The transformation of the Democratic Party.

[kentuck]

The passage of the filibuster reform yesterday was more than reform of the filibuster - it was reform of the Democratic Party. In effect, they have said, "Enough!" "No more bullshit!"

We can anticipate that the Democratic Party will be more liberal and more progressive-oriented in the future. They will not look to compromise with the radical Republicans as they have in the past.

The Democrats have seen that there is no future in the politics that have driven our government into the gridlock we have experienced in the last several years. It is time for a change.

Although yesterday's vote was only a piecemeal change to the filibuster rule, it was a warning shot that rocked the Republicans back on their heels. They are still in shock even as we speak.

The Democratic Party has changed. It is a more liberal Party. It is a more populist Party. And it will be a Party that will win with the American people.

[pscot]

1. If only

I hope you're right.

[Egalitarian Thug]

2. One does hope...

& R

[BlueStreak]

3. The old-timers in the MSM like to wax nostalgic about a time that never was

They talk wistfully about the days when everything was so collegial, and they bemoan the "hyper-partisanship" they see today.

Bull. Yes, people might have played golf together more in the past. But there has always bee partisanship. Anybody remember Joe McCarthy? Anybody remember Ronald Reagan railing about how Medicare would end the world as we know it. As if all the fights about women's rights, environmental protection, labor rights, school lunches, and rights for African -Americans weren't highly partisan?

Our politics have ALWAYS been partisan. They have to be, because those with wealth and power never give it up without the bloodiest of battles.

The exception has been the past 20 years when the Clintons and their goddamed band of triangulators turns the Dems into a pack of spineless worms that would never stand tall for anything.

The Republicans never changed. They always fought for the things they believed. And you know, we all should really respect that. it is the Dems that changed. Somewhere after FDR, they started to lose their bearings, and each year they became more and more timid. It took 5 years of outrageous bullying after Obama was elected before the Dems decided to take one tiny step. We aren't exactly standing up to the bullies, but at least there is some talk of that now.

About damn time. The party that honestly, legitimately fights for the middle class will never lose another election.

[socialist_n_TN]

4. The problem with the Democratic Party is the same problem it's always been.........

It tries to be all things to all people. It tries (at least it did in the past) to be a party for the people, and more specifically the working class (which BTW does include non-workers too in a societal sense), and they also tried to be a party for business and the owners. The last 20 years or so, it's become more of a owner's party than a people's party. So they're due for a little more of a left populist turn.

But in the long term, it doesn't work like that. It CAN'T work like that. Class struggle is, in the end, a zero-sum game. If the bosses win, workers lose and vice versa. And with the way capitalism is set up, which is most of the power residing with the owners, any time the Dems take a little bit of a populist left turn, it's results only in a defensive struggle, trying to retain a few of the gains of the past.

To be a true party of the people (working class), Dems will have to go whole-heartedly into support of workers and forget trying to be a party of balance between the parties. And since they've never been whole-heartedly in support of the workers, I seriously doubt that they CAN become one.

[malaise]

5. Even the ReTHUGs knew it after the elections last November

but the united stand against the shut down and the promised default, recent elections victories, the whipping of the ReTHUG baggers, Liz Warren's tough populist position calling for expanding social security all show that they are no longer prepared to tolerate crap from the RW obstructionist morons.

Go Dems!!!