Blue Democrats Lost Red America Back in 1965 (Wonder Land)

"And you tell me over, and over, and over again my friend Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction." --Vietnam War Protest Song, 1965

How did the 2004 election map of the United States come to look like a color-field painting by Barnett Newman? In fact, if you adjust the map's colors for votes by county (as at the Web sites for CNN and USA Today), even the blue states turn mostly red. Pennsylvania is blue, but between blue Philadelphia and Pittsburgh every county in the state is red. California, except for the coastline, is almost entirely red.

This didn't happen last Tuesday. The color-coding of the 2004 election began around 1965 in the politics of the Vietnam era. The Democratic Party today is the product of a generational shift that began in those years.

The formative years of the northern wing of the Democratic Old Guard go back to World War II. It included political figures like Tip O'Neill, Pat Moynihan and Lane Kirkland. It was men such as these whose experiences, both political and personal, informed and shaped the Democrats before the mid-'60s.

Over time the party passed into the hands of a generation, now in their 50s and early 60s, whose broad view of America and its politics was formed as young men and women opposing the Vietnam War. That would include the party's current leading lights -- John Kerry, Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi. And its most influential strategists, such as Bob Shrum, Mary Beth Cahill and James Carville. The old industrial unions, whose members went over to Ronald Reagan, gave way to the more dependable public-employee unions run by John Sweeney and Gerald McEntee.

These Baby Boomers -- the generation of John Kerry, Al Gore and Bill and Hillary Clinton --

Emotion as politics, circa 1967

* * *

But the politics of the Vietnam generation wasn't just about Vietnam. It was about changing everything, most notably the culture. This generation really opened up the culture. The old pre-Vietnam strictures on behavior and comportment -- Tip O'Neill's old Boston Catholic world of Mass on Sunday and at least a working if not functioning knowledge of the Baltimore catechism -- got hammered down till the moral landscape became flat and fast. Now you can drive anything at all into theaters, music or movies. This post-Vietnam culture of non-restraint, now almost 40 years old, produced Whoopi Goldberg's double-entendre jokes about George Bush's name at Radio City Music Hall, the Massachusetts Supreme Court's sudden decision on gay marriage, and hard-to-defend support for partial-birth abortion.

George Bush, age 58, was a reproach. He personifies everything they have fought since they drove LBJ and Richard Nixon out of politics. And this week they are trying to discover why most of the people who live between the Hudson River and Hollywood Freeway don't agree with them. Expect documentaries soon about Christian evangelicals on the Discovery Channel.

There is no hope that the Vietnam generation braintrust who just lost this election will ever understand Red America. Until someone in the party recognizes this, the tides of demography will inexorably erode the blue islands that remain on the map

As told to this FReeper:

TROLL: "Look at what Republicans have posted to celebrate their victories on Tuesday.

"Necessity compels me to ask, as a troll, Who in this world ever decided that the electoral map should be divided between Red states for Republicans and Blue states for Democrats? This is unfortunate and unfair.

"Red has always stood for the Glorious Russian Revolution, and the Chinese Reds, not to mention Bolsheviks, Communists, Socialists, Independents from Vermont, ... and Red Sox fans from ultra-liberal Boston.

"By this sinister plot, Democrats have been robbed of their colorful identity. We have lost control of one of the most powerful symbols of our Party, as well as a cherished heirloom of historical proportions.

"Instead, this advantage has been stolen from us -- like the election of 2000 -- and handed over to Republicans, who benefit from all the positive associations that relate to states that are healthy and thriving -- as people migrate there from Blue states. Red under this sinister scheme has come to stand for red-blooded, American, sanguine, healthy, ruddy, optimistic, lively, spirited and dashing.

"Democrats are now relegated to all manner of things associated with the color Blue. Blue stands for sad, lonely, gloomy, discouraged, depressed, rust-belt, blue nun, and out-of-the-blue policies that don’t work. Does this not conjure up images of an “Old America” versus a “New America”?

"We protest, and make a non-negotiable demand that these colors be rotated each and every election year.

"Alternatively, we demand that colors for Democrat-won states be adopted that are more in line with our hip and stylish Hollywood-like image, like mauve or fuscous."

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