Posted on 01/18/2004 12:58:27 PM PST by swilhelm73
On January 4, the New York Times ran a lengthy article about the image problem of the Democratic Party. Written by James Traub, who, I suppose, is an authority on such things, the article sought to answer the question of whether or not the Democrats could convince voters that they were the party of strength, or whether they were, as Traub put it, still "lost in a funk of pacifism." Here is how the article leads off: A few weeks ago, I asked Howard Dean how, given his vehement opposition to the war in Iraq, if he felt he could overcome the Democrats’ reputation as the antiwar party. "I think you’re still in the old paradigm, which says that they’re the party of strength and we’re the party of weakness," Dean admonished me as I sat across from him on his campaign plane. The chaos in Iraq, he said, had upended the old stereotypes. In John F. Kennedy’s day, Dean pointed out, the Democrats enjoyed the reputation as the party of resolution. "I think this may be the year to regain it, oddly enough," Dean said.
I laughed out loud after reading this paragraph. The humor here was in imagining the reaction of Noam Chomsky to the article’s very premise. Here was the New York Times, vilified by the right as the great Trojan Horse of leftist propaganda, writing an iconic piece whose premise held that the Democratic Party–the Democratic Party!–needed to overcome its anti-war reputation. And there was Howard Dean, almost universally described in the media as the next incarnation of Leon Trotsky, agreeing with this premise. Dean did not say, "There’s no shame in being thought of as the antiwar party. The only problem is that we’re not really antiwar." Instead, what he said was, "We’re not really antiwar, never were, in fact, and I intend to show the American people how tough we really are!" His plan? To sneak around Bush’s right: "Our model is to get around the president’s right, as John Kennedy did to Nixon," said Dean. The article goes on to celebrate the party’s decision, made after the successive defeats of Adlai Stevenson, to campaign on the threat of a "missile gap" with the Soviet Union. Traub is careful to note that such a missile gap never existed, and that this campaign tactic was little more than a cynical play on the paranoid fears of Cold War America, but he nonetheless celebrates this strategy for helping John Kennedy ride into power. Similarly, he blasts George McGovern for stupidly following his conscience in the matter of the Vietnam War, an unforgivable blunder that led to an historic ass-whipping at the hands of Richard Nixon. Traub concludes his article: Strong and wrong beats weak and right–that’s the bugbear the Democrats have to contend with. George McGovern may have had it right in 1972, but he won Massachusetts, and Richard Nixon won the other 49 states. McGovern recently said that he is a big fan of Howard Dean, whose campaign reminds him very much of his own. Dean may want to ask him to hold off on the endorsement.
Anyone who wants to understand why the Democratic Party (barring a catastrophic implosion by the Republicans) will never win another major election in this country need only read this article. It correctly identifies the core problem of the party, which is this: Voters are repulsed by weakness. What it fails to get right is the fact that the Party, as currently constructed, will never be able to get around this problem. Why? Because weakness is inherent in the party’s ideology. There are only two ways to appear strong. One is to stand for something. The other is to kick ass. Today’s Democrats most emphatically are not equipped to do either. On the standing-for-something front, that question was settled long ago. Nothing can be more obvious than that the current Democratic leadership considers actual principle a laughable electoral weakness. This was demonstrated most forcefully a few weeks ago when Hillary Clinton joked about Mohatma Gandhi having worked in a St. Louis gas station. If Gandhi were running in this race, the Democratic Leadership Council–bet on it–would be warning of a McGovern-like landslide defeat. Democrats consider strength to be the skillful capture of swing votes via the tactically precise execution of a fuzzy policy of standing for nothing at all, as in the case of Bill Clinton. As for kicking ass, forget about it. Any party that has to roll up its shirtsleeves and pleadingly show off its biceps to James Traub is doomed from the start. The way to show voters that you are strong is to walk into the room with James Traub and punch him in the face. Then, as he crawls around on the floor picking his teeth out of the carpet, you ask him: "What was your question again?" Such a display would doubtless trigger all kinds of press reaction. But there certainly wouldn’t be any more 7500-word treatises on your "toughness" problem. The Democrats’ problem is that they are trying to counter the actual, admirable viciousness of the Republicans with a cheap imitation of viciousness. Both parties are equally unscrupulous, but the viciousness gap will remain real and unbridgeable–until some changes are made. I think it is high time that we all admitted that outright fascism has a lot to offer American society, and the Democratic Party in particular. Not only would it be an enormously successful electoral strategy, it would be vastly superior as a governing principle to the halting, pusillanimous, fake fascism of the Republican party. Just think of the benefits of claiming the presidency on the following platform: World Domination. This would be the centerpiece of the new domestic policy of the Democratic Party–and I stress the word domestic. Because it is here that the fatal weakness of the Republican Party would be laid bare. As it stands, the Republicans are tougher than the Democrats because they will not hesitate to bomb the hell out of anyone, provided that the target cannot meaningfully fight back. But here’s the thing: The Republicans are not interested in ruling other countries, any more than they are interested in ruling the United States. All they really want to do is make money. They only use military force insofar as it is necessary to a) extract another country’s resources, and b) ensure that these countries become and remain markets for American products. Beyond these parameters, they’re amazingly squeamish about using the military. A Democratic candidate can expose this weakness easily by announcing a blunt post-election plan. On his first day in office, he signs an executive order declaring every person on Earth to be a citizen of the United States. Around the world, the offer is made: Any person who wishes to have American citizenship can go to the nearest embassy, have his photo taken and be given a passport. In three weeks, the population of the United States would triple. Perhaps even quadruple. Within a year, we would be larger than India and China combined. Europe, the last holdout and the last serious threat to our preeminence, would quickly be reduced in comparison to a tiny, castrated banking haven on the order of Liechtenstein or Switzerland. All that would remain is the tedious process of liberating our people from tyrannical rule around the world. While it is true that resettling the impoverished American diaspora in the homeland would have some initial desultory effects on the North American job market, these would be offset by new opportunities abroad as "native" Americans travel in search of investment opportunities, adventure and self-actualization in the new states, which would simply retain their old names: "Oklahoma," "New Jersey," "Bangladesh." A period of spectacular and global economic expansion, rivaling that of the late 1800s, would surely follow. Cultural cachet. Never again would anyone say that Americans did not appreciate soccer. Our reputation as a vast monolingual wasteland would be quashed forever. Overnight, we would become the largest, most diverse, tolerant, intellectually advanced country in the world. Full employment. All hands in the New Democratic America will be needed for a massive investment in public works. This was, of course, a successful platform for the Democratic Party once before, in the age of FDR. But America has since turned sharply against Tennessee Valley Authority-type socialism, and rightly so. It very much approves, however, of socialism centered on weapons production. How can we justify spending money on such luxuries as bridges and schools and alternative energy plants here at home, while our people are suffering under imperial rule abroad? What we need is a massive investment in advanced weaponry, ships, aircraft and medical supplies for the armed services. A quadrupling of the defense budget would be more than sufficient to guarantee a high-paying job in the defense sector for every man, woman and child on the American continent. Furthermore, our enlarged military would provide education and training opportunities for everyone who wants it, eliminating the need for our vast, wasteful and anachronistic public university system. Trade. In one fell swoop the Democrats could end the problem of jobs moving overseas–because there will be no more overseas. All trade will hereafter be domestic trade. Again, this would lay bare the ragged poverty of the old Republican isolationist ideology. They would rather see American children working for 10 cents an hour in places like Indonesia than commit the resources needed to liberate them. Also, there would be no more of this backdoor robbery of American sovereignty through such treasonous bureaucracies as the WTO (the authors of which, incidentally, would immediately be captured, sent to military prisons, and, after a cathartic series of public confessions, executed). All other persons belonging to organizations or states claiming jurisdiction over American trade policy would also be subject to capture and imprisonment. Social unrest. Any fascist domestic platform for the Democrats would have to include a plan to permanently imprison one to two percent of the population as undesirables–that is to say, maintain the current prison population. But the Democrats would simplify the process by allowing police to imprison citizens at will, without charging them with anything. This would put an end to the idiotic, indirect process we currently call the War on Drugs, which is not only time-consuming, but has the additional negative consequence of inspiring an actual criminal subculture. Instead, we could simply promulgate an official policy of jailing the poor. Soccer moms and NASCAR dads–both crucial electoral blocs–would heartily approve, and the country would be safer. Morally, it would be a wash. But the centerpiece for creating a New Democratic Majority is how to use the military. If we accept the premise that campaigning against war is impossible–and even Howard Dean admits that it is–then it’s silly to lack a specific plan for how and where to attack. The Republican idea, echoed by most Democrats, is to sit around, wait for some dubious justification for the use of force to present itself, and then trot out some incoherent cover story on the eve of attack. What’s so tough about that? Why take the long way around? It’s time to make the world safe for America by making the world America.
But here we have one leftist arguing that in fact fascism is not such a bad thing after all, specifically calling for the end of the American Republic and imprisoning those who disagree with him.
Shades of that Democratic chick who said of the Presidential campaigns, "We've been too nice. It's time to step up and get nasty." WTF?? They've been running their party into the ground with their hateful rhetoric!
And their fascist undertone is one more reason why the Democratic Party is sinking fast. Bush would do well to quit pandering to them; if they win a Presidential election (because conservatives abandoned the Republican Party), we're all screwed.
On the standing-for-something front, that question was settled long ago. Nothing can be more obvious than that the current Democratic leadership considers actual principle a laughable electoral weakness. This was demonstrated most forcefully a few weeks ago when Hillary Clinton joked about Mohatma Gandhi having worked in a St. Louis gas station. If Gandhi were running in this race, the Democratic Leadership Council–bet on it–would be warning of a McGovern-like landslide defeat. Democrats consider strength to be the skillful capture of swing votes via the tactically precise execution of a fuzzy policy of standing for nothing at all, as in the case of Bill Clinton.
Never hard of this guy before but NYPress is slightly right of Center but they do print eccentric left wingers who don't march lock step with the party line.
Nah. What he's saying is that the 'pubbies are successful because they appeal to a 'fascist' America and if the Dems aren't going to take any moral stances, they might as well profit from American fascism by being better fascists. Sarky as hell, but hardly a ringing endorsement.
Whether it was meant to be or not, it hits so close to home that it's NOT satire.
I almost stopped reading right here. Then the next paragraph sort of made up for it: "A Democratic candidate can expose this weakness easily by announcing a blunt post-election plan. On his first day in office, he signs an executive order declaring every person on Earth to be a citizen of the United States. Around the world, the offer is made: Any person who wishes to have American citizenship can go to the nearest embassy, have his photo taken and be given a passport."
I caught myself laughing nearly all the way through this. It looks like masterful satire. If this guy is serious, he's NUTS. If he's got his tongue in his cheek, he's GOOD.
L
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