The Democrats' search for ideological purity

[applegrove]

The Democrats' search for ideological purity

by Jonathan Freedland at the Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/05/democrats-search-ideological-purity-hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders

"SNIP..........


Now, though, perhaps for the first time in half a century, the Democrats are engaged in a similar search for ideological purity. In a contest tighter and sharper than almost anyone predicted, the battle between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders – whose next front is this small, frozen state on the east coast, which votes on Tuesday – has acquired an unfamiliar doctrinal edge.

Much of the first head-to-head debate between the pair on Thursday night was devoted to a competition over who was the true progressive. In exchanges that grew increasingly testy, Clinton suggested Sanders had set himself up as “the self-proclaimed gatekeeper for progressivism”, imposing a definition that would have excluded a roll call of popular Democrats, including Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Ted Kennedy.

............

Not that Rubio is some kind of soft-hearted moderate. His promise to overturn Obamacare, like his dismissal of a question on climate change – “It’s going to snow tomorrow!” – confirm that he is still a man of the right. Just one with a much more acceptable face.

All of this is predicated on the notion that Trump may be amusing, even thrilling to watch – that he may channel the deepest longings of the conservative id – but that he can’t be president. As Vance put it: “He says a lot of things that we think – but some things shouldn’t be said out loud.” Rubio does not mention Trump. But you know who he has in mind when he says: “Anger is not a plan.”

It could be that this view is gaining ground among Republicans: that it’s not enough to find a candidate who channels your fury, you need one who can win and do something about it. But among the Democrats, that argument is still raging, white hot even in the New Hampshire snow.



............SNIP"

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. key part for me

"The pragmatic, unexciting path – which involves dodging round obstacles, and patching together unsightly compromises – set against the exhilarating clarity and moral force of undiluted principle."

Note the adjectives - unexciting, dodging, unsightly.

vs exhilarating.

How many are being - have been - left out, and left behind, during all of that unexciting, unsightly pragmatism?

That's the key to understanding why Bernie's run is so exciting - so important - to so many.

[pampango]

2. "Meanwhile, there are signs that the Republicans are making a shift of their own. The political

analyst Henry Olsen says that every Republican nomination battle since 1964 has turned on the question of whether their party should be “the vehicle for the conservative movement”. If the answer to that question in 2016 is yes, then New Hampshire would surely follow the lead set by Iowa and choose the ultra-conservative senator Ted Cruz."

I like our search for "ideological purity" a whole lot more than the GOP's search for "pure" fear and hatred.