Back in 1980, KKK boss Tom Metzger somehow won a Dem nomination to Congress from Calif
America already had a problem with low information voting in party primaries, particularly in a rock solid Republican district in the suburban San Diego area. It was a catchy name, he was a vigorous tax protester and didn't mention his (recently severed) ties to David Duke. I rember seeing this story on TV when I was teenager. When the Democrats of his district realized what they'd done, they got out and hustled and pushed leaflets to get the Republican in that race elected. He'd've won anyway, but it was important to say they were Americans first, that there were non-negotiables when it comes to Congressional elections.
You see, when you make a careless mistake in who you let into your club, you do whatever is legal and use whatever tool is at hand to fix your problem. That's the Democratic tradition and that's the democratic tradition. In 1982, they were much more careful and nominated a sane person to represent the party.
In the early 1990s, a LaRouche cultist ran for and, again because he had a likeable name, got elected the Chairperson of the Harris County Democratic Party. It was a travesty. But the County Executive Committee went right to work. In a few hours before the LaRouchsky took office, they rewrote the bylaws and stripped the Chairperson's office of all power and created the job of "County Democratic Party Executive Director", elected by the Executive Committee of course, who handled all of the executive and administrative functions of the county organization until the next election, when the nutbar got creamed running for a second term.
Like the San Diego Democrats, we dodged a bullet by thinking quickly and acting decisively. But much more importantly, we acted because we loved our system of democracy more than we loved our party label. To us, being a Democrat is a small source of pride, because of what Democrats have done for our country. But the real source of identity is our country, our values, our commitment to rational responsible governance, and our ideas about spreading equality or opportunity around to all Americans. We don't say people who disagree with us aren't American. We denounce their behavior as unAmerican sometimes, when they go to far with their powerlust, and we think the they're fuckwads with how they block responsible governance. But we don't have leaders who say they're not Americans. We don't allow those who speak irresponsibly to take leadership positions.
This is the main contrast with Republicans. When we lost elections we thought we won, we complained until the rule of law went against us. And then we protested our opponents' ideas and policies, but we didn't deny them their governance; we didn't concoct lies to incite violence. In the end, we loved the rule of law more than our sense of righteousness. We loved having an orderly society more than we feared the consequences of an unstable man in the Oval Office. We hoped sane and responsible senior officials would curtail the reckless plans of an inexperience egomaniac with power. We had faith in the wisdom of domestic tranquility. And for the second time in this young century, we were proved wrong. But still, we didn't rebel. We channeled our anger into legal and peaceful, orderly and lawful, actions. We kept faith with America.
I say all this to say that Democrats are the party of Law. Democrats are the party of Order. While Republican have played footsie with dangerous racists and hypernationalists for so long that they've created conditions in which the disease has metastasized. They've gestated the kookoo bird thinking it would never hatch and try to poke everyone's eyes out. They wave the flag a shitload more than we do, but they've shown themselves unfaithful to what it symbolizes. Save 10 House members and no more than 5 senators (and probably less than that), the entire national leadership of the Republican party is doubling down on supporting the single greatest threat to the Republic since the Confederacy. And they're doing so because he has an obviously superficial R behind his name. But a traitor to the country could only get into the White House through the nihilistic arrogance of the Republican Party. They embody what George Washington warned us about in 1797--the spirit of party, the love of faction over nation. The reality is we are the party of Washington; we are the party of Lincoln. We're holding it together.
I think to most of us, the Democratic Party is a fine thing, if messy, if cantankerous. But the real qualification we put on our loyalty is that the Party is just a means to an end, a way of governing the country more effectively and more fairly. To the Republicans, it's an identity embedded in their Americanism so deeply, that many of their leaders openly say to not be a Republican is to be against the country. That's madness and a madness they take pride in. They've become a danger to themselves as much as to the principle of honest government. We owe it to them to get organized, rub their noses in Donald Trump's failures, and beat them wherever we can. That's not exactly a call to unity, I don't reckon. We'll be united when we beat them and beat them until they wake up and start acting like conservatives instead of thugs.
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Oh my god that’s funny! 
