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!
Showing posts with label liberal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label liberal. Show all posts
Monday, October 22, 2007
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
The Election Nobody Won
That Wednesday, I smiled.
Correction: I grinned. Everywhere I went, I caught myself sporting a joyous, slightly feral grin of triumph and delight.
On election day, the American people – in their tardy wisdom – had finally dealt the President and his Congressional allies a savage blow. After six years of the most thoroughly wrong-headed maladministration since George III, at least one House of Congress stood ready to check the rampant caudillismo of the Bush Administration.
When George Allen, in his slightly bizarre attempt at good sportsmanship, finally conceded to Jim Webb, my grin grew wider and more lupine.
But only for a day or two.
After all, the Democrats’ electoral triumph was hardly a mandate for progressive government. On the central issue of the campaign, Democrats had sedulously avoided offering an alternative to the President’s failed policy in Mesopotamia, preferring to let the Republicans to hang themselves with endless variations on the theme of “Stay the course.”
As scandal after scandal brought House Republicans closer to implosion, the Democrats had managed only a vague promise to “clean up” Congress. On issue after vital issue, Democratic candidates had contented themselves with documenting the symptoms of America’s woes, while offering no policy prescriptions.
As for the new crop of Democratic legislators, the best that could be said is that they ran as Democrats. Most of them could scarcely be distinguished from the Republicans they replaced, except, perhaps, by their economic populism – a tendency which has led Democrats into folly since the days of Andrew Jackson’s war on the Second Bank.
That’s why my grin faded so quickly. The midterm elections may have given President Bush a well-deserved “thumpin’”, but they offered scant room for optimism about new directions for America. A mutiny aboard the Titanic – with icebergs looming on every quarter – seemed about the size of it.
The problem, as I see it, is that America still lacks a vibrant, modern Liberalism – yet few Democrats can bring themselves even to pronounce the L-word.
Of course, this is not the view of the poli-sci profs and op-ed pundits, who seem convinced that the problem with American politics is extremism and ideological warfare.
But that’s nonsense.
You can’t have ideological warfare without two competing sets of ideas. Contemporary politics bears less resemblance to warfare than to a period of appeasement – an unequal contest between an extreme and aggressive conservatism and a bland, apologetic centrism.
Good or bad, Republicans offer ideas. Democrats respond with carefully-worded criticisms – but few ideas of their own. Thus, Republicans continue to frame the terms of debate, while Democrats – fearful of the “liberal” label – are endlessly drawn toward a “center” which recedes forever rightward.
In party terms, there is no American Left. What Left there is may be found in the desperate guerilla being fought by young internet idealists, television satirists, and the makers of documentary films. And this will not suffice.
Liberal policies can never prevail while liberals remain on the defensive and focus upon the negative. American liberals have enjoyed success only they embraced a spirit of optimism and a clear vision of a better society.
Which makes sense. Liberalism is, by its nature, founded upon a belief in the ability of rational human beings to make life better through social action. The contemporary Left – with its Bush-bashing, its sophomoric cynicism, and its proclivity for conspiracy theories – is anything but confident.
What America desperately needs is a new Liberalism – a Liberalism capable of governing, not just resistance. What’s needed is a not a return to the dream-world radicalism of the late ‘60's and ‘70's, but a constructive, 21st century Liberalism committed to a new vision of what we, as a nation, can achieve. A Rawlsian Liberalism that can reclaim the honorable lineage of the “commonwealth” ideology which animated Jefferson and Madison, Abraham Lincoln, the mature Teddy Roosevelt, and the bipartisan “vital center” of the mid-20th century.
America needs a Liberalism which challenges the notion that freedom is nothing more than a justification for rampant narcissism, consumerism, and greed; which asserts the interests of individuals, families and communities against the dehumanizing tendencies of unrestricted corporate capitalism; and which proclaims the rights of future generations – in all nations – to a planet preserved from the environmental ravages of those now living.
Most of all, America needs a Liberalism which acknowledges that every child born within our borders is endowed with the right fully to develop his or her gifts, talents and constructive passions, regardless of the advantages of birth or background.
How much of that did we hear from Democrats in 2006?
In 2006, how many Democrats challenged the prevailing materialism, consumerism and narcissism of American society – or the corporate culture which sustains and nurtures those destructive tendencies.
In 2006, many Democrats called for energy independence, but how many had the courage to demand real sacrifice – starting with measures to enforce a serious reduction in energy consumption.
In 2006, many Democrats called for better schools, but how many pledged to do whatever it takes to make America’s schools the best in the world – for all our children – even if some necessary reforms displease the NEA?
In 2006, many Democrats called for reducing the number of Americans without access to quality health care, but how many embraced our country’s affirmative duty to reduce that number to zero – stat.
My post-election grin lasted, at best, two days. As a child of the Greatest Generation, growing up in the optimistic decade of JFK, John Glenn, and Martin Luther King, Jr., I never doubted that Americans could solve any problem they set their minds to. But it has been nearly four decades since Bobby Kennedy – the last great Liberal tribune – gave expression to that confident spirit.
It is precisely that spirit that is lacking among modern Democrats.
In the midterm elections, President Bush and his Republican Congressional allies lost. But, given the campaign waged by the new Democratic majority – nobody really won.
-30-
Correction: I grinned. Everywhere I went, I caught myself sporting a joyous, slightly feral grin of triumph and delight.
On election day, the American people – in their tardy wisdom – had finally dealt the President and his Congressional allies a savage blow. After six years of the most thoroughly wrong-headed maladministration since George III, at least one House of Congress stood ready to check the rampant caudillismo of the Bush Administration.
When George Allen, in his slightly bizarre attempt at good sportsmanship, finally conceded to Jim Webb, my grin grew wider and more lupine.
But only for a day or two.
After all, the Democrats’ electoral triumph was hardly a mandate for progressive government. On the central issue of the campaign, Democrats had sedulously avoided offering an alternative to the President’s failed policy in Mesopotamia, preferring to let the Republicans to hang themselves with endless variations on the theme of “Stay the course.”
As scandal after scandal brought House Republicans closer to implosion, the Democrats had managed only a vague promise to “clean up” Congress. On issue after vital issue, Democratic candidates had contented themselves with documenting the symptoms of America’s woes, while offering no policy prescriptions.
As for the new crop of Democratic legislators, the best that could be said is that they ran as Democrats. Most of them could scarcely be distinguished from the Republicans they replaced, except, perhaps, by their economic populism – a tendency which has led Democrats into folly since the days of Andrew Jackson’s war on the Second Bank.
That’s why my grin faded so quickly. The midterm elections may have given President Bush a well-deserved “thumpin’”, but they offered scant room for optimism about new directions for America. A mutiny aboard the Titanic – with icebergs looming on every quarter – seemed about the size of it.
The problem, as I see it, is that America still lacks a vibrant, modern Liberalism – yet few Democrats can bring themselves even to pronounce the L-word.
Of course, this is not the view of the poli-sci profs and op-ed pundits, who seem convinced that the problem with American politics is extremism and ideological warfare.
But that’s nonsense.
You can’t have ideological warfare without two competing sets of ideas. Contemporary politics bears less resemblance to warfare than to a period of appeasement – an unequal contest between an extreme and aggressive conservatism and a bland, apologetic centrism.
Good or bad, Republicans offer ideas. Democrats respond with carefully-worded criticisms – but few ideas of their own. Thus, Republicans continue to frame the terms of debate, while Democrats – fearful of the “liberal” label – are endlessly drawn toward a “center” which recedes forever rightward.
In party terms, there is no American Left. What Left there is may be found in the desperate guerilla being fought by young internet idealists, television satirists, and the makers of documentary films. And this will not suffice.
Liberal policies can never prevail while liberals remain on the defensive and focus upon the negative. American liberals have enjoyed success only they embraced a spirit of optimism and a clear vision of a better society.
Which makes sense. Liberalism is, by its nature, founded upon a belief in the ability of rational human beings to make life better through social action. The contemporary Left – with its Bush-bashing, its sophomoric cynicism, and its proclivity for conspiracy theories – is anything but confident.
What America desperately needs is a new Liberalism – a Liberalism capable of governing, not just resistance. What’s needed is a not a return to the dream-world radicalism of the late ‘60's and ‘70's, but a constructive, 21st century Liberalism committed to a new vision of what we, as a nation, can achieve. A Rawlsian Liberalism that can reclaim the honorable lineage of the “commonwealth” ideology which animated Jefferson and Madison, Abraham Lincoln, the mature Teddy Roosevelt, and the bipartisan “vital center” of the mid-20th century.
America needs a Liberalism which challenges the notion that freedom is nothing more than a justification for rampant narcissism, consumerism, and greed; which asserts the interests of individuals, families and communities against the dehumanizing tendencies of unrestricted corporate capitalism; and which proclaims the rights of future generations – in all nations – to a planet preserved from the environmental ravages of those now living.
Most of all, America needs a Liberalism which acknowledges that every child born within our borders is endowed with the right fully to develop his or her gifts, talents and constructive passions, regardless of the advantages of birth or background.
How much of that did we hear from Democrats in 2006?
In 2006, how many Democrats challenged the prevailing materialism, consumerism and narcissism of American society – or the corporate culture which sustains and nurtures those destructive tendencies.
In 2006, many Democrats called for energy independence, but how many had the courage to demand real sacrifice – starting with measures to enforce a serious reduction in energy consumption.
In 2006, many Democrats called for better schools, but how many pledged to do whatever it takes to make America’s schools the best in the world – for all our children – even if some necessary reforms displease the NEA?
In 2006, many Democrats called for reducing the number of Americans without access to quality health care, but how many embraced our country’s affirmative duty to reduce that number to zero – stat.
My post-election grin lasted, at best, two days. As a child of the Greatest Generation, growing up in the optimistic decade of JFK, John Glenn, and Martin Luther King, Jr., I never doubted that Americans could solve any problem they set their minds to. But it has been nearly four decades since Bobby Kennedy – the last great Liberal tribune – gave expression to that confident spirit.
It is precisely that spirit that is lacking among modern Democrats.
In the midterm elections, President Bush and his Republican Congressional allies lost. But, given the campaign waged by the new Democratic majority – nobody really won.
-30-
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