On liberal "purity".

[Summer Hathaway]

69. The problem always remains

(at least on DU) that everything gets boiled down to, "I'm THE real Democrat!" "No, I AM!" "No, it's ME!"

Add in the "I'm more progressiver than you are," BS, along with "No, I'm the progressivest!"
(Spell check just went into seizures).

The Democratic party has always been a Big Tent - that's part of its problem, and part of its allure. It is a party that consists of people - people whose principles might greatly differ one from to the next, whose goals may differ in terms of priority, whose voice is made up of the many, not the few who self-proclaim as being more "pure" in their party affiliation than those who disagree with them on any number of issues.

There never was a Camelot. There never was a time when all Democrats held exactly the same principles, the same aims, the same thoughts on how best to go where we, as a party, want/need to go. It is our diversity that lends strength to our purpose; it is our differences that lead the way to compromise (which has become a dirty word for some, instead of being what it is - a way of dealing with those who oppose our ideals and our ideas).

This notion that the party has been moved to the right is ridiculous. The repeal of DADT, the implementation of the ACA, the president standing up for marriage equality - these are not RW ideas. They are Democratic ideas, and our perseverance as a party has led the way - and will continue to do so.

It is a consistent theme among certain posters here that they are somehow 'more pure' in their ideology than others. They point to that non-existent Camelot where all Democrats were on the same page, and the Party's 'principles' were held as sacrosanct. In truth, the party's principles have often changed as the times changed; priorities shift, old unworkable ideas are abandoned, and replaced with new criteria - just as the nation, and the world, changes around us.

We Democrats have adapted to that change - the GOP, for the most part, has not. And we've seen where that has led them. And it's not a place I want to go.

I am particularly tired of the persecution complex that many here have wrapped themselves in: "As a far-leftist, I have been abandoned by the party. My voice is never heeded. I am being ignored." Well, maybe certain voices are not being heard because they're too busy whining about what shoulda been/coulda been, instead of contributing to what IS right now - and not what supposedly existed once upon a time.

Maybe if those of which I speak stopped dismissing anyone they believe to be lower than them on the 'purity' scale and actually listened to what others in their party have to say, they just might discover (oh, my!) that theirs is not the only opinion (one they seem to believe should be held in some kind of myth-based esteem), and theirs is not the only course to be considered as a valid way of achieving the party's ultimate goals.

While I am probably far to the left of many Democrats, I welcome the voices of the many. There are things to be considered as emanating from both ends of the spectrum, and few of them are totally out of sync with each other. But dismissing those who don't agree with the self-proclaimed "real Democrats" is not only childish, it is divisive and counter-productive.

Those who adhere to the true principles of the Democratic Party are those who embrace ALL, not the few who agree with them. Viewing the political world as it IS - and not as some wish it to be, or as it allegedly was in their own mind - makes positive change not only possible, but inevitable.

If you truly feel that the Party has abandoned you, maybe it has - for very good reason. Maybe, just maybe, the rest of us have moved on to deal with reality, instead of joining you in mourning the death of something you have conjured up in your own head, and take such obvious pleasure in using as a yardstick by which to measure your fellow party members in order to find them wanting.