I know everyone is making fun of the Republicans for their effort to purge moderates and light conservatives from their party. I agree that they are really taking this to the extreme and are transitioning from the Republican Party to the party of extremists who completely reject rational thinking.
But is having a party that actually stands for something a bad thing? The Dems are on the other side of the extreme, if you can raise money and are willing to put a D by your name, we don't care if you're a tea-bagger, we're willing to let you join. Allowing conservatives to become D's who have more in common with the opposing party than our own party is very bad for several reasons.
- It makes us look like fools who can't govern.
Lets face it, the Democratic party is far more progressive than it is conservative. But when the conservatives in our own party fight us over key issues, the uninformed general public will blame the liberal Democratic party for it's inability to govern.
We also experience a great deal of opportunity cost as big issues like campaign finance reform, Global Warming, banking reform, all get pushed to the back burner while we waste our time negotiating with conservatives who have a D by their name for watered down ineffective legislation. Once again, the watered down laws that have little positive effect on peoples lives becomes another reason for the public to blame the liberal Dems.
- Playing defense becomes impossible.
Let's say the tea-baggers win back the congress next year as many here at DK are willing to let happen. Will we be able to use the same tools as the Republicans to block the mean-spirited, destructive legislation they will pass? The answer of course is NO. If we try to filibuster, our conservatives will vote for cloture. If we try to boycott congressional hearings, our conservatives will show up. And when they take the white house and try to appoint more of their radical judges, our conservatives will form gangs with theirs to oppose the blocking of their judges.
- General political philosophical confusion amongst the public.
The public knows the Republican party is conservative, united, and supports only a conservative agenda. The public THINKS the Dems are liberal, united, and only supports a liberal agenda. They don't see the massive compromises progressives need to make within their own party to get even the meekest legislation passed.
It's time to purge the Democratic party of its conservative wing. The Democratic party needs to become what the public thinks it is, a liberal party pushing a liberal agenda. If the public is going to punish us because the legislation we passed is not working, then lets at least take our punishment for the failure of a liberal agenda, not because of the failure of a watered down conservative agenda.
The purge of course, needs to start at the primary stage. Progressive candidates need to be sought out to run against conservative candidates. And if the progressives loose, we should very carefully decide which seats we will hand over to the Republicans. But we need to be very, very, careful here, I'm not advocating we turn over the congress to the Republicans, but rather reducing our majorities in order to purge conservatives. We are much more effective with 52 Senators of which maybe 1 or 2 are conservative, than we are with 58 Senators of which 5 or 6 are conservative.
Our tent should be big enough to hold moderates who might disagree with one or two progressive issues, but it shouldn't be so big that you have more in common with a conservative agenda then a progressive agenda.
A party that stands for everything, is a party that stands for nothing.