We’re on the cusp, as a party, of moving into a supermajority in the government, and pushing the Republican party to becoming a strictly regionally-based minority. Of course, everyone remembers Karl Rove’s predictions of a permanent Republican majority, and how well that worked out. Certainly, there’s no hard assurance we won’t end up the same way.
The best way I can see to ensure that will happen is to “open the tent”- and including people of all political persuasions to join ranks with us. Moderates, independent voters, the conservative intelligentsia that was so thoroughly driven from the Republican party. The question is, however, how much are you willing to compromise to make that happen? And what will those areas be?
I am a former Republican. I was driven from the party for daring to dissent, for not toeing the party line and accepting things unquestioningly. For daring to suggest it’s not our damn business what goes on in people’s bedrooms; for railing against suggesting people were “pro-abortion”, and refusing to stop prostetylzing and do something to address the causes of the problem; for wondering why a wholesale attack on our civil liberties was needed to fight this intangible and unending “war on terror”.
I was labeled a great many things. Republican in Name Only! Baby killer! Liberal Kool-aid drinker! Commie! You know the names. All because I dared to not accept everything shoved down my throat. So I left the Republican party… and now I’m here. And there will continue to be people like me arriving at our doorstep, and wondering, where do I fit in with the Democratic party? Do I?
I can’t claim to know all those answers. But what I can do is help foster dialogue and understanding; to help you guys understand where I, and people like me, are coming from.
And the first issue in this series is on organized labor. Please keep an open mind; I’m not trying to be a concern troll. I’m trying to foster discussion, but I’ll be playing devil’s advocate more than one in the course of doing so.
