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Guest column: An open letter of encouragement
Guest columnist

There has been an awful lot of talk in the media lately about Democrats suffering an “identity crisis”. Supposedly, we don’t know who we are or who we want to be.

I have six words and one anagram: We don’t want to be the GOP.

But who are we?

We are liberals, the liberals who have made this nation the great country it is.

Yes, I know some folks prefer the label “Progressive”. I have no problem with it…unless it’s insisted upon, which too often is little more than a reflection of taking the bait against us. The true pejorative is “conservative”, our history tells the story.

I am reminded of a challenger to our 2016 nominee who once said, “I am not, nor have I ever been, a liberal Democrat”. Right, and brightly it did shine.

Having said that, let’s address the donkey in the room. We should not spend too much time on anymore temps using the DNC infrastructure that true-heart devoted Democrats have spent our lives and money building.

Join the party and stick with us through thick and thin or shoo-flyshoo.

I am all for newcomers, but that is not what the 2016 battle for the Democratic nomination was about. If it doesn’t fit, don’t force it. It will never work; political campaigns have a way of revealing one’s truest heart.

The insult that Democrats are in bed with Wall Street or Hollywood “elites” to the detriment of working people is overstated. Money makes the world go ‘round and it takes a boat-load to run a winning campaign. Plenty of Wall Street folks and Hollywood elites are damn good liberals who want their fat cash used to liberal effect.

Money ain’t bad, we are.

Remember, President Barack Obama pulled no punches helping Senator Elizabeth Warren, among others, construct banking policy (Dodd-Frank) to help working families. He was pummeled for it too; he lost liberals like Goldman-Sachs CEO Jamie Dimond.

Still, for every lackluster Dimond there is a billionaire Tom Steyer shining brightly.

In recent years, the two main American political parties have “purified,” for lack of a better word. What I mean by that, is that both parties once had a “more conservative” wing and a liberal wing. No longer.

The Democrats represent liberalism and the Republicans represent conservatism.

This is the measure by which I proclaim: We are the ones who have made this nation great!

Looking back at our history we see that Conservatives have opposed every leap, or slow grind, of social growth and economic security we have made. “Enlightenment” is a course, often slow. Lasting progress is incremental.

Don’t get me wrong, the economic conservatism that is often the wise ballast to liberal over-reach can be a good thing. Liberals tend to give away the house with our bleeding-heart efforts to assist others; but by the same token, conservatives sometimes appear willing to starve-the-little-children to keep taxes low for Richie Rich, the donor class.

By “liberal versus conservative”, I mean everything from abolition to suffrage to the social safety net to marriage equality and everything in between, which is much more than just identity politics. These triumphs represent the greatest leaps of human progress ever known.

Liberal Progressives fought for it all. And we won.

Our imprint on the national character goes all the way back to the very beginning. We are the true heirs of all-things Constitutional: Jeffersonian liberal democracy, the proprietors of progress.

The main author of our Constitution, James Madison wrote: A free people “evinced an equitable and liberal way of thinking as to the rights of conscience”. Right on!

Everything in the Constitution, including the Second Amendment, is borne of the liberal mind; the Founding era mind-set that conquered the conservative “loyalists”.

I say all of this to encourage your hearts, my dear Democrats.

Representing all people, our Democratic Party is like a beautiful patchwork quilt, patches of various shapes, sizes and colors.

Yes, a party of such variety, representative of various faiths, people-of-color, LGBTQ, and (in 2008) 41 percent of white voters, is ripe for dividing. Start pulling on loose threads and it just might come apart.

2016 saw a stealth voter suppression effort, and too many people fell for it.

But that was then, this is now; let’s learn from our mistakes and move on. We have a range of women on the ballot this year from sea to shining sea. Including our ownindomitable Lisa Ring for Congress challenging the incumbent, Buddy Carter (R-GA).

We must face it: in our nation, our society, our Judeo-Christian culture, it’s not exactly a challenge to convince people that a woman is dishonest and untrustworthy,unfit to lead. It begins in Sunday school, the story of creation: first, women are literally made from an unnecessary spare part of the male anatomy, a rib.

And then, in the Garden of Eden, Eve offers Adam the apple (which he could’ve refused, he too was warned) and all humankind enter a fallen state.

Fiction or not, it’s the subliminal message in our collective minds.

Women carry all that baggage. But maybe it makes them stronger.

Yes, Hillary Clinton won millions more votes than Trump did. But we have a blue wave to tend to, let’s forget the past for a minute.

I agree with our Democratic nominee for Congress, Lisa Ring, that times are a-changing, it’s not necessarily about “the party line” anymore. And only the true blue Democratic Party has the infrastructure it takes to re-connect us and bring us back to our collective patriotic senses.

Republicans of patriotic heart, of moral turpitude, of ethical verve, please join us as we take back this nation for the Good and the Great we all know she is.

You won’t be alone: Conservative military strategist, Max Boot; former Bush Administration officials Steve Schmidt, Nicolle Wallace, Richard Painter, and too many more to list, have all bailed on the GOP.

Blue Wave 2018: Yes, we can, one more time: go vote true blue!

Evans lives in Black Creek.

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