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Friday, June 16, 2017, 10:49 AM

Earlier this week in Virginia, two men who each voted for George W. Bush twice to become President of the United States won their primaries in the governor's race there.

Ed Gillespie, a lifelong Republican, won the Republican primary and Ralph Northam, who has a record of voting Republican, won the Democratic primary.

No, that's not a typo. It is, perhaps, the most relevant example, though, of why progressives and liberals in America are struggling to find a home in the same big tent.

Ralph Northam, 57, was no young man when he voted for George W. Bush to become President in both 2000 and 2004. He was a mid-life doctor whose political views were fully formed. In 2013, Northam openly said "I don't consider myself as a liberal."

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That isn't me putting words in the man's mouth. He said that. He was 40 years old when he first voted for George W. Bush, 44 years old when he somehow believed enough in the man again to vote for his reelection, and 53 when he made it abundantly clear that he's not a liberal.

Yet he is the Democratic nominee to run against Ed Gillespie, the former head of the Republican Party, to become the next Governor of Virginia.

Hear my heart I know politics are local and I know Virginia has some conservative leanings, but that the choice for governor in the state is now an open conservative and a closeted one bothers me particularly because the Democratic establishment enthusiastically supported Northam.

Do I prefer him over Gillespie? Of course. At least Northam publicly speaks out on Donald Trump, but his values simply don't line up with that of most progressives, including my own.

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I don't know of any better illustration for the current dilemma of American progressives than this race and its result. The Democratic Party is moving to the right.

Dave Wasserman, of FiveThirtyEight, observing the results of the Virginia primaries, said it like this: "There's a new name for the voters most people thought of as VA's moderate Republicans a few years ago: Democrats."

Maybe that's true. Ralph Northam represents that shift as well, but I don't think it's because they've changed their values as much as the invisible line defining who's a Republican and who's a Democrat has shifted.

The Democratic Party has shifted to the right. It's not anti-war. It's not strong on the environment. It's not strong on civil and human rights. It's not for universal health care. It's not strong on cracking down on Wall Street and big banks or corporate fraud. Ralph Northam was and is weak on all of those core principles of the progressive left, but we're expected to get behind him, and candidates like him, as if we're just a few small details away from seeing eye to eye with him. We aren't. He's not a progressive. He's not a liberal. He's hardly even a Democrat.

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Millions of us who ultimately voted for Hillary Clinton felt the very same way about her. On issues ranging from war, to corporate fraud, to campaign finance, to universal health care, and so much more, her positions were not discernibly different from the most basic Republican talking points.

Was she better than Trump? Of course she was. But I'd literally rather have a Kardashian sister or Curious George be President of the United States over Trump. Someone being better than Trump cannot be our key metric for choosing candidates.

I'm hearing more and more of my progressive friends talk seriously about the need for us to form our own political party. I get it. At the very best we are slightly tolerated guests in the Democratic Party. We are as different from establishment Democrats as those establishment Democrats are from everyday Republicans.

Being begrudgingly tolerated is a terrible feeling. We are an enthusiastic, organized bunch, but I certainly don't feel welcomed.

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MSNBC's Joy Reid all but confirmed as much in a widely shared tweet earlier this week in which she said, "Bernie and his followers are like that college friend who stays at your place for weeks, pays $0, eats your food & trashes your aesthetic."

That Reid, who makes a living as a political commentator, came to this conclusion about Bernie Sanders and his millions of followers was deeply disappointing, but revealing. Bernie Sanders is the most popular politician in America. He has done far more for the Democratic Party than it has for him.

When the new head of the Democratic Party, Tom Perez, went on a speaking tour recently with Bernie, the enthusiastic crowds of thousands didn't show up at every single venue to hear Tom they were there for Bernie. Tom didn't do Bernie a favor, Bernie did Tom a favor. Bernie got behind Hillary Clinton and campaigned for her all over the country and asked his supporters to follow his lead.

I was one of those people who did just that. I've been a Democrat all of my life and have campaigned for and donated to so many Democratic candidates across the years. That the millions of us who support Bernie and his values have been reduced to bad guests who don't pay our way, eat up all the food, and trash the place, is a terrible insult rooted in something other than reality.

Democrats lost the House, the Senate, the presidency, the Supreme Court, and the strong majority of state houses and governorships across the country. I agree that it sure does look like somebody trashed the place, but it damn sure wasn't Bernie and his followers. Anybody saying that is delusional.

Read more from the original source:
KING: Why progressives and liberals continue to feel like unwelcome guests in the Democratic Party - New York Daily News