Reply #55: there you go

[Two Americas]

Focusing on the corporate domination over all of our lives as the first priority and fighting back against the wealthy and powerful few would unite the party and bring millions of new allies to the fight. We need not purge, we need not compromise. We need to speak and stand for the truth. Some - a small but very dominant and vocal number - will leave: those who are not willing to see the party return to its class roots, do not want the party to fight corporatism, do not want the party to take up the fight aggressively on the behalf of the left behind. (Everyone says they do, but their actions and opinions contradict that.)

The party is deeply divided right now - it is just revealing itself, it isn't being caused by anyone. The divide is between those who want to do what I suggested above, and those who do not. That divide has been growing and existed long before the current primary season, but it is definitely becoming more and more obvious.

I think it is a good thing that the divide is becoming more clear. This is long overdue, and it gives us an opportunity to face it and overcome it.

The party keeps hanging out a sign: "we welcome the poor, the downtrodden, the forgotten and abused." Then when we try to come in, we hear all of the complaints about how we are ruining the expensive carpet with our muddy boots. That is where the divide is - the elegant carpet proponents, and those wearing muddy boots. The party needs to get rid of the carpet, or take down that sign. Soon, it will do one or the other. There are a thousand muddy boots people for every elegant carpet person, and that is where the future lies. As it is now, the carpet people control the party and the discussion at all levels. That is why half of the voters don't vote at all, and why half of the rest of the voters are lured away to vote Republican.

The FDR administration was the muddy boots party, and people in West Virgina were not excluded. In the context of that big tent - inclusive, but focused tightly on a very radical and uncompromising position - all of the social issues can be advanced. In a context of cultural war social issues we lose on the social issues, and we lose on the issues of power and economics. The way we are approaching it now, we are forced to either have a small tent or compromise on principle. That is a lie. Standing on principle would expand the tent, and failing to stand on principle shrinks it.