General Discussion

Never have been. As far as I know, DU has no "Stein faction". Pro-Stein posts aren't allowed here. Any that appear would be instantly deleted as far as I know. Nor is there anything anyone can do on this board about the tiny and totally irrelevant JPR cabal.

As to Kamala Harris, I said a handful of things ages ago, for which I've expressed regret. I will say I'm sorry about those again now. Those maybe five things at most(I'd forgotten them since they were such a trivial part of my presence here)and they don't reflect ny views of the senator today, for Goddess' sakes. I'm not involved in the anti-Kamala claques that seem to exist now, didn't know of them until I read posts about them here and totally disapprove of them. If I were involved in those, I wouldn't have praised her for supporting single-payer or pledge to support if she was nominated. Do you hold lifetime grudges against everyone who ever, even a trivially few times, spoke of Democratic public figures I a tone of less than absolute reverence? Would you apply that to those HRC supporters who refused to the bitter end to accept that Obama had won the nomination and that their candidate needed to endorse him?

Why is it so important to you to declare every idea associated with the Sanders campaign off-limits? Why would you say they were when Hillary, even while claiming Bernie did lasting damage to her chances, admitted the his campaigns ideas themselves were valid and resonant and that they deserve to be part of what our party stands for. There are very few Hillary supporters who want to anathemize all of the ideas themselves. And if the ideas, rather than just the candidate, were truly rejected by the voters, why would the polls, even the polls showing our eventual nominee leading the candidate who backed the ideas have consistently showed that the rejected candidate was running a stronger race against the eventual nominee?

To me that evidence suggests our actual nominee, and anyone we nominate in the future, could only prosper by adding that economic component to our already strong social component, that our future nominee, whoever it is(and it may well be Senator Harris) could only prosper by connecting with that.

That is why my intent in arguing for those things is positive and constructive. I argue for them because the evidence suggests that more egalitarian, economically democratic ideas will increase our support, will benefit the Democratic base-since the addition of those ideas doesn't require us to throw anything or anyone under the bus-and will help return us to power so we can defend the base from social oppression and institutional bigotry, as all of us are committed to doing.

I want us to get back into power so we can do something about racism and sexism and homo-and-transphobia and xenophobia-we need to turn nonvoters and alienated voters into voters. I agree with you about going after new voters-that's more than half the reason I support what I support. We can't recover or gain new voters without being open to new ideas and new strategies/

As to Hillary, I simply said I wished she had held off on some of the comments. It's not an act of repression simply to have expressed that opinion and there is no chance that my saying it could cause people to avoid buying her book.

I said that because I sincerely believe it only does damage to incite rage between different progressive factions