In 4 years, maybe eight, the Democrat Party will have a new name, more representative of who it really is. It will probably be hyphenated, with the words 'green" or "children and families" as a part of it.
*Bump*
I almost feel wistful when reflecting upon just what has happened to the Democratic party, one of our nation's erstwhile great political parties. (The key word here is ALMOST.) The party of Harry Truman, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, JFK, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Scoop Jackson has become the party of Howard Dean, Ted Kennedy, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Helen Thomas, Michael Moore, Jesse Jackson, Janet Reno, Dennis Kucinich, and Al Sharpton.
This transformation is simultaneously humorous and sickening.
Oh man, a thinking liberal who can make a realistic assessment. He's a member of an endangered species.
This will be interesting to watch play out. They've been stumbling for decades now. 'We Hate Pubbies' is obviously not a winning strategy for them, but can they shake all that off and get a grip on reality?
It won't have that meeting. The grass roots are fringe leftists who will continue to insist on their nominee being one, too. Clinton was only able to overcome this by a lack of interest in running against GWHB on the part of key potential candidates and his 'wonderful' talent for BS -- he conned the 'rats.
An interesting article. What the author fails to see and note, however, is that "hard" liberals do exist. For the most part, the Democratic Party began pushing them out building up to and during the tenure of President Clinton. They went to the Republican Party and, in large part, are labelled "conservative kooks" by a party that fails to realize that they are insulting the very same people that once made them respectable.
A very interesting read. Thanks for posting it.
And yet, the Democrats are still a viable political party and will probably win again, if not in 2008, then in 2012. The Democrats will be back. the question is whether they'll come back roaring with liberals clearly in the saddle, as in 1912 or 1932, or whether they'll stumble their way back into office, a little dazed and almost surprised that they won, as in 1976 or 1992 (of course such characterizations have more to do with what actually happened later than with the mood on election night).
The reason is that no party can stay in power or maintain its hold on the national imagination forever. Scandals and mistakes build up, and people start to think about giving the other side a try if they seem to have gotten their act together -- it helps if there's a third party or a bitter split in the incumbent party, too. Any ruling party or faction starts to get arrogant and careless, and starts to look cultic or sectlike if it's in power long enough, even the Republicans. Once a particular set of threats or challenges has been dealt with by one party, people lose interest in them or perceive dangers coming from other direction, that the other party seems better equipped to handle.
Hard vs. soft liberalism? Well, there's everything to be said for Harry Truman rather than Henry Wallace or William O. Douglas or for Lieberman against Dean or Kucinic, but "hard" liberals did bring us Vietnam. If "hard" means practical and realistic and "soft" means utopian or weak or wishy-washy or soft-headed, "hard" is preferable, but it can deteriorate into a cult of toughness for its own sake. That's okay when one is cleaning up messes left behind by others, but it can make a lot of trouble by pushing a government into untenable positions for the sake of not looking weak.
Generally speaking, it's the realists who win the victories, but any election win is a sign to the dreamers and theorists to come out of hibernation, and then it's up to the realists to keep them under control, using their energies while denying them real power. That's a tough act to keep up, though.
But its biggest weakness is its assumption that ground gained is won forever; that by arrogating the "progressive" label to itself it has somehow prevented its opponents from espousing progressive ideas under penalty of having the "hypocrite" label shouted at them. In fact, Bush's foreign policy is intensely progressive and its opponents trapped into reaction. It might even be properly termed "radical" - it is by definition revolutionary and as such constitutes a grand vision that the left has always assumed was its own. They were the visionaries, their opponents crabbed, small-minded, and conservative. And they still believe it - look, for example, at the nearly universal condemnation of Bush voters as "stupid."
But it is fairly clear that both vision and accomplishment are very much on the side of the current administration, and whatever demonization as "incompetent" may be applied to the current Iraq intervention, they aren't simply standing there, they're doing something, a thing that the Moore and Move-On wing cannot claim. That has to be fixed, but there is precious little sign of that happening.
I think this guy is right in a lot of ways and I would like to see the dems start acting like the support America. However, if they took this approach it would just be window dressing and more lies.
At their core they simply do not believe in this country or the values it stand for (if they even know them). Thanks to their own medalling in education, most have no understanding of the foundations of democracy, liberty of even liberalism. They cant defend this country because dont value its culture. Many openly despise it.
The only way for this to work would be for the Democratic Party to begin reeducation camps for their members. It could work, if Afghanis can learn in only a few years perhaps, just perhaps liberals can to.