The Democrats Should Go Further Left

This opinion piece reminds me of Paul, far Left commenter at MinnPost.  If you are interested in his views, see them at the bottom of this MinnPost piece.  Here is some of the discussion we had.

"My thing is that for decades someone says: "Let's do something liberal" and Democrats reply: "No, if we do that we'll lose elections". I mean at some point you just have to admit your're not dealing with liberals. Maybe in theory they could be liberals, but we don't need theoretical liberalism. 

Meanwhile Republicans aren't defeating liberals at the ballot box, they're defeating Democrats. Democrats always try to blame their losses on excessive liberalism but THAT'S a conservative mentality in-and-of itself, so we're back to an absence of liberalism. The more they move the the "middle" i.e. moderate republicanism, the more Democrats lose, yet they keep blaming liberals. Who does that? Conservatives do that, that;s who does that. 

The problem is we desperately need a liberal political Party in the United States because liberal initiatives are the only workable solutions to our most serious issues ranging from energy to education. Since we're stuck with a two party system that means we need the Democrats to a liberal party. THAT'S not going to happen until Democrats who think they're already liberal realize they're not, decide if they want to be, and act accordingly one way or the other." Paul 

"Seems to me that your Progressive / True Liberal is what many call a Democratic Socialist. I mean that is what Bernie calls himself. Is this correct? http://www.dsausa.org/" G2A 

"Yes and No. Sanders's calls himself a Democratic Socialist, but really he's just a "New Deal" Democrat. The distinction isn't really relevant, a liberal, simply put, is someone who supports liberal agendas and initiatives. Liberals can disagree regarding those initiatives but anyone who simply rejects them out of hand because they're liberal initiatives, isn't a liberal. So in theory liberals could disagree whether or not Obamacare or Medicare for All is the best health care system from a technical perspective, but anyone who rejects either proposal on the grounds that it's "too" liberal simply isn't a liberal. 

For decades whenever we say: "Let's do something liberal" Democrats respond:"No, that will cost us the election". And then they go out and lose elections trying to be something other than liberal. I'm not saying that no Democrats anywhere are liberal, but clearly the Party elite and too many primary voters are something other than liberal... I'd say they look like moderate conservatives who can be socially liberal, but politically and economically conservative. Whatever, I'm not actually interested in classifying them, people can be whatever they are, I don't care. I just want people to know what they are and act accordingly. Don't tell me you're a liberal but you don't believe liberals can win elections in a liberal democracy. Ether sign on to some other perspective or get liberal but don't act and vote like a moderate Republican and tell us you're a liberal Democrat." Paul 

"However the reality is that Bernie is the Far Left and Hillary is the Middle Left. Look at the graphs in these govtrack links for their scores.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/hillary_clinton/300022
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/bernard_sanders/400357
As I often say, I hope you do succeed in convincing the Democratic party to go even further Left." G2A

 And though not directly related, I feel for Hiram's comment left at the end of that old piece...  Kind of like a tree falling in the woods.

"Democrats HAD a candidate that knew how to connect to rural voters and address the economic concerns that Mr. Foster claims to be so difficult.  

"Who was that? There is a lot of finger pointing going around. A recent book places just about all of the blame on Hillary. No doubt a lot of mistakes were made by a lot of people, but the real problem is that we didn't have the choice of candidates we needed, Hillary, with all her faults and with all her many virtues, was our party's version of Jeb Bush, a dynastic candidate, running when the era of dynasties is long past. Had Hillary been running in a more filled out field for the nomination, I doubt if she would have made it to the first primary. But the fact was, because of our failures in local election after local election, we simply did not have a viable alternative to Hillary in 2016, and that's why Trump's re-election, despite his extraordinary level of incompetence, is as much of a sure thing there can be in American politics." Hiram