Surprised by the atmosphere here....

[dreamnightwind]

150. Yes, I have had the same dashed hopes

It seems as though too many are merely entrenched in a "side", fighting for the perceived benefit of their side regardless of the particular situation in front of them. As a result, learning rarely happens.

For me the eye-opener was the healthcare debate. We were told again and again that Obama had this, meaning he was playing x-dimensional chess by not tipping his hand while the debate raged on. No way would the president take single-payer off the table, no way would there be a mandate to buy private insurance, no way would there be a mandate to buy private insurance without a public option, no way would he be secretly pushing the Heritage-Romney-Wellpoint plan, and no way would he do this without strong price controls. Not sure if my representation of the debate is perfect, but I watched it unfold, and watched the various arguments here on DU, basically I watched hope slip away as it became increasingly clear that the insurance corporations were the ones calling the shots.

OK, all well and good in a way, it's politics and it isn't pretty. It was a poop sausage they were making but I've been around awhile and can understand that money rules. But what I couldn't abide was watching the pretzel logic on this site by the unconditional Obama supporters. They used heavy doses of denial, shouting down people who warned about what might actually be happening. With each step in the process the goalposts were moved, until what was finally revealed was the poop sausage that had been constructed behind closed doors. The unconditional Obama supporters, most all of them anyway, never returned to admit how wrong they were, never apologized, never admitted that the doubters were correct, nothing. They just moved on to the next case of defending the indefensible.

Healthcare is just one example, and perhaps not the best one, but for me it was the first one where I saw the whole dynamic play out and realized that there is no actual dialogue happening with many of the blind supporters. There is just a fight, a defense, largely removed from the supposed goal of advancing a liberal or progressive agenda, of rolling back the many wrong steps that were taken during the Bush (and Clinton) administration.

I have no idea if the unconditional supporters are even liberal, how many of them are paid for posting here (I would dearly like for this issue to be thoroughly explored and ended), nor what kind of country they ultimately strive to live in. Many of them actively opposed Occupy in the same way they oppose Snowden, Greenwald, FDL, Manning, Assange, Chomsky, Kucinich, etc. So are these people Democrats? Former Republicans who moved to our party? Paid stooges? Some of each, probably. But it's a huge energy drain on this site and gets in the way of the real discussions that need to happen if the Democratic Party is to become the party of the 99% again.

Sorry for the length of this, I ramble. Hopefully not a total waste of time.