This board is absolutely unreadable and it's not even an election year.
That takes some doing, so, congratulations DU?
But, excuse me if I'm wrong here, isn't an expressed goal of this site to discuss how to get Democrats elected and build a Democratic majority?
Is it not possible that goal requires different strategies in different places? And that our party is aware of that?
I don't think that it takes too sophisticated of political analysis to see that economic populism is a successful strategy in the Midwest, and that social issues are bigger drivers on the coasts and other regions.
Isn't it then just smart to cultivate candidates that will appeal to their given electorates?
Why are both sides here complaining about the other making "purity" demands, while making their own purity demands? Why are there are even two sides? This is madness.
Every candidate has baggage. Every candidate has a shit vote (or "present" vote) on their records. That's true for Bernie, Hillary and Barack. Imperfect, all of them. But all of them out there busting their asses to build what we are actively tearing apart on this board.
C'mon DUers, we're better than this. We're smarter than this. And we know (from painful experience) what this leads to, more GOP asses in seats that should have a Dem in them...and ALL of us failing.
Let's not do that anymore.
Humbly submitted for your consideration,
Barack_America
= new reply since forum marked as read
Now I understand what you were aiming to say. There is always going to be difficulty in deep red states like Arkansas and Alabama (which I have called home for many years now) because Democrats have to make concessions in their stances to have any chance of being elected in some districts.
If we don't understand that just about any Democrat is going to be better than any Republican, we are never going to be able to retake the House in the current gerrymandered situation.
And by the way, I amassed that post count since the middle of 2015 when the Democratic primary battles were just cranking up, so I really haven't been on DU for that long. I have just been "active". 
I haven't posted as much on DU as usual lately. I have been finding all of the re-fighting the primaries in disguised terms - which is just a continuation of the left leaning progressives and moderate Democrats civil war - tiring at best. I got all involved in that battle during the primaries, but I realize now in hindsight that was non-productive at best and just plain destructive to our cause at worst.
The best thing about DU is that it attracts many of the most active Democrats and independent progressives. The worst thing about DU is that it attracts many of the most active Democrats and independent progressives. Most of these folks can't have a civil conversation about a subject about which they disagree without getting all riled up. I can vividly imagine anther nasty primary fight on DU in 2020 instead of concentrating our total efforts on bringing down Trump if he hasn't been impeached by then.
and we REALLY need a smilie for women's rights.
Good advice!
And that may be an area of contention as Democrats try to find the common ground to rally around for the 2018 midterms.
Nevertheless, I would suggest it will be uglier and messier to try and convince the party elites to rely on small grassroots donations rather than megabucks from corporate donors. It's easier for them to say they are for equal rights for all ( and throw up their hands in faux dismay claiming they can't get legislation passed, and must fall back on "incrementalism" than it is to get them to stop gorging at the trough of corporate dependency.
I would also suggest that those who are willing to fight for income equality and economic justice are more likely to also support equal rights and social justice, compared to those who say they support equal rights, and give only lipservice to economic issues, with no intention of enacting anything that runs counter to the neoliberal status quo.
But disagree with your analysis. I am in no way a purist at all, and I would be fine with making inroads to to attract new constituencies (even though I'm skeptical about converting large swaths of such voters on general national interests over the long term). This can be done in smart ways and stupid ways. The stupid way is to publicize nationally a big unity tour, make a big rally featuring a speaker recently involved in a bitter primary spouting the same national message that was rejected by the majority, all for a local mayoral race--and in so doing alienating huge portions of the already loyal, voting Democratic base at large. And it's double stupid if you fail to put on the same dog-and-pony show for another Democratic candidate for a much more critical race in another state: it looks very hypocritical, and it makes it look like one kind of message is being endorsed at the expense of another. That's not a winning strategy if you lose more voters nationally than you might gain in one locality.
The smart way to grow things regionally and locally, which must be done, and must include all types of Democrats, would be to allocate money and resources, focus on issues that really really matter to that community, and to avoid fracturing the current coalition by grandstanding on issues that have already been raked over the coals (for decades, I might add) while dismissing other issues (which have been bedrocks of the Democratic agenda for decades) as insignificant.
Look, what is clearly happening here is that the primary is being refought. And we're losing focus on the one individual who could gain us more votes than anyone or than anything the DNC or any Democratic (or outside party reformer) could ever do: and that is Donald Trump and his chaotic, oligarchal, bigoted administration. Whatever happens in 2018 and beyond will be the public's reaction to Trumpism, not some restructuring of the Democratic Party. We're looking for love in all the wrong places.
There seems to me one way to avoid this refighting of the primary--after all, it ceased for quite a while here until .... you got it: until people started coming back to paper the place with post after post extolling the wisdom and popularity of Bernie Sanders. We get vanity posts proclaiming: "Sanders says Trump is a liar!" (gee, who knew that? Except, like, EVERYONE), and not just one such post but multiple ones. Every platitude is repeated 50 times. So you see, then people need to push back by saying things like: Bernie Sanders is just another senator now, he's not god you know. And then the fighting starts ("ooh, the haters," "ooh, the idolaters" . So stop posting unnewsworthy posts of adoration, and you will see an equivalent silence on the other side. The same goes for the Party: stop trying to kiss you-know-what by overindulging this candidate and you won't get blowback. There is a place for him, but not as savior.
That is how you create unity and keep the eyes on the prize.
That is all I have to say, sorta.
This is for them.
a smilie to more accurately convey my true feelings. 
woozy.
Others are more knowledgeable than I am in why this 'bless your heart' jousting is taking place. A psychological thing, as you posited.
Mandatory: rid our house of dumpty and those trashing our Democracy.
My God. I never thought, in all my born days, I'd be witness to the utter travesty come upon us.
Makes one ill. I think, how can this be? Oh, it be.
We need preserve ourselves yet while
resisting and persisting.
🇺🇸
You just need to find some distinctive shaped/constructed ball to fight over!
and dropped in today just to see what condition our condition was in. Thank you for this dose of sanity. Hope you don't get a Hide for it! 
Think I'll go back to hiding GD for a while -- hopefully joining forces to defeat Republicans will once again become in vogue here before too long. Until then, I'll let the dividers snipe at each other and spend my time more productively.
And I agree with your other points, wish I could rec this more than once.
Well done.
