Does the party need to move right culturally to win more elections?

[Moostache]

18. People NOT voting are more important than messages...

The bottom line is Truman was right some 70+ years ago....given the choice between a Republican and a Democrat acting like a Republican, the voters will always choose the Republican. Faking it or selling out core principles to chase votes is a losing idea.

1) Start saying this with me right now...SINGLE PAYER HEALTHCARE.

It needs to be a mantra and a common ground principle for the party. The price of admission to the Democratic Party is you are full-throated supporting the RIGHT of EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN to basic healthcare and emergency services to save their life when possible.

The Democrats need an issue and an identity that they are willing to "go to the mattresses" for...if not healthcare, then what? The "we're not as bad as the GOP / we're NOT Trump" message has been found wanting...we need a banner, a rallying cry, a mantra.

As the polling shows, the public's appetite for taking away health care instead of making it better is about as popular as rancid meat. The way forward has ALWAYS been a push to remove the profit motive from health care and life or death decisions. I have a friend who nearly died from an imminently treatable affliction that became a crisis because he lacked health insurance, ended up in an ER for a life threatening situation and was subsequently ruined by a $65,000 bill that he has no chance of ever paying - ruining his credit, his ability to move or find new housing and essentially sapping him of the will to live in general. What's the point of trying to build a future when your present is a shit show and the bill for that shit show is going to ruin you for decades to come?

This is the best we can do? Allowing citizens to have their lives destroyed by illness, by fate, by bad luck? Allowing greed to put up barriers of profit siphoning between patients and doctors in the form of the insurance company middle man, hand out for a cut of the money? The imagery should NOT be one of "government inefficiency" but rather one of "private profiteering". The argument should not be based around anything but the lack of material impact the insurance provides versus the amount of healthcare it deprives as a result of the need to feed the overhead instead of attend to patient's needs.

2) Get Joe Kennedy into campaign mode NOW!

The hope of the Democratic Party lies in his hands in my opinion. I have seen him deliver some passionate speeches in Congress and while some may say he needs more seasoning and time to grow, I say there is no possible greater contrast to offer the nation than a Kennedy taking on 75 year old pasty ass Trump in 2020...or Pence if events take Donnie 2 Scoops out prior to the voting...

We need a fresh face, one with passion and vigor and yes, name recognition. We need a standard bearer with the fire of Sanders, the smarts of Clinton and the passion of their bases rolled into one...in my eyes, that man is Joseph Kennedy.

3) Expunge any and all "Blue Dogs" from the party

If you are not a full Democrat that can be counted on to toe the party line and stay with the party just like these GOP bastards, then go join the other team or go it alone. We have to stop allowing the party to be riven by the craven opportunists that are really nothing more than spineless GOP wannabes and enablers anyway. I won't name names here, but there are too many still around that need to go and go quickly, as in the next 90 days...the campaign mindset of just pointing out how mean the GOP is also has to go...

4) FIGHT the perception that "Government IS the problem" already!!!

Goddamn that Reagan era bullshit...it is STILL an effective sound bite and accepted mantra for the right and it is and always has been total BULLSHIT!!! Our government is of, by and for THE PEOPLE....we have allowed the corporations and business interests to cynically buy seats in congress, buy chairman's gavels and sell out the PEOPLE, but the GOVERNMENT IS NOT THE FUCKING PROBLEM....the piece of shit PEOPLE WE ALLOW IN THE GOVERNMENT ARE THE PROBLEM!!!

There has never been an adequate rebuttal of this horse shit proposition from the Democratic Party...the closest we have is the little montage from "The West Wing" that Lawrence O'Donnell wrote:

What did liberals do that was so offensive to the Republican party?
I’ll tell you what they did.
Liberals got women the right to vote.
Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote.
Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty.
Liberals ended segregation.
Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act.
Liberals created Medicare.
Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act.

What did conservatives do?
They opposed them on every one of those things, ­every one.

So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, ‘Liberal,’ as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won’t work, Senator.

Because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor.

Government of the people, by the people and for the people is the fundamental IDEA of America...it is what we should be fighting to maintain. We have allowed the discussion to devolve from WHO is in charge to whether or not the government should be there at all (which is a disingenuous dodge by the fascists and plutocrats of the Right....they want government alright, just one that services ONLY their needs and not the needs of the nation as a whole).

Its time to stop that nonsensical "role of government" canard and start fighting a more visceral campaign to redefine not the role of government but the COMPOSITION of the government. We allow the GOP a free pass to use the government and its power to strip away rights and freedoms and to define morality and right/wrong in their own religious-tinged light....NO MORE DAMMIT!!!

What is the role of government in the lives of the people? It is everything and everywhere and that is NOT changing...only the way it is used has been changed in the last 40 years. The New Deal and Great Society programs sought to establish the government as a force for good in the lives and rights of the citizens. That message, that hope, that vision has been clouded by a beach bully kicking sand in our faces, stealing our towel and telling us we have no right to expect any assistance from our government at all.

I do not buy that.
I do not believe that.
I do not accept that.

Times are always a changin'...that much is certain...but universal truths do not change as readily. Our government is the PEOPLE in theory...its time to take that back in reality.