Let's make up our mind, shall we?

In a world in which politics = attainment/retainment of power...

and power = authoritarian rule over others, in other words, politics = attainment/retainment of authoritarian rule over others...yes repubs are better as that is their reality, their game; they have home field advantage, if you will. And, they move the goal and change the rules when and as it benefits them.

As progressives, liberals, Democrats, our reality, our game, is (was?) more about distribution of, or sharing power with rather than over, something closer to an egalitarian structure rather than and authoritarian structure.

As the current political system/structure exists, we do not have home field advantage and we're uncomfortable with the rules of the game and we can't keep track of the goal as it's always moving.

As long as our political system is about "winning" at all costs, about attaining/retaining authoritarian power over, as long as repubs define what "winning" is, as long as we continue to embrace our ideals over winning strategies, we will continue to "lose."

As a movement, not just a party, those of us on the left must decide if we want to "win" the political game or if we are in this to improve, make better our world. Why are we in this? What is our goal?

If our goal is to "win" authoritarian power over, then we need to quite slamming ourselves and our representatives for selling off pieces of their souls and ideals in order to acquire votes and appear "mainstream." We have to quit hobbling our representatives with ideological standards that lose votes. We have to quit applying a double standard to "our" reps which weakens their ability to acquire money and power in order to play by "their" rules.

If our goal is to make better, improve our world, then we have to stick with our high ideals and we have to change the political system and the "accepted norms" which are anti-survival and antithetical to sharing power with. We have to provide "the people," on both ends of the "political" spectrum, with the knowledge and education that there are options, that there are other ways in which to exercise power and that there are other forms of power than authoritarian power over.