The US has had a two party political system through out its history. The core constituencies for those parties have shifted over time. The Republican and Democratic coalitions that existed in the 1930s were considerably different from what we see today. However, the basic political system has always worked by the parties competing for the people who are negotiable on which one they will vote for or whether they will vote at all. I think that it is highly unlikely that we will go the way of some other countries and fracture into multiple parties who must negotiate coalitions in order to form a government. That is much more suited to a parliamentary system. For better or worse the structure of the US political system is geared for two dominant parties.
Not too surprisingly Daily Kos is erupting into one of its periodic wars over who qualifies to be the true and perfect Democrats in the wake of the rather nasty outcomes of the midterm election. Both parties have factions which is inevitable in such large coalitions. The people on Daily Kos are supposed to be Democratic supporters of one stripe or another. We have different interest and priorities. We use different labels to describe ourselves and other people. You seldom see anybody here call themselves a conservative Democrat. There are a lot of people are interested in holding together a broad coalition that can win elections. Then there are people who hold an identity that connects them to one or more of the groups that form the party base. In terms of present politics these include racial minorities, women, LGBT folk as "cultural issue groups. Environmentalist are a policy group. Then there are people who think that economic issues are where its at.
I personally have links to most of these groups and issues. What I see happening at the moment is people deciding that the reasons the Democrats didn't do well is because they failed to focus sufficiently on their issue. There are environmentalists wanting to pull the plug on Mary Landrieu in her runoff because of her energy positions. There are other people calling Mark Udall Mark Uterus because they think that he focused excessively on women's reproductive rights. Then there is a group that thinks that if the Democrats would cut all of their ties with corporate America and unite in a strong progressive/populist economic platform the masses would come flocking to their side. All of these people want to get rid of the people who they think are the enemies of the true Democratic party. I could list various diaries and comments that reflect these perspectives, but I'm not going to. They are quite visible.
There is not going to be any major shift in the course that Democrats have been following over the past 20 years or so between now and the 2016 election. The people who are in leaderships positions in the party and hold public office are all rooted in that. There are no radical revolutionaries to be found and none that I can see in the pipeline. At this point there is no declared opposition to Hillary Clinton's "undeclared" candidacy for president. There probably will be but if Clinton isn't the nominee, it will be someone who is not radically different from her in policy positions. I could fantasize about a different world, but this is my best grasp of reality.
The point of all this is that I find the blood lettings that are getting underway over what really are almost entirely hypothetical prospects for the future to be a waste of time and energy. That is of course not going to stop them from happening, but it is my two cents worth. I'm not at all sure if there is any real difference between a liberal and a progressive, but I would place myself somewhere in there. I don't see any possibility of the left wing of the Democratic Party taking complete control of the party and I am focused on living with that reality.
President Obama still has two years in office. I am sure that his relations with a Republican controlled congress will be less than pleasant. I have agreed with him on some things and disagreed on others. The rox/sux debate on Daily Kos is being stoked up again. I find it almost as uninteresting as arguments about religion. I am mainly writing this diary because I think that there are probably some other people who are having a similar reaction and I thought I would offer a platform. I think that the wake for the Nov, 5th election has lasted long enough. It is time to hold the funeral and move on.