I am more liberal and progressive than most people I know
and far more so than most voters in my state. I am a yellow dog Democrat who
understands that blue dogs are often our friends. They are people who might be
every bit as liberal and progressive* (progress is the root word of progressive,
so a person who doesn't MAKE progress is not a progressive) as I am but who
know their constituents or their voting base well enough to understand how they
can get elected and stay in office in their district. And - most importantly -
help Democrats to hold a majority, which matters very much.
People I call emo progs, because they allow emotions and
reactions instead of intelligence, history, and critical thinking to control
them, whine about blue dogs. They sabotage every single election by calling just
about every single Democratic candidate 'blue dog' and whining about how they
are Republican-lite (which, any sane person knows - even if that were true
which it seldom is - would be better than a real Republican. They encourage
people to not vote, or to throw votes away on third party candidates that they
know can't possibly win, and talk about stupid (seriously, stupid, since we
have information to prove this is true so it isn't purely ignorance) things
like protest votes to teach Democrats a lesson. All that does is discourage
people who are the least bit apathetic to begin with, and people who aren't
politically savvy, and people who are just sick of the ugliness not to vote and
we end up with Republicans.
Then, those misguided people who toss around the words blue
dog have created a self-fulfilling prophecy - everything goes to shit and they
blame everyone but themselves, giving them more to whine about next election
cycle when they start this destructive process all over.
Therefore, I usually disregard any person who talks about
blue dogs as someone who knows very little about the subject, or about politics.
They are usually followers who are either incapable or unwilling to think for
themselves.
*
Progress is the root of the word progressive. Unless a
person has **made** some progress or at least been willing to work toward
progress, that person is not progressive, no matter how many times he screams
the word or pimps out a bully meme saying that he is going to *force* someone
and a party who have actually made much progress and continue to be willing to
work with others to progress, even if it has to be in incremental measures, to
be progressive.
