Yes, the democratic party does not have a simple, visceral appeal to the core human instincts type of message. It could be more united, more on the same page and make a MUCH stronger case.

AND, yes, most republicans are not out and out racists or dumb ass hillbillies.

BUT, all Rs absolutely suffer from pridefulness, and an insular thinking that makes them vulnerable to the primal, tribal mentality that culls them into that herd.

Gotta be honest with yourself here, and stop with all the projecting butt hurt, bah, they think we are just rednecks and dupes.

What we "think" isn't the point, the points is YOU ARE FUCKING DUPES.

Just man up and own it and stop with the whole they are mean to us bullshit.

tolerate their party's racists and aggressive, racist policies of vote suppression of POCs, plus a myriad of other repug dirty tricks.

So what does that make the ones who claim to not be racists?

Mind if I steal this, if needed?

I understand the part about accepting them, but I get the picture that he thinks the Dems should turn to the right to fit them in.

The Dems didn't lose this election. They were robbed. If we really want to win these elections, we have to do a much better job of stopping the fraud. He can join, but don't ask us to veer right for him.

Breitbart club. Fuck him.

The Republican party invited the takeover. They've courted the extremists for decades to get votes.

I appreciate the sentiment, but Obama won in 2008 by 10 million votes in part on his promise to reach across the aisle and two years later this guy was gleefully power-surfing with wingnuts whose sole objective was to bring him down. Now we're supposed to be patient and understanding while he recalibrates...sorry, but that's not realistic, nor is it fair.

How to proceed? I don't know. If this gentleman wants to influence our behavior, maybe he should look at changing parties.

Sorry but they are dupes and racists.

..what vision? I actually found the dem campaign to be inspiring and up lifting. I just don't understand what more ppl want...its not a means to end all that's wrong with the world. Its a delivery system. I found the message to inspire ME to get off MY butt and make the world better. As far as those who voted for trump because their 'vision' was ignored by dems... what IS your vision?

It's much easier to "burn something down" than it is to build or repair.

All you needed to do to win the hearts of ReTrumplicans was tell them you were going to take a flamethrower to whatever "strawman" was constructed and advertised as what was the problem.

It's much harder to govern, and much harder to explain governing in a 10 second sound-bite.

Is the "gubmint" responding to Hurricane Harvey and Irma the "evil, corrupt, disgusting entity keeping the white man down"?

Democrat want efficient and effective governance, and that involves tackling, understanding and explaining complex issues and intricacies. ReTrumplicans tell you that the solution is to blow everything up.

What makes for a better sound-bite?

Oh, and fuck this guy who wrote the article! "I was too fucking blind to see ignorant racists pieces of shit all around me, please appeal to my needs"?

Fuck That!

Republicans, for quite some time now, have relied on fear to motivate their voters. Everything is under attack, whether it's Christmas, our borders, or marriage.

I don't really know how to counter this. It is a very basic human condition. I would like to think that evolution would eventually overcome a lot of this bullshit, but I'm not so sure.

Just fuck off and die, choad.

Clinton's major policy proposals, and the refinements he could offer to them. I'm sure that's the reason why he didn't support the Dem.

Now go fuck yourself

All you dense motherfuckers were warned.

Now eat your goddamned pudding.

Yeah right. Why am I expected to welcome someone who was willing to accept the shit Trump said and did until he saw it was going to affect him personally?

How is he going to suddenly support the non-racist, non-misogynistic, non-fascist, non-privileged Democratic Party Platform?

My guess is he (and all those like him) would drastically pull our party right and off the track.

Not buying it.

Do not need the likes of that joining ours and pushing it rightward.

Was it because you loved the lies that pandered to your feelings that you deserved your privilege over other's rights, or was it right wing religiosity, or was it the allure of authoritarianism that went along with fascism?

Or was it because you sheepishly followed whatever group you first identified with when you started voting, and you've sort of woke up because the GOP showed you it's true face and it disturbed your comfortable buzz?

If you were a republican because of the former, well - go Libertarian. Or Green. Or Freedom party. And just accept you're going to remain a powerless third party, but at least you're not going to be hurting the country.

If the latter, go ahead and join the Democrats, but don't expect them to change into what you wanted the GOP to be.

The Democratic party are a coalition of localized social and economic positions that leans progressive, even though they're not fully synchronized into a mono-policy party machine like the GOP is. If that's what you want, you're welcome.
If it's not - again, go third party.
But whatever you choose, remember it's you that's joining a political party; the party isn't joining you...and is not going to change just because you want it to.

Put it this way, Kurt, changing political parties is like looking for a new girlfriend after you decided you couldn't handle the old one.
Face it. From you're little essay here, it sounds like you're a typical dudebro tool of privilege in a small world in a situation similar to if you've convinced yourself that a "perfect" new GF is going to be just like your old GF without "the baggage"; not a legitimate way to look at any relationship (personal or political) with any other human being.
Until you expand your world and start accepting things exist outside of your own viewpoint that you need to consider if you're going to improve your environment, you aren't going to find that "perfect happiness".

Haele

You still belong to the other team.

They suck even worse than you've come to know.

Trump is your Baby Republicans. He is a result of your policies, your fear mongering, your lies. This shit goes way back. It ain't new. This isn't a recent development. Your party wasn't "highjacked" what you are seeing is the natural development of it. Oh, and we told you so.

While I would have preferred them voting for Clinton, they either voted third party (most for Johnson), write in, or left the vote for president blank. They, like most other rational thinking Americans, thought Hillary had it in a walk. If they had known Trump had any chance, I know some would have reluctantly voted for Hillary Clinton.

The Democratic Party owes people who voted FOR Trump and were taken in by Trump and his GOP enablers absolutely nothing. I would hope a majority of those voters could see their mistake and not keep on repeating the same mistakes in future elections.

He has gone through stages of aggrandizing himself into more power and influence. How is this not just another?

To hell with him. If he is sincere about what he says in his little essay, he can spend the next several years proving it. Somehow I think he is going to go back and be Issa's toady again.

He chose that route for reasons that are diametrically opposite of Democratic ideology, now he wants Dems to remake their platform to suit him? Nah, it doesn't work like that. When a person makes a grave, unearned error, despite being warned of the dangers, he doesn't get to start making demands on the party he maligned for years.

Better he should show some humility and a little contrition, admit his error, apologize sincerely, ask for a pardon, and then join the party without any preconditions. That's how life works, he does,'t get a free pass just because his light bulb finally switched on.

restores a little faith... Cheers!

That's a loaded statement: It presumes fraudulent intentions on the democratic leadership.

We'll never win over people like him: They are the children who think they can have whatever they want without paying the bill.

however, amongst intelligent people.

So this writer is a completely disingenuous greedhead, that he "didn't understand" before Trump.

WITH DEPLORABLES!

TCGTH.

He claims it took Trump to make him confront the ugly truth about racism in the GOP but then he goes on to explain how the GOP has really always been that way - and that he knew it already and simply chose to ignore it. Why?


Because he likes his racism subtle and not so loud and in your face? He prefers his dog-whistles to be low key and not so shrill? He wants polite code words he can hide behind instead of openly hugging nazis?

Yeah, you're different.

Snort.


Feck off, asswipe.


Panhandle for gimmes somewhere else.