If we are sincere about rehabilitating our party and the democratic *process in the bargain, we need to think in terms of genuinely *democratic reform.
Even under Reagan and Bush Sr et al, democrats were democrats and republicans were republicans-- we all knew who was who. We can't wait for history to "out" the real conservatives--it will, it's always the "final arbiter," but that won't help us *today. We can't heal ourselves until we learn where we went wrong, but we are blocked from that knowledge by the powers that be in our own party.
Americans are almost totally ignorant of historical events during the 90's that culminated in the loss of a robust democratic party, the loss of a free press with the media
giveaway of '96, and deregulation so severe that frustrated Americans contend daily with almost zero corporate accountability. There is a tremendous amount of resistance to open forums with respect to the DLC and the Clinton admin, in general. When he entered the White House, Democrats controlled the U.S. Senate 57-43, the U.S. House 258-176 and the country's governorships 30-18. Today, democrats have been driven from their/our party in disgust and we are not merely a minority party, we're a non-entity.....
"Democracy"-- may be a thorny word these days--it means "ruled by the people." With 2 conservative parties led by almost identical Economic Elitists then there is no public input or representation. It's a whole lot easier fighting Republicans-- they couldn't have hurt us like they did without the "heads up" from our own leaders. The Clinton administration was unique in that we never knew!! what hit us; GWB's warm-up band-- was like no other, courtesy of the so-called "opposing" party.
Many dedicated democrats and reform candidates have been blocked from public forums. They've been silenced and stopped from "outing" legislative reforms underwritten by our party in the 90's. Often, they're insulted, bullied and intimidated: Fascism: a "system of government characterized by rigid one-party dictatorship; private economic enterprise under central government and forcible suppression of opposition" Recently, our party's so-called progressives sought legislation to ban 3rd party candidates--god, I hope they are not successful.
Totalitarianism: A government or state in which *One political party or group maintains complete control under a dictatorship and bans all others. This is getting close, very close, *TOO close for comfort.
Progress needs to be identified in terms of social *improvement and the advancement of the **people* rather than degenerate and dictated by base instincts.