The Vampire Party

For a year now, I’ve tried writing a piece about why I’ve given up on the Democratic Party.

I attempted a restrained approach, and it came out like a compressed history lecture. Give me 50 minutes and 25 bright students, I could make it scintillating. Packing it into 1000 words or less, it became simultaneously, a brain-buster and a complete yawn.

So I tried letting myself go, resulting in blood-curdling screeds which – while emotionally satisfying – lacked the credibility essential to persuasive writing.

Finally, it came to me. October. Halloween. Vampires.

A theme...

If I could offer one piece of advice to young progressives, it would be this:
The Democratic Party is Count Dracula.

Which is not to recommend the obvious alternative. I have contemporaries who became Republicans decades ago and feel compelled to “stay the course” – out of team spirit, stubborn pride or the hope of getting it right in their next incarnation.

But it’s difficult to imagine significant numbers of intelligent young Americans voluntarily joining the party of George W. Bush.

That said, it doesn’t follow that anyone should – out of loathing for the President – become a Democrat.

Campaign for individual Democrats, sure. If Edwards or Obama – or (it’s apparently possible) Hillary – turns you on, hie thee off to New Hampshire over Christmas break and knock on doors.

I did it in for Dean in ‘04 and – even at my advanced age – it was a blast.

Just don’t drink the Kool-Aid.

Because I’m serious, the Democratic Party is Dracula. It should be long dead, but it lives on – and on – by drinking the lifeblood of generation after generation of young Americans.

It lures them with the vague promise that this generation can seize control of the party, reform it, and turn it – once again – into the great liberal/progressive party of FDR, Harry Truman, and the Kennedys.

Ain’t gonna happen.

The reasons for this are too abstruse and technical for brief treatment, but if you’re up for some homework, I can point you in the right direction.

And it’s important. After all, this isn’t like choosing a college or a first spouse. People transfer and divorce, but most Americans change religions more often than they change parties.

You really should bone up before selling your political soul.

Here’s my basic argument: The Democratic Party can’t be changed because – as one of two major parties – it has a powerful institutional bias toward winning the next election.

Makes sense, right? You can’t govern if you don’t win.

But you also can’t govern – as progressives – if you take money from every special interest on K Street, run to the center, and then, once elected, whip out some liberal agenda you forgot to mention during the campaign.

Voters don’t like it. It’s a question of legitimacy – one of the rare concepts from Political Science that actually makes sense. In a democracy, citizens tend to hold you to what you said during the campaign.

To get away with a radical, hidden agenda, you need something special – say, the Great Depression or 9-11. And you can’t count on that.

Nonetheless, the people who run the Democratic Party – a diverse, but powerful group of insiders – insist, above all, upon winning the next election.

After all, they want to get back into those impressive majority suites on Capitol Hill – or even better, those cramped little offices in the West Wing.

But of course, if your agenda is winning the next election, you don’t want to risk scaring people. Or making them think.

Which is why the Party insisted that Al Gore tone down the environmentalism in 2000. And why they dumped Howard Dean for the “electable” John Kerry in 2004.

I didn’t say Democrats were smart.

Now, you might ask, if winning the next election isn’t the goal, what is it?

Winning the debate.

To transform America, a party must first stake out a bold vision of a better society – then spend the decade or two it takes for the voters to come around.

When I was a kid, in 1964, Barry Goldwater did just that. His minions captured the Republican Party – and Goldwater took one of the worst electoral poundings in American history.

But sixteen years later, Ronald Reagan rode Goldwater’s conservative vision to victory – and the Republicans have been in power ever since.

You might ask, couldn’t today’s young progressives stage the same sort of coup within the Democratic Party?

Unlikely. Coups only succeed except against centralized power structures. Unlike the corporate-style Republicans, the Democrats are essentially a vast coalition – with maybe ten distinct power centers – virtually impregnable to a hostile takeover.

Besides, it’s been tried. Generation after generation – including mine – has joined the Democratic Party, determined to reform it, inject new life into it, and turn it into a progressive counterpart of the GOP.

What actually happens is that Dracula thing. Young progressives, drained of their idealism, slowly morph into middle-aged pragmatists capable of nominating Walter Mondale over Gary Hart, John Kerry over Howard Dean – or Hillary Clinton over someone with a pulse.

Meanwhile, with no party advocating a viable, progressive alternative, the Republicans continue defining the terms of the national political debate – which recedes forever farther rightward.

There’s only one way to change this – and it starts with a stake to the heart.

Still dubious?

Here’s your homework.

Study the decline and fall of the 19th century Whigs – the only major American party to give way to a more viable alternative. You might start with David Potter’s 1976 classic, The Impending Crisis.

Do some reading, then ask yourself: If the principled opponents of slavery had stuck with the Whigs – instead of forming smaller, more radical parties which moved the debate to the left – would we ever have had a President Lincoln? Or an Emancipation Proclamation?

Today’s situation seems analogous.

It’s your call, but to me, joining the Democratic Party is about as wise as allowing that charming Count with the intriguing accent to lure you onto a dark, deserted balcony.

Happy Halloween!