very needed second surgeon, changed it from operable to only operable in the sense that some could be removed but not all the brand new mets that caused her death.

Insurance is not health care, it is a way to avoid paying for health care unless it is something inexpensive and designed solely for the profits of vultures.

I got involved in it but had to pull out because the entire discussion was so discouraging. As you said, the poster who'd lost his son was thanking God and the President for mandating for-profit insurance that refused to provide the care that was needed. It is impossible to win an argument when the frame of reference is so distorted.

Sorry your wife succumbed to Big Insurance. It is nothing less than a travesty that the richest nation in history lets that happen, every day. And also that there is nothing that working people can do to get it fixed.

The doc. after all exposed the damage done to the insured regarding actual care, fast forward to a neoliberal with the correct letter on his voter registration card, and now insurance vultures=good.

I find it truly amazing and concerning.

I will never forgive these vultures for killing my wife nor will I applaud that they have many more victims to abuse because a Democratic corporate servant managed to push to fruition the Heritage foundation law that the Republicans couldn't in the early nineties.

A true servant of the people would have tried to push a health Care law rather than an insurance company welfare law, but few in my party appear to agree, I thought perhaps that after the ones they loved were murdered they would figure it out, but even that does not appear to matter to those that will swallow any corporate law spoon fed to them by a politician because of nothing more than party affiliation.

No, I will never forget and I will never forgive and it is very true that even if working people awaken from their mesmerization there is nothing they (we) can do about it..

Something that Democrats passed and Republicans opposed. It's primary purpose now is propaganda.

Republicans focus on the "big government" aspects of mandated insurance and how it hurts providers in an attempt to bludgeon Democratic opponents in elections.

Democratic operatives focus solely on the enrollment numbers for the previously uninsured, using the enrollment as an ad hoc approval poll for Democrats. What the ACA actually does is not important - only it's popularity is.

Will those 140,000 be able to pay for the treatment they need when they have a serious medical condition? The ACA allows the insurance companies to play the same old tricks with respect to "out of network" providers, deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums that they have always used to make us pay through the nose for care.

The ACA can only be considered a success if it allows people to receive the care they need without bankrupting them. One useful indicator will be the medical bankruptcy rate - a decline will support the notion that the ACA is working, a flat rate or increase will indicate otherwise. Coverage means little if one can't pay for the care.

Geez!

This is why I can't get with this left. So unreasonable. Let's just demand things. That'll work.

If you're looking for clear answers, there aren't any. And you damned sure won't find them on DU. Give you one example (and there are many others).

Tenure reform for K-12 teachers. Now some people have used the slogan "tenure reform" as a guise to assault teachers unions, but some people believe that tenure as a system needs to be revised. In one poll nearly a third of teachers felt reform was needed. So if we have that conversation, are we "union busting" or trying to reconfigure schools for the 21st century? If you've been on this site long, you know that mentioning the topic makes you "evil incarnate" and a corporate shill, etc., etc.,.

America is polarized, and DU is way more polarized than America.

Liberal vs. Conservative.

Not so much liberal vs. conservative on DU, but Far Left vs. Center Left.

I'm ignoring the obvious (and not so obvious) trollery that goes on around here.

But polarization, to be sure.

Nobody is calling for nationalization of industry, redistribution of wealth or violent revolution.

It's "Center Left" vs. "Center Right".

It's "Center Left" vs. "Crazy Right".

Of course, nation-wide, the Republicans are no longer Conservative, but full-on Reactionary. The nominally-reasonable Conservatives have switched parties, and now constitute the Moderate Conservatives setting the Democratic Party agenda. The corresponding elements on DU are opposed by the traditional Liberal Democratic base and the Progressives.

You're right (or I should probably say "correct" in this context) that there is no credible "Far Left" in this country. There is both a Socialist and Communist Party, but neither is much more than a website. Even Bernie Sanders, a self-described Democratic Socialist, is not a member of the Socialist Party. There is, however, a noticeable Socialist presence on DU.

Most of the Liberals are traditional FDR-style Democrats.

If those things (even the ACA, the form of which originated at that bastion of liberalism, the Heritage Foundation) were proposed or enacted under a Republican administration, everyone here would be opposed to it.

We have some version of "It's okay if you're a Democrat" when it comes to policy.

For the record, the first time I was allowed to vote, it was in 1971, it was for a Republican, and I doubt there is ONE member of DU who would have voted differently. I was in college in Philadelphia, and the Democrats ran their oafish, corrupt police commissioner, Frank Rizzo, against a modest, unassuming administrative type named Thatcher Longstreth. Rizzo won, Phildelphia went farther downhill than it already was, and Rizzo quickly switched to the Republicans, where he belonged in the first place.

Also, voting for fracking was OK with me in the 1970s? I have ALWAYS been against fracking--anywhere, any time--since I first heard of it, which was less than 10 years ago. My views of fracking in the 1970s were about as developed as my views at the time on the merits of Google Chrome.

And as to my posts expounding on the merits of drone murder, teacher purges, union-busting and offshore drilling--would you mind refreshing me on just where and when I posted anything of the sort? Maybe I'm in the initial stages of Alzheimer's, but I just can't for the life of me recall ever having taken such positions.

This is absurd, right wing tripe not worthy of this board. But, of course, it's not ODS because that doesn't exist on DU. At least, so I've read.

for-profit health insurance companies, which are now built into the system, decline life-saving treatment every day due to cost considerations. What would you call them?

Health insurance, both for- and non-profit, have denied care since their inception. The ACA makes it harder to do that.

To extrapolate from that that the president is pro death panel is absurd.

Oh, and I am a fan of the president (which doesn't mean I agree with everything he's done BTW), so sneer away.

The institution of the Democratic Party is a corrupt collaborator in the oligarchic kleptocratic duopoly that has run this country for the last 30+ years. The electoral system we have makes it nearly impossible for a third party to displace either of the two parts of the duopoly. There hasn't been a displacement since the Republican Party triumph of 1860. The only viable strategy is revolution from within.

I think I know what you mean but the word brings up different ideas for different people. Those that think pitchforks in the street will bring freedom havent learned from history. Elites (those with knowledge and/or power) run this country and every other country. Elites run everything at all levels. Form a group and the elites of the group will end up running the group. This is Elite Theory. It was elites that saved us from the last Great Republican Depression. Elites that recognized that their lives would be better if they didnt allow millions to starve. Some of their reasons were altruistic and some were selfish. We need to find elitists that will help us take back our party and our country.

And one is required if one accepts that the existing order is a corrupt oligarchic kleptocratic duopoly. A revolution does not have to be violent, it can be non-violent, but it has to go way past mere reform.

some places......I think the usefulness of that is completely gone, though. Sticks and stones, etc.

by the Fan Club that likes for-profit health care, for-profit schools, TPP, XL, and so forth.

Wonder just who it is who wants to drive the Left out of the Dem party so the Dem party is more like GOP-lite? Who benefits?

rightwing.

(right wing), and first enacted by Willard Romney (right wing). It corporatizes and profitizes life and death decisions, and places the profits ahead of lifesaving treatments.

If that does not make it right wing, what would?

percent less than my old plan, with better coverage. From the same carrier.

I am happy that this is working well for you. Like the rest of the BOG and those who have benefited from it, you have talked yourself into believing that your experience is all that is needed to call the ACA the greatest legislative achievement in history - Medicare, the Civil Rights Act and Social Security all rolled into one. Also, like the rest of the BOG, you have gone from claiming "this will lead to Single Payer" to "I like it just like it is!". You've now convinced yourself that giving Big Insurance a half trillion dollars per year in profits is the best way to provide health care to the people of the US. Those of us without crushes on the president think this borders on the insane.

BTW, your happy story does nothing to address the post to which you responded.

her critics "racist", if she's allowed.

No matter if you agree with them or not (and I often don't), the goals of most of them are justice and equality, whereas the Teabaggers are control freaks, and are out to feel superior in some way to others less fortunate than they are.

Not that so-called socialists can't be control freaks. I was in the former East Germany often enough to see 1.) a country run by control freaks labeling themselves "socialists," and 2.) that calling yourself "socialist" doesn't make you one, and more than our pseudo-Christians behave as if they honor the teachings of their "savior."

At the end of the day, labels don't mean much, unless you watch Fox Noise, and are afraid of "libbruls."

Is for a punching bag for those actually in charge of the Democratic minority to use to show just how "centrist" and "bipartisan" they are.

While the Republicans listen to and are beholden to their right flank, Democrats would continue to do as they do now and ignore theirs except when they put their hands out for money, votes, and work needing to be done.

We're the ones dem leadership blames when they don't win.

As the baggers slip over the edge of reality, true conservative repubs will jump ship to the democratic party, or flail with the baggers, & the dems will drift even further to the right, leaving the left with no voice at all, which is close to where we are right now.

This is what this admin and many in the Dem leadership are hoping for. Enough Republicans moving over to our side to justify their rightward shift. They've been doing it anyway, even in situations where there's no fucking way any of these people would vote for Dems. Now, if it becomes even a faint possibility they'll kick their "centrism" into overdrive.

I think that disillusioned Republicans will do what disillusioned Democrats did in 2010--not participate at all. The trouble is--the right wing lunatic fringe will show up to vote. Our solid left did not. The radical right has been conditioned by their hate media to despise all "libbruls," and that is, to them, a synonym for "Democrats." We may have the anger, but the frothing hate on their side is the more powerful motivator to GOTV. Disillusionment is still a greater danger to us on election day than it is to them.

Must be the youth, the temporary TeaPubliKlan crossovers, too many minorities, and the ever chased "Independents" because as far as I can tell liberals did well, the blue dogs took it on the chin, and we got slaughtered in the indie count.

Stop telling the lie. The Turd Way policies have no purchase. You disillusioned the new voters and ran off the segment that it is claimed the failed policies attract.

The fingers are pointed, the hollering of nonsensical aspersions, the whining about the TeaPubliKlans being mean, the "looking forward", the rationalizations, spin, and excuses are just phony baloney cover for doing exactly what you want in a mad dash to completely screw the American people over and sell us into perdition before enough figure out the scam to put some gremlins in the gears.

ALWAYS WITH THE SAME BOGUS LIE!

Why did we lose? Independents voted for Republicans and they even won women!

was the Left-Wing Tea Party.

http://www.coffeepartyusa.com/

It helps when the main stream media amplify's a voice greater than it actually is, like they did with the teabaggers.

This is just another meme to link the left wing of the Democratic Party to the teahadists by the DLC/Third Way. These corporate assholes want to solidify their hold on the party by painting the likes of Warren and Sanders as 'unelectable.'

I'm not falling for it.

There would be no "Tea Party" is they didn't have the entire mar right media apparatus behind them. that's 1200 radio stations, and every newspaper and cable "news" outlet. There is no such thing for the left. so this whole premise is preposterous.

Here is how simple it is...

You work tirelessly to get Warren to win the nomination, if you fail, if we fail, (maybe she doesnt even run, then who?), but when that fails IF it fails, you say OK, hopefully the issues brought out by a tough primary campaign will bring attention to what is important, and oh, by the way, i vote on election day and of course I vote for whoever the dem candidate is.



The vote is something you do regardless of anything else, you do that only so you can preserve what little sanity there is in our system, so you can later get Warren elected or whoever.

real simple

Yeah, those are almost the same

... the "Tea-Party" of the Democratic Party is not the far left/liberal wing of the Democratic Party, it's the traitorous highjacking DLCer/Grand Bargainer/Third Wayer Pete Peterson branch of the party. Period.

just like the right wing version.

The right is more vulnerable to being taken over by stupid ideas, because the right has a general respect for stupidity. Not so on the left. We are lucky that our strong respect for wisdom and intelligence suppresses our fringe. Their hearts are in the right place, but they don't think, so they would just drag the left down if they had significant numbers.

I kind of wish the left fringe would shut up about Elizabeth Warren and let her get somewhere politically. The "Elizabeth Warren Wing" is a major burden to her, imo. She's a powerful voice for logic and liberalism, but the weirdos on our fringe keep trying to claim her. They are like stalkers.

Remember how Ellen James hated the Ellen Jamesians?

I hope Elizabeth Warren's eloquent voice is not drowned out by those who most want it heard.

That's a very good call, imo. Good book too.

That would damn near have to be Stalinist level communists. The whole one true path thing.

I don't think we as a party would be susceptible to stalinist influence. I do think we could put a more positive spin on socialism for the USA. Arguably, the whole "we the people" and "government by consent of the governed" is the very seed of what would become socialism some 70 years later. We might be one of the founding countries/governments of socialism (USA and the Republic of France, both rejected monarchy at near the same time).

TPTB of that time reacted to our (the 2 countries) adopting of democracy as well as the 20th century's reacted to the communist revolution in the Russian empire.

As I've been saying for a couple of years , if the teabagges and the left ever realized how much they have in common and could iron out differences without anyone getting killed , it would be both party's worst nightmare and new day for America.

To pressure the national party in the proper direction.

If they want our votes, they can earn them.

You mean, we should expect our elected officials to produce results and hold them accountable for not doing so?

It's crazy, but it just might work!

Brat was able to defeat Canton only because of support from powerful outside interests. There is absolutely nothing like that on the left. With rare exceptions, the Democratic Party chooses its own candidates -- and if someone not to its liking happens to win a primary, they make sure that person receives no support in November.

Expecting a grassroots movement to take over the Democratic Party from inside is folly -- or else a deliberate diversion. The only way the left has ever had any influence on the Democrats has been as scary outsiders who threaten the party's ability to conduct business as usual.

The Democratic Party leadership at this point appears to be as divorced from the needs and wishes of actual Democrats as most union leaders are from the needs of workers, or as the United States Chamber of Commerce is from the needs of small business. In every case, decisions are made at the top to enhance the power and wealth of the people at the top, and any threat to that cozy arrangement will be ruthlessly put down.

Can't believe I had to scroll this far down to get to the heart of the matter. There will never be a left-wing Tea Party because the left will never have that kind of bankroll. This article advocates true grassroots change while the Tea Party is pure astroturf made out of cash.

For too long the left has been willing to settle. We needed another hero. But we settled for slick Bill Clinton. We needed another Roosevelt but we settled for Barack Obama, because that was who we could get elected in this toxic political environment. Both of those Presidents ran as centrists and then betrayed the interests of the 99 percent.

We can't afford to settle again.

Why settle for single payer healthcare, for example? Let's find someone who wants to champion Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights! It's time in this country for liberals and progressives and liberators of all sorts, whatever we are calling ourselves these days, it is time for us to stand up and be proud of our heritage, and be proud that we are on the side of science, the side of peace and the side of prosperity; proud that we hold the answers and solutions for the future.

Designed to drum up clicks on a website, devoid of rationality.

No thanks. This lefty leftist can stand on her own thankyouverymuch. Without bullshit labels like
"Tea Party"

I always think of a force that is not only ideologically-pure, but also is unwilling to work within the system to get things done, is hostile to moderates, disregards social issues of women and minorities, and is unable to grasp the concepts of basic civics. In fact, the Tea Party views the establishment as not "conservative" enough, despite a bunch of evidence to the contrary. I'm fine with populism (and actually prefer going back to some of the old school economics of the Democratic party prior to Reagan), but it would be a huge mistake for the Left to completely emulate what the Tea Party has done. The GOP is on the verge of fully self-destructing.
The author is correct that people are going to have to support candidates who are willing to change the party from within. I would also add that people who want to see change should write to their Congresspersons (if they haven't already), telling them what they want, and continue working in every election to get rid of the nuts so that the President can get more progressive goals accomplished. We still have a House and a whole bunch of governorships to flip.