"We are activists. We don't do silence." Markos Moulitsas Zúniga
I am a progressive. Democrats still have to earn my vote. In a recent diary TheBlaz wrote that we are here "above all else, to elect Democrats." I disagree.
The keynoteof this year's Yearly 'Kos should be required viewing. Watch it and listen to Markos carefully. He identifies Daily Kos as a community of progressives. He's smart, really smart, and he could have said "democrats" but he did not.
The German sociologist Max Weber studied charismatic leaders. These are uniquely popular leaders that break norms and mobilize their followers. Weber gives the example of Jesus, "It is written but I say unto thee..." What happens to charismatic leaders and the movements they start? According to Weber they become institutionalized--they develop a bureaucracy, gatekeepers, rules on what it means to belong--in short, they become conservative.
I would argue that the Daily Kos can be understood as a social movement. If the Daily Kos becomes nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party it will have become institutionalized in the Weberian sense.
Let me be specific. Do I think "the worst" Democratic candidate would be better than any Republican? I don't know--probably. But here's the thing, it's very easy for me to identify both Democratic and Republican candidates who possess values that I abhor. So I will not be taken for granted. And if many diaries here are poorly written, or awash in Schadenfreude, or categorically opposed to certain candidates, then so be it. I prefer this to being told to get behind the anointed candidate or get the fuck out.