|
The coverage and "pundit class" talk about the win has been frustrating to me.
It's a cliche, but I have always perceived the Democrats as a party with members who are varying shades of conservative, centrist, liberal and whatever else. So. Welcome, Ocasio-Cortez.
What frustrates me is the idea that the party needs to move further left, or that slow movement in that direction is evidence of a failing party. First: not everyone wants to move left. It's worth it to figure out how to work *together,* whatever the persuasion of Democrat.
I think the party is likely to get further from the center. That way, everybody can come to an understanding that everyone can't get what they want and so we'll all have to be pissed in order to consolidate power--staying together (voting, messaging etc)--is the end goal. Then, when Democrats have political capital, have a damn fight about what to do with it.
Democrats should worry less about inter-squabbles and ideology and freaking focus on getting a strategy together to take on the Republican party. Put that to the side. It matters not one iota what Democrats want or what people want Democrats to do, if there is no effective answer and plan about Republican challenges to the Democrat Christmas wish list.
This is a two-party system. Two. Maybe later it won't be. But right now, it's two. And the Republicans are playing a long game for what looks like an America with one party and another that's just there for decoration.
Democrats have a lot of self-inflicted wounds. I don't think that's because of ideology, as much as it's because of lack of strategy. For instance, Bernie Sanders, to me, isn't about an ideology battle for the soul of the party. No. The Sanders phenomena is a repeated lesson about the party's inability to foresee or respond to strategies launched from within and without, challenges to power in the party.
This is a shame because the party has a winning platform and the willingness to serve and improve the lives of all Americans in a way that the Republican party, demonstrably, has not.
|