Stay in Democratic Party to change it

[longship]

14. It is near impossible to do it from the top-down.

One has to learn from recent history to understand that these changes happen from the bottom-up.

In the late 70's a group of evangelical Christians, headed by Jerry Falwell -- "If he had an enema, he could have been buried in a match box," Christopher Hitchens -- began a program called the Moral Majority (hint: they were neither) to merge fundamentalist religion and politics. He failed, but Pat Robertson was more than happy to take over the battle when he helped form the Christian Coalition.

Since then, the GOP has become much less of a political entity than a religious one. As an officer of a county Democratic party in the 90's I watched in horror as it happened before our very eyes. The result-- this was in Kansas -- we see now, replicated across the nation.

There is no longer any pretense of stealth evangelical Christianity in the GOP, or (shudder) the Democratic Party either. One cannot run for office in this country without being asked about ones religious beliefs, a criterion that flagrantly violates Article VI of the US Constitution.

The argument has been so skewed by the now overtly theocratic Christian GOP that nobody dare say that they disagree.

I find the whole thing disgusting, as well as Hillary Clinton's association with "The Family". Google "C Street Rachel Maddow" and you'll find this:

The lesson to be learned here is that the GOP did not become theocratic overnight, let alone from the top-down. They did it from the bottom-up by putting evangelical Christians in every precinct so that the only delegates to be selected were from the same pool of religious lunatics.

Once one has the precincts in a district, one has the district delegation. Once one has the district delegations, one has the state delegation. Once one has the state delegations, one has achieved the takeover of a national party. That is how it was done.

Meanwhile, many DUers believe that a change in POTUS is enough to steer the party left. Well, it's not. It has to be done from the bottom-up if one desires a lasting influence, if one wants to change the course of the party for the future.

If you want a progressive Democratic Party -- and I do -- one needs to replicate what happened to the GOP in the last 25 years of the 20th century. The takeover has to come from the bottom-up.

Meanwhile, we can try to get progressives in as many offices as possible.

That is why I will vote for Bernie tomorrow in the MI primary .