I agree - "Move left, Democrats"
Pandering to racist, xenophobic, nativistic, homophobic, anti-semitic, and Islamophobic Americans to garner a few votes here and there is morally repugnant and more importantly electorally suicide:
The far more important — and largely untold — story of the election is that more Obama voters defected to third- and fourth-party candidates than the number who supported Mr. Trump. That is the white flight that should most concern the next D.N.C. chairman, because those voters make up a more promising way to reclaim the White House. The way to win them back is by being more progressive, not less.
To be clear, all white voters matter. But Democrats must make tough, data-driven decisions about how to prioritize their work. Right now, too many are using bad math and faulty logic to push the party to chase the wrong segment of white voters. For example, Guy Cecil, who spent nearly $200 million as head of the progressive “super PAC” Priorities USA, urged the party to rebuild trust with the “millions of white voters who voted for President Obama and Donald Trump.”
The math underlying that conclusion is incorrect (Mr. Trump picked up not “millions,” but only 784,000 white votes in the 10 battleground states he won by single digits). And it misses the bigger — and more fixable — problem of white Democratic defections to third- and fourth-party candidates.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/21/opinion/move-left-democrats.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-0&action=click&contentCollection=Opinion®
= new reply since forum marked as read
And I don't "whine" about shit! 
and I didn't attach any purity tests in my comments, either. 
I get, from your handle, that you are basically a yellow-dog Dem, and frankly, I'm OK with that. I know that many Dems that get elected from southern and more rural states are borderline DINOs, and I accept that as a fact of life. We are, after all, the big tent party. In the end, we have a great chance to expand our base right now, and I would love to do so. GOTV in blue districts is all well and good, but that ended up allowing Trump to win the EC. We need to expand into those red districts and flip some, now.
Fine, put up Manchin-like candidates, I don't give a fuck. What I'm talking about is getting some Dem Party offices opened in those areas. Put some D boots on the ground and some Ds on the ballot. Pragmatism is not about giving up and saying we have to eat a shit sandwich. Pragmatism is saying it is better to fight for something. We're not going to get to 51 Senators by conceding 25 states. Nor will we flip any Repub seats in the House if we don't even put up candidates.
You're arguing platform and basic philosophy. I'm arguing electoral party mechanics. I suspect we have a couple of red districts here in my blue state that could be flipped. It won't happen if the DNC ignores them. I suspect there are quite a few districts nationwide that have a lot of Dems who feel ignored by the National party.
And BTW, it is very seldom "60-70%" of the citizenry that votes R. When mid-term turnout is in the 40% range, we are conceding our Democracy to 21% of the electorate. Even red states have blue voters, many of whom have been energized by the recent protests. Get them organized and out to vote and we could flip a lot of seats in '18. And no, I don't expect them to be "Sanders" Democrats. But it would sure help if they were Dems. Fuck, I'm not necessarily a "Sanders" Democrat, though I voted for him in the Primary.
Pragmatism. Winning pragmatism.
Like I said, my argument is about party infrastructure. You were the one arguing ideology that I basically agreed with all along, although I guess you didn't see that.
Congrats! You win the internets today.
