Victor Davis Hanson: Democratic Suicide

NRO ^ | 5/6/2005 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Tolik]

When will the Dems start winning again? When they start living and speaking like normal folks.

We are in unsure times amid a controversial war. Yet the American people are not swayed by the universities, the major networks, the New York Times, Hollywood, the major foundations, and NPR. All these bastions of doctrinaire liberal thinking have done their best to convince America that George W. Bush, captive to right-wing nuts and Christian fanatics, is leading the country into an abyss. In fact, a close look at a map of red/blue counties nationwide suggests that the Democrats are in deepening trouble.

Why? In a word, Democratic ideology and rhetoric have not evolved from the 1960s, although the vast majority of Americans has — and an astute Republican leadership knows it.

Class

The old class warfare was effective for two reasons: Americans did not have unemployment insurance, disability protection, minimum wages, social security, or health coverage. Much less were they awash in cheap material goods from China that offer the less well off the semblance of consumer parity with those far wealthier. Second, the advocates of such rights looked authentic, like they came off the docks, the union hall, the farm, or the shop, primed to battle those in pin-stripes and coiffed hair.

Today entitlement is far more complicated. Poverty is not so much absolute as relative: "I have a nice Kia, but he has a Mercedes," or "I have a student loan to go to Stanislaus State, but her parents sent her to Yale." Unfortunately for the Democrats, Kias and going to Stanislaus State aren't too bad, especially compared to the alternatives in the 1950s.

A Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, John Edwards, Howard Dean, George Soros, or Al Gore looks — no, acts — like he either came out of a hairstylist's salon or got off a Gulfstream. Those who show up at a Moveon.org rally and belong to ANSWER don't seem to have spent much time in Bakersfield or Logan, but lots in Seattle and Westwood. When most Americans have the semblance of wealth — televisions, cell phones, cars, laptops, and iPods as well as benefits on the job — it is hard to keep saying that "children are starving." Obesity not emaciation is the great plague of the poorer.

So the Democrats need a little more humility, a notion that the country is not so much an us/them dichotomy, but rather all of us together under siege to maintain our privileges in a tough global world — and at least one spokesman who either didn't go to prep school or isn't a lawyer.

Race

The Democrats, at least in the north, were right on the great civil-rights debate of 1960s. Yet ever since, they have lost credibility as they turned to the harder task of trying to legislate an equality of result — something that transcends government prejudice and guarantying a fair playing field, and hinges on contemporary culture, behavior, values, and disciple.

The country is also no longer white and black, but brown, yellow, black, white, and mixed. When a liberal UC Berkeley chancellor remonstrates about "diversity" and "multiculturalism," lamenting that his merit-based entrance requirements have sadly resulted in too few "Hispanics" and "African-Americans" (he ignores that whites at Berkeley also enroll in numbers less than their percentages in the state population), what he really means — but won't say — is that there are apparently too many Asians, about 45 percent enrolled in Berkeley versus about 12 percent in the state population.

What will he do? Praise a hard-working minority that overcame historic prejudice against them? Hardly. We suspect instead the typical liberal solution is on the horizon: some clever, but secretive administrative fix that contravenes Proposition 209, and then denies that compensatory action is aimed against the Asians it is aimed at.

In short, race-based thinking beyond protection of equal opportunity is fraught with public suspicion, especially when so many loud spokesmen for minorities — Jesse Jackson or Kweisi Mfume — either are elites themselves or do not practice the morality they preach. An Alberto Gonzales or Condoleezza Rice comes across as proud, competent, and an expert rather than a tribalist, while those in the Black Caucus or La Raza industry appear often the opposite. Would you want a sober Colin Powell or an often unhinged Harry Belafonte and surly Julian Bond in your party? Did Condoleezza Rice, answering acerbic senators without notes, or Barbara Boxer, droning off a prepared script, appear the more impressive in recent confirmation hearings? A Democratic "minority" appointment to a cabinet post at education or housing is one thing; a Republican belief that the best candidates for secretary of state, national security advisor, and attorney general are incidentally minorities is quite another.

 

Age

The Democrats won on the Social Security issue years ago. Annual cost-of-living increases and vast expansions to the program helped to ensure that we no longer witness — as I did in rural California in the early 1960s — elderly with outhouses and without teeth and proper glasses. In fact, despite the rhetoric of Washington lobbying groups, those over 65 are now the most affluent and secure in our society, and are on the verge of appearing grasping rather than indigent. They bought homes before the great leap in prices; they went to college when it was cheap; and they often have generous pensions in addition to fat social security checks. So ossified rhetoric about the "aged" in the social security debate — increasingly now not so much the Greatest Generation of WWII and the Depression as the first cohort of the self-absorbed baby boomers — is self-defeating.

George Bush is appealing to a new group that really is threatened — the under-35's who cannot afford a house, have student loans, high car and health insurance, and are concerned that their poor therapeutic education will leave them impoverished as China and the rest of Asia race ahead.

 

Defense

The problem with Democrats is that Americans are not convinced that they will ever act in any consistent manner. We can argue about Afghanistan, but if one were to go back and read accounts in October 2001 about hitting back, the news reflected liberals' doubt about both the wisdom and efficacy of taking out the Taliban.

Would Al Gore have invaded Afghanistan less than a month after 9/11? If John Kerry were President and China invaded Taiwan, what would he do?

What would an administration advised by Madeline Albright, Barbara Boxer, Joe Biden, Jamie Rubin, Nancy Pelosi, or Jimmy Carter do if Iran sent a nuke into Israel, or North Korea fired a series of missiles over the top of Japan?

Or, if al Qaeda, operating from a sanctuary in Iran or Syria, took out the Sears Tower, how would a Kennedy, Kerry, or Gore respond? Six cruise missiles? A police matter? Proper work for the DA? Better "intelligence"? Let's work with our allies? Get the U.N. involved?

Whatever we think of George Bush, we know he would do something real — and just what that something might be frightens into hesitation — and yes, fear — many of those who would otherwise like to try something pretty awful.

 

Will they ever learn?

Until Democrats promote someone who barks out something like, "We can and will win in Iraq," or, "Let the word go out: An attack on the United States originating from a rogue state is synonymous with its own destruction," or some such unguarded and perhaps slightly over-the-top statement, I don't think that the American people will entrust their safety to the party. John Kerry, to be frank, is no Harry Truman, and time is running out for Hillary Clinton to morph into Scoop Jackson.

Philosophically, two grand themes explain the Democratic dilemma. One, the United States does not suffer from the sort of oppression, poverty, or Vietnam nightmares of the 1950s and 1960s that created the present Democratic ideology. Thus calcified solutions of big government entitlements, race-based largess, and knee-jerk suspicion of U.S. power abroad come off as either impractical or hysterical.

Second, there is the widening gulf between word and deed — and Americans hate hypocrites most of all. When you meet a guy from the Chamber of Commerce or insurance association, you pretty much know that what you see is what you get: comfort with American culture and values, an upscale lifestyle that reflects his ideology and work, and no apologies for success or excuses for lack of same.

But if you listen to Dr. Dean and his class venom, it hardly seems comparable with how he lives or how he was brought up. John Kerry's super power boat, Teresa Kerry's numerous mansions, Arianna Huffington's gated estate, George Soros's jet, Ted Turner's ranches, Sean Penn's digs — all this and more, whether fairly or unfairly, suggest hypocrisy and insincerity: Something like, "High taxes, government regulation, racial quotas, and more entitlements won't hurt me since I have so much money at my own disposal anyway, but will at least make me feel good that we are transferring capital to the less fortunate."

Worse yet, such easy largess and the cost of caring often translate into contempt for the small businessman, entrepreneur, and salesperson who is supposedly illiberal because he worries that he has less disposable income and is less secure. And when you add in cracks about Wal-Mart, McDonald's, and the "Christian Right" — all the things the more cultured avoid — then the architects of a supposedly populist party seem to be ignorant of their own constituencies.

When will Democrats return to power? Three of the most influential legislators in the Democrat party — Diane Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, and Nancy Pelosi — reside in and came out of the San Francisco Bay area, which for all its undeniable beauty has created a culture still at odds with most of America. John and Teresa Kerry would have been the nation's first billionaire presidential couple. The head of the Democratic party is a New England condescending liberal, with a vicious tongue, who ran and lost on a platform far to the left of an unsuccessful liberal.

In contrast the only two men elected president from the Democratic party in 30 years were southerners, hammed up their rural and common-man roots — the son of a single mother in Arkansas and a peanut farmer in Plains, Georgia — and were narrowly elected largely due to national scandals like Watergate or third-party conservative populists like Ross Perot. The aristocratic media — CSB News, the New York Times, NPR — is often liberal and yet talks of its degrees and pedigree; the firebrand populist bloggers, cable news pros, and talk-radio pundits are mostly conservative and survive on proven merit rather than image.

When we see Democrats speaking and living like normal folks — expressing worry that the United States must return to basic education and values to ensure its shaky preeminence in a cutthroat world, talking of one multiracial society united by a rare exceptional culture of the West rather than a salad bowl of competing races and tribes, and apprising the world that we are principled abroad in our support of democratic nations and quite dangerous when attacked — they will be competitive again.

Since they will not do that, they will keep losing — no matter how much the economy worries, the war frightens, and the elite media scares the American people.

— Victor Davis Hanson is a military historian and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His website is victorhanson.com.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

[Thoro]

How is it that we are the aggressors in this and at the same time were not prepared? This is a perfectly asinine thing to propose to anyone. ONLY aggressors are prepared!!! If we were not prepared, it is because we were not and are not the aggressors in this!!! The whole terrorist agenda is a lesson, albeit a late one, that our guard had been let down and that we failed to for see the worst. Who is to blame for that 'peace has broken out' view of things?

I always find it funny that they always resort back to the "We're not focusing on finding Bin Laden", which is not only an empty view, but an insulting one. It pretty much says that our military, the one that fought a world war on two fronts, is incapable of walking and chewing bubble gum at the same time.

[Grampa Dave]

Superb!

[beckett]

Kudos to Hanson. Among the many stellar columns he has penned, this one ranks near the top.

[SMARTY]

If we are not focusing on Bin Ladin, then why is Mushariff as goosey as a whore in church and why is Karzai so earnestly and openly committed to the US remaining in Afghanistan... even though his personal security may be secured without the broad and intense level of commitment we continuity to show there?

[AFPhys]

When we see Democrats speaking and living like normal folks — expressing worry that the United States must return to basic education and values to ensure its shaky preeminence in a cutthroat world, talking of one multiracial society united by a rare exceptional culture of the West rather than a salad bowl of competing races and tribes, and apprising the world that we are principled abroad in our support of democratic nations and quite dangerous when attacked — they will be competitive again.

Ain't gonna happen. There core of the Demodogs is comprised of those who are totally opposed to doing this. Their only chance is to fool people, and that can't be done for long enough. They're cooked.

[Please add me to your VDH ping list]
`

[aculeus]

BTTT

[CGVet58]

hey wootr (but perhaps, to the left of me??? - ;-}),

I disagree. Morbid as the next may seem, remember this fifth column ego-centric nihilist force we call the dhimmicrats bracket their oh-so-obvious lustre to the world by death coming (abortion) and going (euthanasia)... their frenzied clamor in todays agora may make for great and loud drama, but I suspect it's more akin to the sound that comes from millions of lemming-paws as they approach the cliff...

[John Lenin]

When we see Democrats speaking and living like normal folks — expressing worry that the United States must return to basic education and values to ensure its shaky preeminence in a cutthroat world,

As long as the RATS get all their money from Hollyweird and San Francisco liberals this will never happen. Not to say that the GOP can't screw up bigtime on the judges and SS but the culture war is waxing not waning.

[Tolik]

Ouch. Beautiful!

[Tolik]

Added to the VDH ping list. Thanks.

[mondonico]

All of this sounds right, but they came so close in the last two elections......

[Billthedrill]

Great article. A lot of Democrats mourn a party that has become unrecognizable and end up voting Republican or not at all. They'll attempt one more comeback by misrepresenting an ideologue as a centrist in Hillary Clinton in 2008 - in many ways her failure would be the best thing possible to happen to the party. Her success would throw the whole thing back into the hands of political "experts" for whom the package is more important than the contents. We've had quite enough of that.

Or, if al Qaeda, operating from a sanctuary in Iran or Syria, took out the Sears Tower, how would a Kennedy, Kerry, or Gore respond? Six cruise missiles? A police matter? Proper work for the DA? Better "intelligence"? Let's work with our allies? Get the U.N. involved?

Ouch. Those are Clinton solutions and I don't just mean Bill.

Whatever we think of George Bush, we know he would do something real — and just what that something might be frightens into hesitation — and yes, fear — many of those who would otherwise like to try something pretty awful.

It helps, too, to hound the sumbitches to the point where they're glancing over their shoulders too much to attempt anything forward-looking. Osama's urging Zarqawi to attack the U.S. is a case in point. The former is now in deep concealment and the latter chased from one safe-house to another on an hourly basis. These are no longer men likely to succeed in taking the Sears Tower down.

[spacewarp]

I'd agree it reads real well. Agreed, the Republicans need to earn it. Right now, they're not doing well at all. But, fortunately, the Demoncrats are doing MUCH worse.

Paul

[CyberAnt]

"let's hope they don't listen"


Why would they listen .. they're too arrogant to believe we know anything.

[OESY]

New York Times: "There are many incompetent people in the world. But a Cornell University study has shown that most incompetent people do not know that they are incompetent.... One reason that the ignorant also tend to be the blissfully self-assured, the researchers believe, is that the skills required for competence often are the same skills necessary to recognize competence. The incompetent, therefore, suffer doubly...."

For instance, take Howell Raines and Jayson Blair, please.

[Thoro]

If we are not focusing on Bin Ladin, then why is Mushariff as goosey as a whore in church and why is Karzai so earnestly and openly committed to the US remaining in Afghanistan... even though his personal security may be secured without the broad and intense level of commitment we continuity to show there?

"But those are sidetracks that are deterring us from the hunt for Bin Laden!" < /liberal rant off >

Only in the illogical mind of a liberal could the obvious be mistaken for inaction. Thank goodness the parents are in charge.

[OESY]

Mwanwhile, watch your back:



Quoted from TomPaine (courtesy RightWingNews.com):

As we’ve heard again and again recently, if we are going to beat this bunch of rule breaking GOP misanthropes, we’re going to have to start fighting as dirty as they do. I started this thread for one reason, to get everyone’s ideas on a list of things we as Democrats can consider to stop the takeover of this country. This isn’t going to be a thread for the squeamish, or for the ideologically pure. Best to steer clear if that describes you.

Here are half a dozen ideas to get the ball rolling.

1) Get Republicans fired at your workplace, or fire them yourself if you can – In the belief that all activism starts with the grass roots, do us all a favor, and fire your Republican employees this week. There are legitimate reasons to fire virtually any employee, so avail yourself of them. Not only will it quit the gloating you’re hearing around the office, it’ll stop those donation checks they are getting ready to write. Might also teach them a bit of humility regarding the poor and the disadvantaged. They can be the “Pioneers” of “Unemployment Window A”

2) Pretend to be a Republican, and then cut down the next Republican that you have a conversation with. - The more public/crowed the place you do this, the better. Use whatever remarks you know are sure to make the intended impression. “You’re no better than the liberal scum you claim to hate… get back into the kitchen… Just wait till we win next year and toss peons like you into the field or the workhouse… People in your income bracket don’t have the right to be Republican or vote etc.” If you need talking points, just observe in a Yahoo political chat room for a few minutes and you have all the right wing bile that you can use and quite possibly all that you can stand.

3) Create, plant and disseminate widely “news stories” that discredit GOP policies – A good way to do this is to print out stories in the visual style of a major newspaper or magazine (don’t use the logo or other copywrited [sic] material, however) and theme them similarly to the ones that targeted John McCain’s platform last presidential election. Make sure not to slander individuals directly. Leave stacks of the printouts where people are certain to find them – i.e. supermarkets, coffee houses, bars, community centers etc. As in #2 make sure to write these from the right wing perspective, for maximum effect on the target audience. Avoid digital media, as it’s too easy to fact check, not that most GOP voters care to check these things anyway.

4) Contact the IRS and anonymously tip them off regarding prominent GOP contributors in your area. – Lets face it, they are likely tax evaders in any case (that’s why they are GOP), so might as well have them go thru an audit and feel a bit of what it’s like to have a hostile government prying into their affairs. The tax money you shake free will be a little payback to your community for the egregious tax cut they undoubtedly are enjoying.

5) Make sure that you’re the only ride on voting day for a group of hard right types who live out of the way, and then don’t show up. – This works best in low population density areas and poor right wing communities. Cultivate a group of right wing friends and make sure they depend on you for the ride on Election Day. Then don’t show up. Every vote they miss is an uncontested vote on the blue side of the aisle. The right needs a taste of Florida 2000.

6) Impersonate Linda Tripp. – Whisper into the ear of GOP associates to encourage and get dirty laundry regarding their improprieties, and then make sure that information gets into the wrong hands. It’s hard to brag about family values or think about politics when you’re in a divorce court.

Are you really serious about winning the culture war? Do you mean it when you say it’s time to fight fire with fire? Then channel that anger and let’s hear some ideas. Given the thin skin of most conservative ideologues, it won’t take much to have them running far away from such policies and tactics so we can all enjoy proper, principled political discourse in the country again. First, however, they need to be taught that fighting dirty burns them as much as it burns anyone.

[IronJack]

they're too arrogant to believe we know anything.

Perfect. That reality will dawn on them just about the time the meteor strikes and their fate is sealed.