Ok, we lost last week. The Monday morning quarterbacking continues. "Where did we go wrong?" countered with "I'll tell you where we went wrong" diaries rotate through.
We do the Democratic Party a service with this web site. We write what we think. We work through ideas. We support our Democratic Party, but the Democratic Party failed to see they didn't support us. The PTB's don't "get" what happened with the voters that stayed home.
Maybe these non-voters' thought it wasn't worth it to support a party of brown nosers that were going to sell them out anyway. Maybe they thought this drive for non-existant bi-partisanship was so stupid, they might as well vote for the Republicans to save time. (Well, they couldn't do that, so they just stayed home.) Maybe more than a few woman thought The Democratic Party didn't take their needs seriously and didn't see the point of supporting people who were going to legislate away their rights (albeit more slowly than the Republicans will).
Now, instead of figuring out how to get the underwhelmed out to vote, some Dem leaders are talking about finding more middle ground or going more conservative. ...more self-defeating behavior.
How does dkos react?
We contemplate redefining our purpose?
Really?
What's wrong with continuing to strive for getting more and better Democrats in office?
We didn't do well last week. That means we've identified a way that didn't work. So, we try another way next time. We lost our mojo, but that doesn't mean it's gone forever. It just means we need to refine our message (some would say "what message?" I get that). It means we need to get younger, more diverse people out to vote every election. It means we re-energize the DINO's and independents.
...and we gotta stop shooting our selves in the foot.
"Redefining" our purpose without refining the Democratic message isn't going to get us where we want to go.
The Democratic Party speaks for everyday people.
The Democratic Party looks out for the little guy.
The Democratic Party fights for our civil rights.
The Democratic Party stands for responsible business and a safe environment.
The Democratic party strives toward fair and equitable economic policy.
This has been the Democratic Party's message for the last 30 some years, but... this time around, our position got hijacked by people who don't mean to follow through on our core values. When did the Republicans move our cheese? More importantly, why didn't we stop them or move it first?
Somehow, the Plutocrats pulled the wool over 55% of the voters this year and will march unhindered onward to the little guy's destruction. Somehow,The Democratic Party lost their rep for fighting for the little guy.
This is crazy. We need our mojo back. We don't need to "redefine" our purpose. It would be less helpful than rearranging the Titanic's deck chairs. We need to set ourselves to accomplishing our goals. That means we don't support Democratic candidates that don't support us. Democratic leaders need to recognize they aren't going to get the votes from people they disrespect and ignore. Our Democratic Party leaders must give up this lunacy of capitulation. They need to stand up for what we believe and regain the respect of their party members. People vote for people they believe in. They don't resoundingly turn out and support the "lesser of two evils".
The Democratic Party has to go back to our core values. We root for the underdog, we don't sell him out. We work for for social justice, we don't erode our rights. We want everyone to get a fair shake, we don't reserve that for just a few of the most powerful and richest. We demand clean air and clean water, we don't gut environmental regulation. We demand that big business act responsibly, we don't give them a pass. We believe in fair wages for fair work, not screwing the worker over.
No, the only thing for us to do is to persevere, further refine our message. We need to define the Republican Party for what they are. We must expose how the Republicans baited the electorate, but will switch their positions by the time they are sworn in come January. They are charlatans who sold the sizzle to the masses pre-election but plan to deliver the steak to their highest bidders.