The Doughnut Democrats (Excellent WSJ Summary of What's Wrong with them)

Wall St. Journal ^ | Jun 16, 2005 | editorial

[The Raven]

-snip

A centrist group of Democrats called Third Way recently issued a report explaining the Democrats' 2004 election debacle. It concluded that voters with incomes between $30,000 and $75,000 a year, or almost half the electorate, delivered "healthy victories" for President Bush and Republicans in Congress. The report concludes: "Rather than being the party of the middle class, Democrats face a huge crisis with middle-income voters."

Why is that? One reason is that the party of FDR and JFK no longer seems to have a moderate wing; they have become doughnut Democrats with no middle. This point is best exemplified by the utter collapse of Democrats in the South. In 1980 there were 20 mostly conservative Democrats in the Senate; now there are four, and even they are endangered.

- snip

Many conservatives have watched the left's hostile takeover of the Democratic Party with great joy. We don't share that enthusiasm. The country would benefit from two vibrant parties competing on innovative freedom-enhancing initiatives. The problem is that the Democrats are running on empty when it comes to policy ideas other than big government, and this lack of competition has had deleterious effects on Republican behavior, as witnessed by their lack of any spending discipline.

Howard Dean observed recently that he hopes to "galvanize the Democrats into being the party of individual freedom and personal responsibility." That's a wonderful idea--just the kind that would put the Democrats back on the road to national viability. But that leaves unanswered the question of how a party that opposes voluntary personal accounts for Social Security, school choice for parents, tax and welfare reform, free trade and limited government broadly defined can sell itself as the freedom and responsibility party.

[The Raven]

>>how a party that opposes voluntary personal accounts for Social Security, school choice for parents, tax and welfare reform, free trade and limited government broadly defined can sell itself as the freedom and responsibility party.

Each major Republican idea is a dismantling or repair of the failed Democrat programs of the past. The Democratic reponse must be opposition to the Republicans and that's what it is (although usually it is name calling or propoganda rather than defense of a policy). It's difficult for them to propose even bigger government when similar policies in the past are being reformed.

However - the Pubs are tip-toeing lightly, as they fear a backlash it the Dem's propoganda works.

[GiovannaNicoletta]

No, we aren't saying that modern Washington Democrats are socialists...

But they are socialists.

If it looks like a socialist, talks like a socialist, and votes like a socialist, it's a socialist.

[LowCountryJoe]

From the editorial's second paragraph:

The Democratic leadership Free Republic's protectionist lobby has arguably never been more overtly hostile to free markets, deregulation, tax reform and free trade than it is today.

Oh, that's right, we're supposedly the "free traitorous trolls". LMAO!

[Nasty McPhilthy]

Damnitboy!

Doughnut Democrats. I like that. Wouldn't you love to be able to post this in DUmmyland?

[FastCoyote]

"The country would benefit from two vibrant parties competing "
That would be true if both partieshad even semi logical positions, but the Democrats are socialists, a FAILED philosophy that can never be polished up. The real debate is between conservatives and libertarians, those are the the two in natural competition.

[Popman]

The next test of whether the party of Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy is capable of anything but obstructionism will come later this summer on tax reform. The President's bipartisan tax reform panel, chaired by former Senators Connie Mack and Mr. Breaux, is expected to launch the debate by proposing some form of flat tax.

Democrats may again try to tar and feather this plan as a giveaway to the rich. But polls show over and over that the broad middle class wants tax simplification and pro-growth reform. And in the past a form of the flat tax was endorsed by such Democratic leaders as Dick Gephardt, Bill Bradley, Jerry Brown and Leon Panetta. They didn't believe the flat tax was such a radical idea. Will the enlightened Democrats sit this debate out too?

In politics, ideas are more important than individuals.

I wonder when the Democrat party will finally realize the Dean, MM, Al Franken wing of the party can not deliver wins with politics of angst, hate and anger.

The GOP needs to keep moving forward with the party of ideas and stop being so pussy footed with these socialists.

[tkathy]

The do-nothing party of nothing but whiners and vilifiers is a danger to us all.

[Tempestuous]

"The real debate is between conservatives and libertarians, those are the the two in natural competition."

I agree 100%. The Democratic party is dying. Pretty soon it will be dumped in the trashbin of US political history. The two party system of the future are Republicans and Libertarians.

[Nathan Zachary]

"Howard Dean observed recently that he hopes to "galvanize the Democrats into being the party of individual freedom and personal responsibility." That's a wonderful idea--just the kind that would put the Democrats back on the road to national viability."

He thinks Howie is a centrist? The only road Dean is leading democrats down leads to oblivion

[listenhillary]

Yep - Republicans are just socialist lite.

[kevkrom]

Many conservatives have watched the left's hostile takeover of the Democratic Party with great joy. We don't share that enthusiasm. The country would benefit from two vibrant parties competing on innovative freedom-enhancing initiatives

And once the Democrat party has finished imploding and relegated themselves to fring status, the GOP can split into two parties and accomplish the same thing, but with a more rightward bent.

[longtermmemmory]

Third way democrats is code for SOCIALISTS.

SOCIALISTS like Hitlary, Pelosi.

The WSJ should not waste time trying to save the Democrat Party. The WSJ should just pronounce the Democrat Party as DEAD. Then we can discuss the formation of a vibrant new conservative SECOND party and the democrat party relegated to the looney liberal,homosexual left minority fringe.

[martin gibson]

But they are socialists. If it looks like a socialist, talks like a socialist, and votes like a socialist, it's a socialist...

No, they are NOT socialists. Neither are they liberals, or leftists or progressives or any other such newspeak bullsh*t.

They are hardcore, unrepentant neo-Stalinists and nothing but.

Geeze, I get real tired of posting this. I could use some help down here in the language war.

[OESY]

Some specifics:


• With the notable exception of Joe Lieberman, there are virtually no Scoop Jackson defense hawks remaining in a party that has made Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo its main policy touchstones for the war on terror.

• The party that voted en masse for income and capital gains tax cuts under JFK now has but one message on taxes: Raise them.

• On trade, the Democrats who delivered 102 House votes for Nafta and Bill Clinton in 1994 will, at last count, provide all of five House votes for the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

• The Clinton Democrats helped enact the most momentous social policy legislation of the past generation: welfare reform. Now Democrats conspire every day to gut work-for-welfare requirements and prevent the renewal of welfare reform by Congress.

• Above all, there's the know-nothing-ism on Social Security. The Democrats in unison proclaim that Mr. Bush is advancing a risky right-wing scheme to destroy Social Security by creating private investment accounts for workers.

[fish hawk]

Well hell then, now is the time to start getting rid of those Libertarians. Why wait.

[longtermmemmory]

They forgot to mention that the Democrat party is lock step for the redefinition of marriage from an institution which promotes the future generations of society into the sanction of recreational sex based on whim.

[skinkinthegrass]

If it looks like a socialist, talks like a socialist, and votes like a socialist, it's a socialist...They are hardcore, unrepentant neo-Stalinists and nothing but.

...We hear ya... :)

[tnlibertarian]

In 1980 there were 20 mostly conservative Democrats in the Senate; now there are four, and even they are endangered.

Did the article happen to mention who those four were? If not, can we come up with who they mean? I can think of one or two, but that's assuming they don't mean 'Southern Democrats' to which they were alluding in the previous sentence.

[Aquinasfan]

The good news is that the extremist party is heading for collapse. The bad news is that the de facto leader of the Democrats, by a remarkably fortuitous convergence of circumstances, has a good shot of being elected president.

[Sam the Sham]

But that leaves unanswered the question of how a party that opposes voluntary personal accounts for Social Security, school choice for parents, tax and welfare reform, free trade and limited government broadly defined can sell itself as the freedom and responsibility party.

Answers...

Because the public really does not consist of WSJ cheap labor, free trade at all costs, Ayn Rand worshipping libertarians.

The public wants a safety net to protect them from the sharp end of globalization. Working class people do not trust Wall Street and do not want their retirement in its hands. Middle class parents who live in the nice house in the nice town where they pay a ton in property tax have no need for school choice and those who do seldom vote Republican. Public support for free trade agreements has collapsed in the wake of NAFTA.

By regrouping as the party of economic populism and Sistah Souljah-ing the deviants the Dems could rebuild themselves. Certainly not by becoming the WSJ's idea of what a party should be.