(expanded from a comment I made last night, because I love hearing myself talk)
Teenage riot in a public station
Gonna fight and tear it up in a hypernation for you
-Sonic Youth
This site is angrier than I've ever seen it. I've lived through "Armando Sucks", through the judicial confirmations, through Brown/Hackett and the Pie Wars. And I don't think it's ever been this bad. This is understandable. Between the war in Iraq, FISA, Abu Ghraib, rising income inequality, wiretapping, a SCOTUS lilting toward the right and 700,000 other issues, there's a lot to be pissed about. And, although I'm not all that mad at Democrats myself, I recognize that there's a lot to be pissed about there as well. The MoveOn vote was unnecessary, no matter how dumb the ad was, attempts to overcome Republican blockading have been ineffective, and FISA passed with plenty of Dem support. So I understand the sentiment. But you've got a choice.
Either find new ways to express it, or find new avenues to enact change.
That's not a threat. Nor is it a demand for this website to live in happy Democrat fantasy land. What I mean is much simpler; you're never going to win the support of the Democratic Establishment by calling them names. Now, you're absolutely entitled to call Democrats traitors, or "Liebercrats" or "Bush bots" or "Bush dogs" or whatever the sexy term of the moment is. I find most of those more than a little silly, but no one can stop you from expressing them, nor should they. If you want to throw bombs, more power to you. But major players in the Democratic Party aren't going to listen to someone who is throwing bombs from under their own roof. Why would they? Why would Speaker Pelosi come and post on a forum where so many people call her a coward (and things far worse than that)? Why would a person adopt the policy positions of a group that seems to love nothing quite so much as denouncing the leaders of their own party and threatening to leave for good? The stated goal of this website is to slowly move the Democratic party to a position more in line with the views of posters by electing more and better Democrats, and by persuading those already in power that the "netroots' are right about politics and policy. I share this goal, and I believe almost everyone here does as well. This is commendable. It's also unachievable if every bridge between the groups gets burnt.
This is not a call for an end to criticism. There's a vast amount of solid criticism of the Democratic Party that goes on here on a daily basis (at least most days). This is both legitimate and necessary. You can't persuade people to be better if you never point out how they are wrong. FISA was a bad vote, and members of Congress need to know that people feel that way. But there's a productive and an unproductive way to handle it.
As I said last night, people here are going to have to choose what they like more; the Democratic Party or their outrage. Either one is a perfectly valid option. If you feel the Democratic Party is worth saving and supporting, by all means save and support. If you feel it's full of craven cowards and gutless traitors, so be it. Find a different method of achieving your goals. Neither is "wrong", per se. But trying to mix them just creates the worst of both worlds; a group of concerned party members who have no ability to get their leaders to even take their views seriously, let alone change the direction of the party. Throw rocks from outside or persuade constructively from the inside. You can't have it both ways.