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In reply to the discussion: This Bernie Democrat will do his part to help repair the Democratic Party [View all]Hortensis
(58,785 posts)strong pattern of similar despicable behaviors that were reported by journalists.
It's way past time to call those who act this way what they are, radicals without proper leadership, and even extremists where appropriate. Eric Hoffer described these behaviors in his seminal work, The True Believer, Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements.
And it's also past time to ask ourselves what in the leaders these on both left and right have chosen draws them and keeps them zealously loyal and aggressively hostile toward anyone who doesn't fall in line behind their choices.
Congressman John Lewis's a good man with huge support around the nation, and attacking him was and still is a huge mistake. Zealots have almost nonexistent learning curves.
But it's very good to hear that the Texas Democratic Party, with decency entirely lacking in his own delegation, took care of this young man who refused to cross a line his comrades couldn't even see.
It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the faults of weakness.
Though hatred is a convenient instrument for mobilizing a community, it does not, in the long run, come cheap. We pay for it by losing all or many of the values we have set out to defend. ~ Eric Hoffer