If sucking my dick would get you to stop making up hypotheticals, would you do that?

I don't think my question was hypothetical, I think being mean to Democrats hurts Democrats polling and helps the Republicans, I think that's one of the reasons Republicans are mean to Democrats, because it helps them win elections.

I want a good party, not a better than Republicans party. If they're not good enough, we're going to be mean? Why? We want to pressure them to be better. Otherwise we can just shrug when Democrats only vote for 95% of Trump nominees because they're better than Republicans still

Also, the right is mean to Republicans and that somehow hasn't stopped them from winning elections. But it has changed the type of Republicans in office

The right gave Republicans control of the White House, the House, the Senate, and ultimately the Supreme Court. We should be so mean to the Democrats.

Yep, and they bullied people like Romney out of there so only Trump loyalists remain, just like the right wants. Being mean to their own side worked

I think you mean they voted people like Romney and Bush out of there. If you want your Democratic Representative or Senators gone, vote in their primaries, but I'm still of the mind that bullying Democrats online only helps the Republicans.

Romney is out of politics because he was bullied out. He didn't lose. He chose not to run again because of how he was treated by his own side. Do you actually think it's still 2012?

I think Trump won two Republican primaries because the right supported him and voted for him, not because they bullied Mitt Romney. If you want Democrats to push out Republicans, you gotta' support them and vote for them, I guess is what you're saying.

What are you literally talking about? Trump never ran against Romney. Romney has absolutely nothing to do with Trump winning presidential elections

I want to get Republicans out of office and stop Donald Trump's American revenge tour.

I can understand peoples' frustration with certain Democratic electeds, especially when they concede points to the opposition (crime is bad, crack down on immigration etc). As Atrios often says, if you offer people a choice between GOP and GOP-lite policies, they pick the GOP every time. But... 1/2

Given the size and diversity of this country and the goal to get Republicans out of power, we need to embrace Democrats with different backgrounds and view points. What gets AOC elected in NYC, isn't going to flip a red seat in Iowa. What works in New Hampshire might not work in LA. 2/2

3/2 (drat!) So being means to Dems that hold positions you do not like does not help. However, when Dems blame other Dems (just talking about electeds) that is when I can't help but get mad at them. "I'm not one of those Dems that thinks trans people can use any bathroom they want, vote for me" NO!

To a certain point. But in the end, Democrats are a political party with a platform. We cannot and should not abandon or dilute that platform for the sake of widening the tent that apparently includes Dick Cheney. Nor should we shrug when Democrats don't fight back against Trump/MAGA

In what I've seen, that's honestly the biggest criticism out there. Democrats are capitulating instead of fighting. What use is a political party that doesn't push back against the opposing party?

Exactly! At times it seems as if they have no vision. It sounds like they want the same things the GOP does, but to be nicer about it. They lose an election and act like their long held values are have been repudiated and need to be jettisoned. It is infuriating!

I think the missing piece here is that we're angry at the *leadership*; we can't just agree to disagree when the top of the party pushes our ideals aside in the way we might disagree with a centrist voter or backbencher.

Clearly being upset at Jefferies for critizing his members for holding up auction signs at the State of the Union helps Republicans

If you're complaining more about Hakeem Jeffries than about Donald Trump, yeah, I think that helps the Republicans.

I think putting pressure on elected officials can cause them to adopt more popular positions, which can help them at the polls. Why won't you be more mean to Democrats? Don't you want them to win?

Why aren't you using your voice to pressure Republicans, the majority party in the House and Senate, to adopt more popular positions? Why waste your breath being mean to the party that's out of power? Democrats don't have the power to enforce any position so long as Republicans retain control.

To pressure them into taking what procedural actions they have to obstruct? To make sure the Democrats in office when they do get power again to actually not suck? I live in a red state and staffers have literally laughed at liberals and leftists calling about Republican policy. Good luck with that

Then call your Representative and Senators and tell them so, but don't trash the party online, that only helps Republicans.

If you wanted to stop Hitler, would you send your advice to Goering or Eisenhower?

If you wanted to beat Hitler, would you have been mean to Hitler or to Eisenhower?

Actually, I thought of a better example. "McClellan, you suck at this. Piss off so Grant can actually deal with Lee." Lee is the Problem, but McClellan is the Obstacle. He's not the enemy, but he is preventing the enemy from being dealt with.

Okay, then by all means, call your Senators and Representative, but complaining about the Union online doesn't make the Union stronger, doesn't make it more popular, doesn't help recruiting. Do your part for the war effort, call your representatives instead of poasting.

The only thing that will help the war effort is if the feckless generals who don't want to fight get replaced by someone who sees the war for what it is. Public pressure is the only way to do that.

Or you could vote in the primary elections, but I don't think complaining about Democrats online is the silver bullet you think it is, I still think being mean to Democrats really only helps the Republicans. Anyway, thanks for the talk, you've got some calls to make!