General Discussion

there is a difference between repairing an old house, and wanting to go ahead and demolish it so that some new wonderful plan can be built,, which turns out to be a Starbucks.

My point is, yes for all the wicked things that were done that can and should be called treason, for all the things people like Trump, Comey, and Mitch McConnell did that deserve a life sentence in a super max prison, there were some flaws that we kept overlooking because we thought the American people were not stupid enough to vote for Trump.

Now, on the one hand the people calling for us to abandon what they label as "identity politics" are wrong. For every clichéd antidote of some excess of political correctness that Bill Maher puts up in neon, there are institutions, be they colleges, businesses and others that still keep alive prejudice that should've been gone 20 years ago. Yes we want to allow dissent, we want people who do not feel that they have gotten a voice to be heard, but if you cannot speak without demanding that all core not white have to defer to you, it will poison even the most nutritious parts of what you have to offer. If we cannot consistently say that any citizen has certain "inalienable rights" that we are not only a failure as Democrats, but a failure as Americans.

On the other hand, we do have to admit that we had lost connection with a lot of people that we never should've lost connection with. Simply put, while a lot of things that Sanders wanted to do might not of been practical, is aggressive hard push to make the economy work for everyone was correct. Sorry to say whenever there was talk of moving more to the left, not bending over backwards so we would meet the publicans in the middle, there was a lot of protest, and it was not hard for trumps team to make that sound arrogant and "deplorable." It is one thing to say the truth that a lot of the ideas were indeed deplorable, it is another to assume that people were simply deplorable, when many of these folks did vote for Obama twice.. No one is saying that we have to go ahead and try to become Denmark, nor that Hillary Clinton did not have some good reasons to say "we need to be practical as well as idealistic.." But what I am saying is that we as a party may need to look at our infrastructure and wonder if we have allowed some of it the rot, and if so how do we repair that. It is also very practical to say that we have been losing steadily, leaving governors, Congress people, mayors, Senators,, and other types who do build our party infrastructure. Sorry it does not matter how well you fund raise, if an eight years after we had the house the Senate and the Oval Office we are now in a state like this, it is very reasonable to go to the people whose well-paid job was to build up a party and say, either give us a clear honest answer on why we are in this predicament, or do not expect to be hired." No, wondering what the hell those in charge of getting Clinton elected managed to do with an early head start and a whole lot of money is not being anti-democratic.

And please do not mistake any of my call for soul-searching, infrastructure repair, outreach, but to hold fast to our principles be they FDR's new deal, or the UN declaration of human rights for anything else but that, if anybody wants to go ahead and look for ammo to play the endless game of our side should have won, and frankly they can take it outside. The only people who are gaining strength from Democratic voters fighting Democratic voters after the election are the Republicans, and don't think that they are trying to pluck your heartstrings so that you play the pretty music that they love to hear every November.