This will be my only comment on the bloodbath, that was the 2014 General Election ...

[Rilgin]

78. Or in other words ...

Your post can be boiled down to the following:

The way for liberals/progressives/leftists and centrists/Third Way Democrats to coexist is for leftists to ignore their beliefs. Centrists do not have to do anything. They do not have to actually fight for good solutions. However, liberals have to accept all the policies put forth by centrist candidates currently even if the policy is flawed or is a bad compromise. In fact, inherently you want liberals to repress their beliefs and express as a positive that the third way politicians were correct in enacting, compromising or not fighting for solutions favored by the left even though polls consistently show that the electorate is further left than the political class and favors left based policies and solutions.

Your point is that Liberals should accept or express centrist policies as victories. No matter if liberals see a Third Way policy or law as going in the wrong direction, they must express the opposite and trumpet all such policies as victories using whatever benefits they can find in the compromised law. In cases where compromise leads to imperfect or partial solutions, they must trumpet such laws as victories regardless of their belief over whether we reach solutions by political confrontation or incrementaism.

There could be a real debate on which way is better. I believe this is one primary intellectual difference between leftist and centrist democrats. Your request that all actions of our incumbents be trumpeted as victories does not admit that maybe you are wrong. Perhaps, the answer is to make it clear to the centrist politicians that band-aid solutions are not acceptable if they foreclose or delay or put long term impediments on actually solving a problem. That you will not just lose "republican moderates" but also the left will not support you and you will lose your seat no matter how much corporate money you try to raise. Third Way People want to say "dont let the perfect be the enemy of the good". I might respond by saying that maybe it is "silence that is the enemy of the good" or "acceptance of the bad or imperfect to chalk up a victory that is the enemy of the good." These seem to be what you are recommending, silence and acceptance of what some of us view as bad policy and direction.

Looking backward to an earlier post, I would ask you to consider if maybe the ACA is not a long term victory because it institutionalizes health insurance companies and passage of the ACA actually moves us in the wrong direction. This is my belief but I can acknowledge that I might be wrong. Your solution is to claim it as a victory and do not require the centrist to acknowledge any doubts that it might not be a victory but might actually be a defeat of a long term solution. Again, it is my belief, that ultimately it is because it is not a system that is simple and just benefits everyone. Its benefits are that the poor and sick now get health care. A lot of america is unchanged, the same or marginally worse. This has allowed openings for republican political attacks. I think it would have been better politically if one day a medicare card just showed up in the mail which gave the person government insurance. It would be universal and a good system for everyone while still giving the poor and sick health care. Instead, we are still in a battle. Despite claims of bending the curve, our system is still hugely expensive. As we are aware, if the republicans manage to get in power they might repeal the ACA anyhow and democrats will end up with a huge political defeat. Craven politicians will not bring up solutions for years after.

Using one of your prior analogies, instead of throwing a blanket over the baby and bringing her to the curb (not the ambulance), in passing the ACA, we simply moved the baby deeper into the house to the bathtub and put water over her. For the moment,the baby is no longer on fire but is sure to burn in the long term.

Personally, I believe the ACA, the security state, the new financial regulations (ignoring lessons learned from the 1930s on bank regulation) and some other current laws and policies which you would have us claim as victories all move us in the wrong direction. In many of these cases, we are simply trying to preserve a bad and decaying system. It is like what happens if the foundation of your house is bad, you can replace it or try to patch it. Patching it is less effort but does not really fix the problem. If you patch it, it will hold for a little longer and have some benefits but since you wasted your political money, you will not get to the root problems nor will you be able to fix it when the patch fails. If you patch it and everyone knows in their hearts it was not a real solution, you lose elections.

That is ultimately the problem with your post, you want leftists to stop being leftists. You want us to convince the electorate that centrist policies help them even though we do not believe the policies help. Further, I believe in their hearts most of the electorate does not believe in centrist compromises and i believe that a majority of the mushy middle would welcome a populist from the left. I think I would much prefer a direct fight for the heart and soul of first the democratic party and second the american people with a real clear choice between the two parties rather than intentionally blurring the lines to try to woo the electorate by hiding policy warts and bad compromises and trumpeting marginal victories as great victories.