General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: In 18 years since Naders run, what has been accomplished by attacking the Dem party from the left? [View all]Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)The consequences were bad as a result of those people leaving, but it wasn't entirely reasonable to expect them to just stay in, not ever get anything progressive in our platform(or only get progressive policies on a tiny range of non-transformational issues).
Basically, you're saying they should have stayed in and given up...should have accepted this party never being for a different notion of society again.
Some of the blame for that has to be assigned to those who pushed this party massively and unnecessarily to the right in the Nineties.
That generation of Democratic leaders partially caused the exodus by making it clear that activists would never be heard, that there was no significant space in the Nineties to fight for workers and the poor, that there was no space to work for peace instead of perpetual increases in the war budget.
It's not as simple as saying "they should just have voted Democratic, no matter what".
Progressives never deserved the treatment they got in this party in the DLC era.