The circular firing squad is forming, and all is well with my party!

[ColesCountyDem]

I've truly enjoyed reading the post-election threads here at DU this week, because they convince me of the fundamental health and vitality of my beloved Democratic Party. As my seventh decade approaches, I understand not only the wit, but the wisdom behind Will Rogers' famous quip, "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat".

Fling the poo, my friends, and break the china! Curse shrilly at one another and whine, wail and bemoan the tragedies and disasters littering the political landscape about you! But let an old man remind ALL of you of one vitally important fact:

We ARE better than they are, and we represent the best hope for a brighter future for the American people.

Cheers!

/ducks a thrown shoe

[Historic NY]

1. We yell, scream, pout, analyze ourselves to death....

we should kick ass.

[ColesCountyDem]

2. I'm ready to kick butt and take names!

No quarter to the GOP S.O.B.'s!

[Historic NY]

9. ...

[ColesCountyDem]

15. Oh, we will!

I've seen this play before, and I know how it ends.

[dorkzilla]

3. Great post!!

and thank you for the reminder that WE are not sitting in an echo chamber. So says the woman whose mother and step-dad left today for another National Review cruise, where they will nod in agreement with all and sundry and return with dreams of impeachment.

[ColesCountyDem]

5. Thank you, and let the GOP-ers have their bread and circuses!

We shall be organizing and working for 2016, while they fall flat on their faces. They always do, you know?

[dorkzilla]

11. I've been very amused by their gloating

Little do they realize they just set the stage for a GOP slaughter in '16.

[ColesCountyDem]

17. Precisely!

As I read elsewhere, they're no longer sitting in the back of the class room shooting spit balls at the smart kids-- now they're in front of the class, chalk in hand, and without a clue what to write on the chalkboard.

[Needa Moment]

43. but do the rest of the 70yr. olds

around you pay any heed or give you the respect you deserve? You certainly have mine

[shenmue]

4. I need vodka

and ice cream.

[ColesCountyDem]

6. I don't drink, so I'll have a Virgin Mary with my ice cream.

[shenmue]

7. Okey dokes

[ColesCountyDem]

8. Cheers!

[shenmue]

10. Woohoo!

[loyalsister]

12. Yes!!

Very well said!

[ColesCountyDem]

13. Thank you! When you reach a certain age...

... you look beyond the volume and the anger, and you see the love and vitality.

[loyalsister]

16. That is something to translate into advice for myself

Thanks!!

[ColesCountyDem]

19. It is what it is, and we can't change what happened last Tuesday.

What we can do is roll up our sleeves, get to work and deliver the GOP a shellacking they'll not forget in 2016!

[Heather Kube]

44. Hillary will be the weapon.

[FLyellowdog]

14. ^^^What he said^^^nt

[ColesCountyDem]

21. Cheers!

[gwheezie]

18. I am a dem

I'm fine with the yelling etc as long as we pull together to nominate the next president.

[ColesCountyDem]

20. Yes indeed!

"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

--Ben Franklin

[Peacetrain]

22. As a fellow oldster

Great post We are better than they are!.. And I have been ducking so many shoes lately, George Bush would be jealous!! but its great to be a part of such a party.. and Democrats do tend to be passionate about who they are and what they stand for..

[ColesCountyDem]

23. It's a grand old tradition, and I've come to look forward to it!

[totodeinhere]

24. If "we ARE better than they are" why don't more of us go out to vote in

midterm elections? If we are so good we should be voting.

[ColesCountyDem]

25. I could list 100 reasons.

Each one of the 100 reasons would be correct, but no single one would explain why.

[rock]

26. You are wise, youngster

Did I mention that I've already begun my seventh decade?

[ColesCountyDem]

27. Another old fart!

Howdy!

[rock]

29. Howdy right back

I take it there's quite a few of us on DU.

[gordianot]

28. The mere fact the Democratic Party forms such chaos is why I could never be a lockstep Republican.

I could never be a Republican or for that matter a member of any party that demands ideological purity (such as the Communist Party).

[ColesCountyDem]

33. Neither could I.

We've always been the 'big tent' party, and as Lyndon Johnson so eloquently put it, "I'd rather have them inside the tent pissin out, than outside the tent pissing in".

[Rhinodawg]

30. The real reasons...

blame the pukes
blame voter suppression.
blame student suppression
blame the the racist id requirement
blame the dems that stayed home.
blame the candidates than ran from Obama.
blame the media
blame the failure to get out the vote.
blame Obama ( yes, him) who didn't extol his successes.

[ColesCountyDem]

34. All fair points!

[Rhinodawg]

35. Wow...thats the first complimentIve ever gotten.

[ColesCountyDem]

50. Really?

Keep it up, because your points were completely valid.

[sendero]

62. You forgot..

..... "blame the fact that if you ignore your base they will ignore you"

[rhett o rick]

31. If you don't mind me askin, when does your seventh decade start?

Mine starts in early Jan. I consider myself a baby-boomer even though the historians don't. I went to 3 grade schools and 2 high schools while living in the same house. I was told at the time that it was because I was among the baby boomers and we were filling up the schools. Best of luck on your next decade.

[ColesCountyDem]

32. Mine starts next June.

Thank you, and I hope yours is enjoyable, as well.

[rhett o rick]

36. Thanks. And thanks for posting the OP.

[Aerows]

37. If you point a gun at your foot, fire it

and lose a toe, don't look around for perpetrators.

Democratic voters have REPEATEDLY expressed displeasure with spying, TPP. Keystone XL, troops on the ground and everything else that conflicts with ... wait for it ... Democratic values.

Now let us sit in stunned surprise when they aren't elected, and officials, bolstered by the fact that the opposition has taken the Congress ... do exactly what they have already been inching toward doing!

All of the things that couldn't get passed by a "Democratic" Senate will now be passed by a Republican Senate. Obama fears the veto pen because he is a people pleaser.

[ColesCountyDem]

53. When we get an *ss whoopin' at the polls, it's ALWAYS our own fault!

Even though I'm dreading the next 2 years, getting our butts kicked is going to prompt a great deal of useful reflection, once the invective quits flying around like a hummingbird on speed. That's our party's normal pattern.

[Art_from_Ark]

54. Our party's other normal pattern is

one or two terms in the White House, and then out. It's been that way, with one exception (FDR-Truman, 1933-53), since the Civil War.

[ColesCountyDem]

55. Yup!

I don't think that's necessarily always attributable to anything 'wrong' with our party and its message, so much as it is the American electorate's perverse desire to 'switch it up', so to speak.

[ReRe]

38. Guess I need to...

... start calling myself a "Will Rogers Democrat." Yeah, there's shoes flying all over this place. Thanks for your positive message. I needed it.

[ColesCountyDem]

52. You're welcome! Just remember this one simple fact:

Those shoes are being thrown with LOVE!

[ReRe]

60. Sounds...

... kinky.

[obxhead]

39. Having a hand full of shit

isn't a large improvement over a face covered by it.

In my opinion, the Dem party needs to adopt (once gain) a simple policy.

Putting your tax dollars to work for all of us.

Adopt it, campaign on it, live it, vote for it, FIGHT for it.

If Democratic politicians do that EVERY DAY, not just during election season, they will NEVER lose again.

We do not have that though. A majority of Democratic politicians on a national level are well to the right of center and do nothing more than shift our prosperity toward the extremely wealthy. They make a vote "for us" from time to time, but only when they know it really doesn't have any chance of passing.

Better? by degrees measured in decimals. The choice between a hand full of shit and a face full of it really isn't much of a choice. Eventually you'll get an itch on the nose and take that hand full of shit and wipe it on your face anyway.

[ColesCountyDem]

51. Get it off of your chest!

You'll feel better, and now is the proper time to be having that discussion.

[obxhead]

58. No, 2 decades ago was the time for the discussion.

I admire the positive energy, but the party and the politics are done.

We've been sold, and we went for pennies on the dollar. One day the single party system (with a few rare outspoken voices) will weaken and the people will move back into the fold, but for now we're toast. Burnt toast at that.

When Hillary is our next greatest hope, we have none. It's over, now they just need to sort out the spoils of the victory. "They" being the top 40 (or so) families.

[mountain grammy]

40. Nice post, ColeCountyDem, I needed that. Thanks!

[ColesCountyDem]

49. Thank you, and you're welcome!

[Iliyah]

41. K & R

I let my grandfather read this and he said "wait for it" the crazy GOP will introduce bills such as parenthood (it will be named something else), bills pertaining to everything concerning a women's body, religious bills, and other gawd awful bills totally against most Amercians, and more tax cuts for the 1-2%ers and they can't blame no one else, although thru corporate media they will try.

[ColesCountyDem]

48. Your grandfather is right!

After 2 years of a GOP-controlled Congress, we will look MUCH better, both to ourselves and to the American people.

[Chathamization]

42. The GOP is pretty much non-existent here, so it's all Dem-on-Dem action. Though some people cross

state lines to help out with the fight against Republicans. And you're right, sometimes when you're in the middle of Dems you forget how much worse the Repubs are.

[ColesCountyDem]

47. We tend to get so involved in our own difficulties that we forget how much the GOP REALLY sucks!

[Scuba]

45. We are not better than they are, when they are us.

See DLC/Third Way if you don't understand this.

[ColesCountyDem]

46. I'm quite politically aware and, like me, you're entitled to your own opinion.

Cheers!

[Thinkingabout]

56. We can pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, put on some good walking shoes and try to get

Back the support we know the DNC is capable of getting. We have more to overcome than we had before the 2012 election. Low voter turnout is always on the side of the GOP. The angry old men we complain about goes out to vote, we can't complain about them voting, we just have to beat them in numbers. If some would look into the history of women getting the right to vote, blacks getting the right to vote, the Civil Rights movements, they did not happen over night. If our causes are important enough then we continue to fight, just as those in the past fought. We don't run and pick up out toys and go home.

[ColesCountyDem]

57. You've hit the nail squarely on the head!

Its so refreshing to read common sense.

[CBHagman]

59. Go to the head of the class...

...or at least the top of the thread pile.

[ColesCountyDem]

61. Thank you!