General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Party Loyalty [View all]democrank
(11,112 posts)I`ve been a party activist for decades and can honestly say whenever I marched against a war, for civil rights, for women`s rights, for marriage equality, for workers` rights, for social and economic justice, most of the organizers and participants were "leftists" as defined by Democrats today. We used to be proud to stand up for unions and homeless people. We actually made a lot of noise about conditions that were unjust.....and (what many Democrats have forgotten) WE BROUGHT ABOUT A LOT OF REAL CHANGE. It wasn`t the conservatives that brought about the end of the Vietnam War, and it wasn`t the centrists, any more than they were the ones to bring about the Civil Rights Movement.
Leftists, when they rally around a moral cause, don`t really care what the neighbor thinks. And, in my experience, they`re not really interested in a sell-out compromise.I don`t really know how we would have compromised on Blacks not being able to sit at the Woolworth`s counter.
Leftists probably wouldn`t have been very helpful in designing our torture program or in creating tax loopholes for millionaires and billionaires. We probably wouldn`t vote against helping struggling college students pay off student loans. Leftists do compromise. I`ve done it myself. But we definitely know the difference between compromise and sell-out.
There is no doubt that the dot representing the Democratic Party`s center has been moved quite some distance to the right. That`s why people who today take positions that used to be the party`s majority position are now called unicorn-loving Leftists. The answer to our country`s enormous problems is not to act like a "moderate" Republican. I`ll bet Democrats here at DU who are of a certain age know exactly what I`m talking about.