2016 Postmortem

good, not simply by virtue of being the Democratic Party. I say let's keep it good and make it better.

I'm not sure why you think that organizations of people are innately good. That's just not the way they work. They are only as good as what the people in them fight for them to be. That goes for our nation too. Just as people write off Black Lives Matter or Kaepernick for kneeling during the National Anthem in the "Best Country on Earth," as ungrateful, you would like to do the same for people who push for a more liberal Democratic party, but nobody has ever gotten anything without pushing and fighting. All of those metrics these people use to justify "greatest country on earth," no matter how flawed the premise might be, exist because of people who have fought to get more equality and rights for themselves and for their brothers and sisters.

You insist that everybody who is dissatisfied with the current Democratic Party is an interloper or simply a hater, and that just isn't the case.

Republicans permanently succeed if we continue to play by big money's rules. Being the less corporate option will always be a solid backup for the rich and powerful, but they will always put more weight behind their true love. Either we do as the OP suggested and start fighting that corporate messaging-- and I say label it as such--or we can count on being the minority party until there's no nation left to capitulate in.