Like my father and his father before him, I was a registered Democrat for most of my adult life, along with just about every other blood relative and in-laws and friends and neighbors from my youth. This was not a trivial matter. I was a member of two AFL-CIO labor unions earlier in my life. And in my working class neighborhood, being a Democrat was more than just a registration; it was an identity, an avowal of principle, and a statement of where we stood -- for the little guy, the common man, prosperity, progress, uncompromising free expression, and personal integrity.
At the grass roots level, we worked at registering voters and getting them to the polls, and at one time I was a precinct captain and a delegate to the national Young Democrats convention. Growing up, I didn't even know any Republicans, but I knew in my bones what they stood for: wealth, power, privilege, snobbery, and bigotry. At the university I attended, the term "Young Republican" was an oxymoron.
I first registered as a Democrat many years ago, as soon as I attained voting age. And if I hadn't recently moved to a state that does not provide for registration by political party, I would probably still be a registered Democrat, because that status has always defined who I am. But whom I vote for is a different matter. If Democrats want my vote, they have to earn it like anyone else. Looking at the rhetoric and actions of the current Democratic crowd, I won't hold my breath waiting for that to happen.
Either the Democrats changed or I did, or maybe my perceptions back in the 1960s were just a fantasy. You be the judge. Each line of the table below summarizes a policy reversal that seems to me to have taken place between then and now.
WHAT THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY STOOD FOR . . .
(1) Before & During Kennedy Era ................. (2) During and After Clinton Era
Free speech .................................................. Political correctness, censorship
Free trade ..................................................... Protectionism disguised as labor & environmental standards
Low taxes ...................................................... High taxes
Tax cuts ......................................................... Tax increases Economic growth .......................................... Environmental obstruction
A competitive economy ................................ An over-regulated command-and-control economy
Equal opportunity ......................................... Equal outcomes, group entitlements
Equality under the law, racial harmony .......... Race-conscious "remedies," identity politics
Strong defense .............................................. Reflexively anti-military ideology
Individual responsibility ................................ Collective guilt, blaming society
Suspicion of power ....................................... Centralized power
Rule by the common man ............................ Rule by elites Bowling, baseball, and auto racing ............. NPR, PBS, & the National Endowment for the Arts
Hunting and fishing .......................................Gun control & animal rights
Beer and burgers .... ..................................... Brie and Beaujolais
The little guy .................................................. Rich wheeler dealers
Honest government ...................................... Influence peddling
Personal integrity ......................................... Slickness and sleaze
Public integrity ............................................. Solicitation of bribes, general corruption
Investigate the bad guys .............................. Cover it up & attack the investigators
Working people ........................................... Favors for fat-cat donors & union leaders
Middle-class consumers .............................. Billionaire trial lawyers
Risk and opportunity ................................... Safety and security
Individual liberty, voluntarism .................... Group rights, coercive utopias
Parental responsibility ................................. It takes a village
It seems to me that the left-hand column is where I always stood and what, mistakenly or not, I identified with the Democrats. The right-hand column is what I saw the party turning into during the '70s, '80s, and '90s, and it remains so today -- no longer recognizable as the one I joined in an earlier era. In fact, I'm beginning to doubt that the Democratic Party I see today ever could have stood for what I've listed in the left-hand column. Is that column faulty memory or wishful thinking, or am I just lying to myself that it was ever that way? Perhaps it was always a self-serving illusion, and the Democrats were never anything more than the power-hungry, predatory coalition of insatiable appetites -- competing for government funds and favors -- that they have become today.
At least in my mind, I never left the Democratic Party of my youth -- it left me, and probably well before the advent of the Clintons made me fully aware of it. The only question that interests me now is how long ago that happened.
There is a way to Make a Difference!