I get as pissed at the Democrats as anyone. But to quote Bill Maher, "I don't like my cell phone service either, but I don't respond by brushing my teeth with dogsh*t".
There's a big difference between criticizing the Democrats (which they roundly deserve) and saying "there is no difference between them and the Republicans".
When progressives get apathetic, the party doesn't correct itself and pull to the left. It goes where the active voters are, which is to the right. Concede and you get more of what you don't like.
I don't get the analogy. I guess its supposed to be nonsensical like dissenting liberals/progressives are supposed to nonsensical? Yeah, that's a great way to convince these people to come back under the tent, insult them. I think there is a difference between the Republicans and the Democrats, but I also think that they are two branches on the same tree and its fertilized by corporate dollars. So, yeah, there are differences but there are a lot of similiarities too. And I think both sides demonize the others to gin up votes when they aren't all that different.
I disagree that energized liberals shift the party left. That hasn't happened. When the White House Chief of Staff calls liberals retarded and the Press Secretary takes potshots at the 'professional left' and the President himself pretty much tells disappointed Democrats to suck it up, not in those words of course, this doesn't show a pattern of respect for progressive voters. If anything, progressives are expected to supply votes, energy, and then sit down and shut up while the grown folks run the government. White voters, in the middle, or independent are still more prized and many Democrats have calculated, perhaps since Carter and definitely with Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council, that the best way to appeal to those voters is to go right. The GOP effectively tarred liberalism, with a relentless assault since the late 1960s and it has never recovered. When liberal politicians feel they have to run away from their own inclinations, policy programs, or ideas, we've got a problem and that's where I feel the Democrats have been for a long time. They are a party at war with itself, propped up by coalitions that its elite, largely white, leadership don't particularly have much respect for or feel a need to adequately represent. Because at the end of the day the goal of a political party is to win and the Democrats have lost an effective way to win nationally on their ideas or vision. Clinton provided a blueprint but Gore couldn't carry the ball forward and the New Democrat/Third Way fizzled.
To be fair, a reenergized progressive/activist/blogger bent helped discredit/reject Clintonism. As did Bill Clinton's foilables in the later stages of his presidency. He seemed to leave a lot of people exhausted and ready to turn the page completely. I think the hope was that Obama would represent a way to win and govern beyond the compromises and triangulation of the Clinton years. That he could create a new political realignment. He hasn't done that, if anything he's sort of operated like Clinton, though with less personal drama but perhaps less empathy, or at least empathy as recognized by the media. So, to some extent, he's in a quandry partly of his making, partly of the chaotic times we live in.
