Bernie wanted you to have cheaper drugs

[niam2023]

Taking corporate donations doesn't make you a bad person. It makes you part of the problem, which is not the same thing. Sen. Booker might be a perfectly good person--I don't know him--and might have a different voting record if he couldn't raise money from corporations. But the fact that he takes that money skews his record and obscures his true views.

In order to achieve the widest possible distribution of political power, financial contributions to political campaigns should be made by individuals and individuals alone. I see no reason for labor unions--or corporations--to participate in politics. Both were created for economic purposes and their activities should be restricted accordingly.

In fact, when you look at donation records pre-Citizens United, the biggest donors to the Democratic Party were labor unions (which fight for the people against big corporations--and I agree that they shouldn't be allowed to donate to campaigns) and trial lawyers (who fight for the people against big corporations). After that travesty of a decision, that fundraising base was swiftly eclipsed by corporate money.

And you have to remember that whatever you or I might think of the results, what the Tea Party did worked. They did push the Republican Party toward their position and ultimately forced out more respectable Republicans like Richard Lugar and Olympia Snowe, and got Arlen Specter to switch parties (which may have been before the term went mainstream, but it was the same sentiment that made him cross the aisle). Challenging sitting members of Congress in primaries is a completely legitimate way of attempting to advance your policy priorities.

So basically the only fault of the Tea Party's crusade for purity of ideology in your mind is that they were not your people doing what you want. That speaks of a truly myopic view of the world, and shutting people out who don't have the same "purity" in their voting record or ideology. What the Tea Party did was more than challenge sitting members, they enforced a particularly horrible sort of extremism that permitted no deviance from their hard party line, and as a result elected in people with no idea how to run a government or make compromises with their opposite numbers.

[Art Vandelay]

So basically the only fault of the Tea Party's crusade for purity of ideology in your mind is that they were not your people doing what you want. That speaks of a truly myopic view of the world, and shutting people out who don't have the same "purity" in their voting record or ideology. What the Tea Party did was more than challenge sitting members, they enforced a particularly horrible sort of extremism that permitted no deviance from their hard party line, and as a result elected in people with no idea how to run a government or make compromises with their opposite numbers.

Say, weren't you the guy who wanted to economically ruin (more so) the regions where the majority voted for Trump? I believe there's an expression involving glass houses and thrown rocks that may or may not be relevant.

[niam2023]

I make no secret of the fact I am in fact an egoistic sociopath, a morally deficient man who advocates things that most likely nobody else would want to see implemented.

And I admit that readily.

It just seems so odd, for me, to see someone justify and glorify their longing for power and their faction's control over a Party and not have any sort of awareness of any similarities to their enemies or any amorality in their designs.

It seems people with ethical standards bend and waver those standards depending on who they're talking about and with, and what time they're making their argument. For example, being against pushing people out of a Party based upon ideological purity and comparing the Tea Party to ruthless zealots such as the Taliban, but then campaigning for the same kind of purity and, well, all of a sudden its perfectly understandable to seek purity and cast out those who do not match your vaunted standard.

By all means cast down compromise and exist within your own little bubble of ideology. But to act like you're the most noble man for doing something you already decried long ago...that really is remarkable.

[dpareja]

So here's the thing: I see nothing wrong with what the Tea Party did insofar as how they pushed the Republican Party towards their ideology.

Do I like the results? Hell no. But their tactics were fine. A group of voters with similar interests mobilized and pushed candidates who would support those interests. That they did so in the primaries rather than the general makes no difference.

I don't think incumbents should be safe just because they're incumbents. Defeating them in a primary is every bit as legitimate a way of removing them from office as is unseating them in the general. If a group of corporatist Democrats successfully turfed Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts or Jeff Merkley in Oregon in their primaries, well, I wouldn't like that, but I wouldn't think it's illegitimate.