Which is more important to you?

[JCanete]

2. If the second leads to winning elections at the cost of standing for something,

then it doesn't matter who wins the election. The D has to actually mean something. People so eagerly willing to vote for the latter take as a given that without actually holding our own leadership's feet to the fire, the D will always just naturally be better. As if history shows that. You can't clamp down on criticism and unfettered expression and come out of it with a democratic product that represents the people. Any time you stifle criticism you open the door for paternalism and authoritarianism. There's already a party for people okay with that. That won't do us any favors on this side of the spectrum, and because of the makeup of the Democratic voter base, I highly doubt that our public disagreements within our party are more detrimental to our success than they are retentive of our membership.

The idealogical purity criticism continues to be a false one anyway. It isn't about what we can ultimately get. Everybody seems to be willing to take what we can get when we can get it. Sanders has shown that time and time again, he will sign onto less than perfect legislation. It is about what we try to get. It is about what we go after and promote to the American people in order to make those political impossibilities possible. How is that ideological purity? Why are these the people we need to shut up, in order to cater to the lowest common (D)nominator, like Manchin's of the party?