Morning Joe has its own agenda and it's not the Democratic Party's agenda

[wyldwolf]

64. many may not remember DU a decade ago when "progressives" loved referring to themselves as ...

"real Democrats" and "true Democrats" and "the base of the party." Some were even going so far as to say John Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton weren't "real Democrats." 'Dinos' they were according to the "netroots" (there's another old term for you.)

I think it is quite fair to say the Democratic Party is not an ideal medium for securing a variety of progressive and left-rooted measures, and I do not, personally, view it as such.

Accepting that there is an imperfect fit between the Democratic Party and the furthest aims of left and progressive people, several things must be acknowledged.

First, it has to be acknowledged that left and progressive people really do not have solid ground to proclaim they and only they are true Democrats, or are the real base of the Democratic Party, and that people who are left of center or center-left or even centrists are not really Democrats or are people to be shunned. Moderates built the modern Democratic party.

Second, left and progressive people need to consider whether the tactic of attacking people who are perhaps a bit to the right of them, though generally well to the left of a national average, or of the average in the locale where they reside, as "conservatives" who do not belong in the Democratic Party, is likely to expand and increase their influence in the Democratic Party, and advance the prospects of actually getting laws and regulations they would like to see adopted come to pass.

The perennial meme here about what constitutes a "real Democrat" or one that is 'too far right' is conducted along lines that bear very little relation with the actual states and history of the Democratic Party. The faction of the Democratic Party that sprang from socialist movements of the 1930s and the New Left movement of the 1960s (the ideological ancestors of today's "progressive" movement" ) had its political trial with the campaign for President of Henry.Wallace in 1948, and failed utterly, gaining the votes of only a handful of people. What is repudiated at the polls by the overwhelming preponderance of Democratic voters cannot be the real face of the Democratic Party. It really is that simple.