General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: To Survive, the Democratic Party Needs to Stand Up to Wall Street and Global Corporations [View all]KPN
(15,645 posts)I don't know what you mean by sticking together though. It strikes me that differences of opinion need to be surfaced and dealt with as opposed to swept under the rug. Sometimes sticking together translates into acquiescing to another view. When that view doesn't align with one's perspective regarding fundamentals, it's unrealistic to expect folks to "stick together" for the sake of sticking together. If one's interests aren't being served in the process, it's more like simple acquiescence than teaming.
While your history of what happened to the Democratic Party is quite accurate, it leaves out the rightward drift of the D Party over 35 years on the economic front. Some of us have been concerned deeply about that for most of those 35 years. In my view, that rightward drift has played every bit as a big a role in the party's current situation as did the shift away from a 50 state strategy and GOP gerrymandering.
For me, it has been a long 35 years of continuous disappointment on economic policy. Triangulating and incrementalism have been strategic principles over that timeframe. On the economic front, those strategies have failed us and the working class. Right now, my hopes that the Democratic Party might return to its basic economic principles have never been higher. So let's hope you're right that we can craft a message that appeals to enough people to create a wave election win ... and then follow it up with actions that are consistent with that message as opposed, for example, to lending legitimacy to concepts like chained CPI.