Progressives storm Democratic primaries

[Jim Lane]

104. There will always be some sore losers who defect in the general if their candidate lost the primary.

There were, of course, such sore losers among Hillary Clinton's backers in 2008 -- more, in fact, than among Bernie Sanders's backers in 2016.

What I'm saying is that people are more likely to come together, post-primary, if there's a general feeling that the contest was conducted fairly and that what unites us is more important than what divides us. If there's enough vitriolic abuse of progressives just because they dare even to run in a primary, then the rate of general-election defection will be higher.

As for the term "establishment", well, the fact is that there's disagreement within the Democratic Party, which creates a need for shorthand terms to refer to it. In this thread we're talking about incumbent elected Democrats, so I think it's reasonable, and neutral, to call them the establishment Democrats. There's a case to be made for calling many of them DINOs or conservatives or R-Lite, or even corporate whores, but I personally think those terms are unhelpful (as are "purists" and whatnot for the other faction). I sometimes say "conservaDems" because, even if they're not conservative on the national scale, they're more conservative than are many other Democrats.