So, let's see if I have this right
Many of us don't want to in any way court the votes of anyone who voted for Trump in 2016 - even ex-Obama voters - because, essentially, they chose to vote for an unqualified autocratic self serving rich bigot, who betrays America's ideals and will harm millions, so we don't want or need their kind of votes now.
Many of us have no use for blue dog Democrats in deeply red state America, who vote along with the majority of their respective Democratic caucus members in Congress the vast majority of the time, because they break with a majority of the Democrats in Congress to vote, on some important matters, in ways that support some part of Trump's agenda. Because of that, who needs them? Or, for example, a majority in the Senate?
Many of us show some animosity toward Bernie Sanders who, along with several other candidates, conducted a primary challenge for the 2016 presidential nomination against Hillary Clinton for "an open seat." In so doing he won roughly 45% of the votes cast, and energized the largest base of small donors ever seen in American politics while attracting large numbers of new voters, disproportionately young, to Democratic politics. Still, he lost after a spirited campaign where contrasts were drawn between the leading candidates and some sharp elbows got thrown - but by all relatively objective counts far fewer than normally get thrown in this type of prolonged competition. Though he subsequently campaigned for Hillary and later was named to the Democratic leadership team by the Senate's Democratic leader- many of us are dismissive of Sanders for, among other things, not being a true Democrat, and/or for having somehow contributed to Trump's victory by, among other things, not doing enough to unify the Party then (or now). Disdain for Bernie Sanders translates, for some who were drawn into the Democratic Party political process because of him, into disdain toward them as well. Many of us, it often seems, have little respect for those voters if their loyalty to the Democratic Party is so shallow that it can be shaken by attacks on the man who inspired them to become so active. Do we really need them?
Many of us show some animosity toward Hillary Clinton, who also chose to seek the 2016 Democratic Party nomination for President in 2016, won the most votes in the primaries, and then lost the General Election despite wining almost 3 million more popular votes than Trump. In so doing she retained the fierce loyalty of millions of Democrats, representing hope and change to many women in particular. Clinton developed that loyalty over the course of decades of hard committed work, mastering the ropes of leadership as we have known it, both inside and outside of the Democratic Party as we have known it also, during those very same decades. She excelled in a system that some of us have now grown tired of or disillusioned with. So many of us, it can easily seem, have little respect for Hillary's accomplishments, or of those who still highly value them. That, to put it simply, undermines cohesion in today's Democratic Party, but many of us it appears, are untroubled by that. Purity has been redefined, let mass purges begin. Who needs a broad based coalition if truth is on your side?
Many of us ridicule those who voted Third Party in 2016, neither for Trump nor Clinton. We act as if Democrats had a right to their votes, because those voters did not support Donald Trump for President. We place the blame on them if they are alienated from the current two party system, not on the major parties that make up the current two party system. We ignore the fact that Third Parties have almost always been a part of America's democracy - sometimes playing critical long term roles, even in defeat. We overlook the fact that the Libertarians, who did not negatively focus on Hillary Clinton during the last campaign, won far more votes than the Greens did, and that younger voters in particular increasingly identify less with either major Party than did recent generations before them. Quite frankly, many of us call them all stupid or worse for helping enable Donald Trump to win. And in these attitudes toward them, many of us increase the alienation that a lot of third party voters have toward the current Democratic Party. But, given how high the stakes were in that election, many of us don't now want the support of those too stupid to vote for Hillary in 2016.
And of course we all agree that our Republic itself, and the essential well being of tens of millions of Americans is now gravely periled by the Trump Administration and the Republican majorities in Congress. Above all else, we must do everything possible to resist and seize political power away from them.
Where will we find the votes to do so?
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