Regardless of all these “parties” it is no secret that Democrats and Republicans run the majority of this country. For the most part, if people decide which of the two mainstream parties are closer to their values.

The Republican Party has a strict moral code and far right conservatives continuously fight to keep the party within the boundaries of that code. Democrats however, are considered “liberals” because the party has a broad, open-minded political stance. Most people who consider themselves to have liberal values and do not “waste” their vote on a party that they know has no shot of winning, will choose to vote Democrat.

That being said, not everyone that supports the Democratic Party is going to agree on which issues are most important. The key purpose of “unifying” the party is to accomplish as much as they can.

However spreading efforts out over 20 different major issues weakens the party and in my opinion shows liberals to be unsteady, whiners who can’t pick a cause to concentrate on.

When a group of people shout different things out at the same time, its impossible to distinguish who is saying what. On the other hand if everyone shouts the same thing in unison, the message is loud and clear.

The main point here is that there is power in numbers, and since the Democratic Party has such a wide variety of people with differing ideals and beliefs, it is important for the Party to unite as much as possible. Republicans know what they believe, they know where their party stands on major (and most minor) issues. Conservatives don’t stray off their path much. Liberals need to pick a path.

The point i try to make in linking liberals to democrats is that the pressure they are trying to apply to Democrats (the majority, and supposedly ruling, party) is ineffective because of how disparate their aims are. This is more the liberal activist leader’s fault (MoveOn, Democracy Now, TrueMajority) than the Democratic party’s. The Evangelical movement, just by themselves, has more activist power in politics than most cause-related groups on the Left combined.

As for your assessment of the effectiveness of protesters, I think that is not completely fair. Protesters have been quite effective at influencing policy. Maybe not as much as in Western Europe, but protests have halted wars (George HW Bush wrote in his memoir that his decision not to proceed to Baghdad during the Gulf War was in part influenced by his fear of the protester’s power over public opinion), and reformed domestic policy (civil rights, women’s suffrage, labor laws).

I think a unified liberal front is indeed possible. It has happened before. But the problem now is that the fast-paced and identity-focused media and culture we live through fuels the desire of many to make their own journey to Capitol Hill. Most liberals, even those protesting the war and our way of life, share a lot of basic principles (equality, economic safety nets, tolerance), they just need to take a page out of the conservative movement and learn to make slow, but transforming progress.

The wars that these people were protesting when Bush was in office are still going on with Obama there. These people continue to protest them.

Protests in general have never been effective in this country even when the protesters themselves are united (hell protests have never really been effective anywhere). Working THROUGH THE SYSTEM also doesn’t work to accomplish many of the things the protesters are asking for/demanding.

I believe what you are trying to talk about is uniting the Democratic Party. This is something that could more realistically be done than uniting the people that oppose the political climate of America in general. Perhaps you should talk about certain politicians in particular that should work together rather than grouping all of the unhappy protesters in this country together.