I just read an
opinion piece in the Washington Post by Michael Gecan (with the Industrial Areas Foundation, an organization that works for social change) that takes on the Democratic Party and it's inner workings. Here's a bit of the aritcle:
The party has no time or patience for the complex work needed to listen to Americans, to understand their range of views and positions, and to engage them on their deepest interests. Even worse, many in the hierarchy of the Democratic Party have contempt for ordinary Americans -- for their red faces and moderate churches and mixed, often moderate, views.
No amount of money can solve this problem. No think tank has the answers. No rising senatorial star can save the day. And no Hollywood hero can substitute for the fundamental changes the Democrats need to make to contend for the large, pivotal middle of the American electorate.
I like to think the party has smart people at the top (and in the middle), but this article critiques the Party pretty accurately in my view.
It is all the more important that those at the top of this party, those running the DNC, by overthrown. And, I think overthrown is a good way to describe what needs to be done.
We have to think of ourselves as the revolutionaries of today, casting off the oppression of those in power. We haven't faced a tax on tea, but we have faced ineffective and thoughtless leaders.
It's clear that those in power in our party are only interested in STAYING IN POWER. I see no evidence that they actually have any desire to transform this party to speak to and for the vast majority of us.
I think of myself as a Pragmatic Democratic, not prone to pie in the sky ideas. I want our party to speak to me and for me in ways that value my beliefs and reflect my values. I don't want to hear how I have to change my values or speak in some "new" way to moderates. I am quite sure the large majority of Pragmatic Democrats already believe as I do, and that most Independents think and believe the same things.
The conservative right is a minority in this country, let's stop acting like they have the numbers or the right to run the show. They don't.