The lesson we need to learn from the GOP:

[hedgehog]

Watching the GOP the last few months has been like rubbernecking at a grotesque accident; one knows one shouldn't do it, but it is practically impossible to look away.

How did the GOP get here? One factor is that the Party lurched farther and farther to the right, purging moderates along the way. In the end, all that is left is an assortment of True Believers/ Crackpots.

Now, I for one am a New Yorker often very frustrated by the moderate stands taken by Democrats from the West and Midwest. I'm even more frustrated by the DINOs. But looking at what's going on with the GOP, I have to admit that maybe a successful party needs internal disagreements. We aren't always as Progressive as I like, but at least we haven't walked off a cliff.

[Vincardog]

1. We aren't ever as Progressive as I like, because we are still walking towards the same cliff.

I am in Iowa. I detest to rabid reich wing.
I want to get the DLC and blue bastids back in their own party.

[HopeHoops]

2. It's an old lesson. There are a SHITLOAD of morons in the country who will vote for other morons.

If it wasn't for moron GOP candidates, the vast fields of morons out there wouldn't have anyone to vote for.

[zipplewrath]

3. Be careful

The democratic party went through a "purge" of their own, back in the late '50s and early '60s when we basically forced the segregationists out. I'm not sure you want to say that we should not have done that. We gave up the "solid south" in the process and lost individuals such as Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms to the GOP and watched them win elections for decades.

So were we wrong? Were we trying to be too "pure"? You can trace several losses, especially presidential losses, to that action. You can practically trace the '94 takeover by Newt to those actions in the early '60s.

There are internal disagreements, and then there are intolerable acts. Outlining the difference is difficult.

[hedgehog]

4. Good points - we have to walk the line between trying to be all things to

all people (and becoming so wishy-washy we please no one!) and becoming a lock step minority.

[zipplewrath]

6. How does that playout in practice?

We had two examples in the 2010 where the White House was supporting right leaning "democrats" and the unions and progressives were supporting someone else in the primaries. We also had the Lieberman fiasco 4 years ago.

How should the party, the White House, Unions, and progressives work in those situations?

[sofa king]

5. I absolutely adore our disarray.

Those who claim there is no difference between the parties are merely telling me that they haven't considered the matter closely. There is a clear and obvious difference.

The Republican Party is managed top-down, while the Democratic Party is managed bottom-up.

One is a herd of sheep, guided by wolves. The other is a herd of cats, guided not at all except by the collective interests of the individuals.

The most recent and obvious example comes from the Stratfor fiasco, where one "analyst" opined that McCain didn't win because the real powers behind the GOP--Karl Rove and Dick Cheney--didn't like him. Without their backing, he got nowhere (and I wouldn't be surprised to learn real soon that Sarah Palin was a malevolent gift from them).

Romney is another perfect example. Chosen well before the fact and force-fed to reluctant Republicans, the goons at the top know that their sheep will eventually herd up and follow no matter how distasteful.

Someone dare to tell me that Senator Obama was chosen before the fact and force fed to us! You know it ain't true. We Dems constantly differ in opinion, sometimes bitterly, and through that process of thinking problems through we convince one another of the correct course of action--a course that is constantly corrected by questioning, dissent, and argument. Damn, I love you folks!

Amazingly, the Confederate general Daniel Harvey Hill coincidentally described today's Democratic Party when describing the battlefield discipline of his own troops:

"Whoever saw a Confederate line advancing that was not crooked as a ram's horn? Each ragged rebel yelling on his own hook and aligning on himself.”

Perhaps not coincidentally, they were all Democrats, too. The politics have completely flipped since then, but the attitude hasn't at all.