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Dear Daily Kos, About the Democratic Party... [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-02-12

Let me begin this diary by saying that I am not writing it to start a pie fight. I am not writing this diary to advocate for an alternative solution to ‘More And Better Democrats’, which is the policy of this website. I do not claim to know what the answers are at all — I honestly do not know what the winning solution is at this point in time, and as long as that is true then ‘More And Better Democrats’ is our only option.

I am writing this diary because I want to put out a hypothetical and digest some constructive criticism from my fellow liberals and progressives and hoping that maybe a definitive solution will arise from a healthy discussion about it. It should become a collective realization and understanding that reinforces the need for ‘More And Better Democrats’, or it could be something else. I am also hoping to sooth my long standing anxieties about my faith in the Democratic Party.



So please — do not respond to this hypothetical with knee-jerk accusations of violating Daily Kos principles or policy or try to start a pie fight. If you are that guy or gal then take the time to explain your perspective in the comments below. My suggestion is that you do not respond to other Daily Kos member comments at all — just explain yourself and let your argument stand on its own merit, then write your own diary criticizing all the perspectives in other comments.



I have been lurking in the background on this site since the Bush era and have been seeing DailyKos generations come and go repeating the same solutions while accusing their Republican opponents of being the ones who are going insane trying the same thing over and expecting a different result. I am hoping to seed revolutionary new ideas in the progressive movement.



Here is my hypothetical in one line:

In order for the America as envisioned by our founding fathers to survive in this current political climate, the Democratic Party must cease to exist and everyone must become an independent.

Here is the basis of my reasoning:



President George Washington’s Farewell Address.

America’s First President George Washington disliked the idea of the political party. What we’re witnessing today with both the Democratic Party and Republican Party is precisely what President George Washington warned us about in his Farewell Address regarding the concept of the political parties. If you haven’t read it, here is a good summary on Wikipedia. But actually read it if you can, it is great because it reveals that not much has changed culturally since America’s founding — much of what the man says is still relevant today.



“In contemplating the causes which may disturb our union it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations--Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western-- whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You can not shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.” — George Washington, Farewell Address.

I want to expand a bit on it by bringing George Washington’s grievances into the context of modern times and our current political climate as the basis of my hypothesis.



First of all, it is my opinion, wrong or right, that as righteous and prescient George Washington may have been on regarding the detriments of party politics, it was a necessary evil in Washington’s day as the party apparatus was the most efficient funding and messaging vehicle.



The American people couldn’t quit party politics and win back then — any independent movement would get crushed by a highly funded and well oiled party machine, as party infrastructure could deliver results better than a loosely interconnected independent movement.

It is my opinion that this was true for centuries… until the internet came along. The internet and its various complimentary technologies have decentralized and democratized funding and messaging infrastructure in many regards outside of politics and increasingly continue to do so.



Yet nobody has proposed a solution to using computer technology to decentralize and democratize the logistics of our flawed two party duopoly (or pensions, health insurance, or basic banking for that matter) as a solution to this necessary evil.



As a matter of fact, right now it is those with the most money and resources — the wealthy oligarchy of America — who are increasingly using the exact same internet technology to reinforce centralization and cultural division in favor of maintaining the status quo so they remain idle rich, while this site continues to tell us to stay the course and keep doing things the old fashioned way.



There is no reason why we cannot do the inverse of what these oligarchs are doing ourselves, and with the same tools or better.



We could usher an independent majority political movement with modern technology, where every elected politician is an independent who isn’t protected by corrupt centralized Party apparatus and therefore directly beholden to independent voters and not party politics nor biases. Disillusioned independents are currently the largest voting block.



As someone who has been embedded in the computer technology industry since the days of 300 baud modems and is currently working on the latest trends in AI and Web3 technology, I know this is possible for a fact. Technology has always been a tool that can be used for good or evil depending on the hand of wielder and right now evil has a major head start and good has been too slow to understand how to use it to fight back. However, that is a discussion for another diary and this diary is the premise of that argument.



Then there’s the question of how this proposal is orchestrated: Should it be done in a controlled factor,perhaps in coordination with the Democratic Party itself or members of the Democratic Party — a controlled demolition? Or should there be a clean break to avoid any association with the Democratic Party?



Second of all, and most importantly, there are structural and strategical advantages of this hypothesis, especially in this current political climate. It is the most important because one must confront some uncomfortable truths to realize the advantages.



Let’s begin with the fact that the reason why we have a flawed two party duopoly is because America was founded on slavery and electoral system as well as the two party’s cultural and geographical lines still reflect this in 2025.

The Democratic Party’s strength — the fact that we are a culturally and economically diverse collective that is truly representative of America’s demographics and vision — is also it’s greatest weakness.It is why we are never as coordinated as we wish we could be. “Trying to lead Democrats are like herding cats”, as the say, because some of our party factions even hate each other.



Sure, Republicans also have factions that hate each other too, but what differentiates us from them is the simple fact Democrats as a Party are united by a mutual respect and tolerance of our differences within the bounds of Karl Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance and Republicans are united by an intolerant cultural identity that is self evident in their relative absence of diversity.



The Republican Party’s intolerant cultural identity will always trump the Democratic Party’s tolerant diversity — because the Republican Party’s ideological world view is far more simpler and appeals to the basest instincts — it is based on the exact inverse of what unites the Democratic Party — hatred and fear of diversity — and diversity, whether it is of opinion, culture or identity, is the strength of a functioning democracy and progressivism.



Tolerating diversity is a detrimental position to base a national political Party on — it is a relatively complex ideology to navigate and extremely difficult to message. Democratic Politicians have been burning a lot of political energy worrying about stepping on diverse toes not only among potential converts outside of the Party but inside their own Party. Wasting a lot of energy explaining themselves when diverse toes are stepped on. As the adage goes, if you’re explaining, you’re losing.



Republicans worry about no such thing — because they’re all roughly on the same page messaging wise. This enables them to expend all their energy setting the narrative and taking the lead by defining what the Democratic Party stands for with falsehoods and putting Democrats on the defense.

This political dynamic is why Republicans are always playing offense and Democrats are always on defense — Democrats are always having to defend the most vulnerable members of their diverse coalition under attack by Republicans. As H.L. Mencken said, “The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.”



The Democratic Party has spent a lot of political capital and stepped on a lot of toes defending the most vulnerable minorities in its diverse coalition that the Republican Party has deemed scoundrels (ex: transgender individuals), and these attacks are based on unwarranted cultural fears and falsehoods. As a result, the entire Democratic Party gets painted with the same brush. “Democrats are the party of transgender kids! They want to convert your kids!”



Therefore I posit that tolerating diversity and defending the most vulnerable among us because they’re the canary in the coalmine that eventually erodes all of our ‘inalienable’ individual rights as we are witnessing in these dark times should be tasked primarily to the individual American citizen without any distraction of what organization, coalition or Party they belong to.



This can only be accomplished by disbanding the Democratic Party and substituting party logistics with technology to usher an independent majority movement.



This is effectively guerilla warfare — by disbanding the party and going independent Democrats are blending in with an independent majority voting pool. With no opposition Party for Republicans to slime with a big brush, they will be forced to attack independents and in an effort to root out the ‘liberals’ and ‘progressives’ among us they will step on many independent toes as we have more in common with independents than MAGA does, effectively flipping the script. It will also upend the electoral map and make it difficult to find such clean party lines to gerrymander



It may even become a necessity in the coming days, as being identified as a Democrat increasingly becomes a threat to your life.

So, tell me what you think about this hypothesis in the comments below. Once again, I am not advocating that we actually go down this route — I don’t actually believe this will ever happen because too many of us are set in our ways.



I just want to hear Kossacks share their opinions on what would happen if we tried it!





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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/2/12/2303291/-Dear-Daily-Kos-About-the-Democratic-Party?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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