The Democratic Party Must Die
As is becoming increasingly clear, Democratic tacticians relied on the tried-and-true tactics of mobilizing urban liberals and inner city minorities not just in a few states but in a few counties in a few states for the 2004 elections, and paid the price.
Because there was a whole world of neo-white-flight counties chewing up farmland with subdivisions and churches and spitting out Republican voters — counties that don’t seem to have been on any Democratic or 527 radar screen.
For this the Democratic Party must die.
Not because it was a day late and a dollar short pandering to selfish “church, kitchen, and children” concerns of a group I call middle-finger Americans, for their refusal to accept political engagement and play by the rules of liberal democracy.
It’s because the Democratic Party has shown itself so deaf to their concerns — and the challenge and danger they represent — that it appears laughable, ludicrous, and irrelevant.
For red counties, the perceived consequences of disdain for the Democratic Party and its progressive agenda are minimal, indirect, and largely the concern of distant, unattractive interest groups.
The intangible benefits of voting Republican, on the other hand, are considerable.
The Republicans have crafted a social and political myth that rewards exurban voters for their disengagement: that of the heroic entrepreneur, the hard-working church-going family, its sons and daughters in the military forming a red white and blue bulwark in defense of our freedom.
The community that relies on its own courage, individualism, faith, and values to shape a brave new world independent of the hand-outs and interference of the federal government…
…I know, I know, free to shop at Wal-Mart, soak up more than its share of federal money, blindly aid and abet war crimes across the globe, and vote for the most intrusive, incompetent, venal, and mean-spirited administration in history.
But the myth was buttressed by talk radio, churches, and the GOP — and has never been challenged by the Democrats.
The myth received its ultimate framing and validation in the War on Terror (Carflag Edition).
Bush’s all-war response to 9/11 validated the red counties’ self-centered paranoia and offered a defendable and durable self-image of victimhood, righteousness, and purpose.
The selfish priority of keeping the homeland safe and prosperous at the expense of everyone else was made even more compelling and honorable when the menacing other was Osama bin Laden/Saddam Hussein instead of Willie Horton.
Fear and doubt were drowned out by chest-thumping and exploding ordnance.
And exporting misery and violence to the alien realms outside the red counties through war, degradation of civil liberties and public discourse, and implacable beggar-thy-neighbor social and political policies became an act of existential patriotism.
Yes, Bush owns the War on Terror.
And he owns the vote of every American looking for a hero, and for a thrilling cause to provide a sense of moral purpose and direction for an otherwise hollow, anxious, and uncertain existence.
We need our own new myths and new heroes to compete in the red counties, and provide aid and succor to the brave, brain-stem-endowed blue minority that somehow manages to exist there.
But we can’t do it with a last minute ad blitz during a presidential campaign.
We can’t do it with half-hearted pandering by a risible Democratic Party promiscuously attempting to service its urban liberal/minority constituency, big business, and suburban cowboy don’t tread on me types at the same time.
There has to be a long term effort. Rededication. Sacrifice.
Real sacrifice.
And when I say sacrifice, I mean blood sacrifice.
The Democratic Party that blindly pounded on doors in Cuyahoga County while the rest of the country drifted away and condemned it to demographic irrelevance must pay the ultimate penalty.
It must be torn apart.
A new leadership that rejects the old Democratic Party and the new GOP — that is aware of the priorities and dynamics of the red counties and is willing to confront, challenge, and master them — must arise, just as the Republican Party rose from the ashes after the Goldwater defeat.
I’m not interested in a Green/Dean solution. Progressives, lefties, and wobblies fighting to be the King of Cuyahoga County won’t solve our problems.
I’m not ready to accept minority party status.
Bush and the GOP won the red counties by default. The Democratic Party was never there.
I think we have a chance because Bush is lazy and stupid. And because his unchallenged sway over the red counties have made him arrogant.
The GOP doesn’t have a genuine red county agenda beyond “Cut taxes” and “You can be sure the rest of the world will go to hell before you do”. Beyond that, it’s just electoral and political manipulation as far as the eye can see: flogging the liberal strawman during the fundraising and election cycle, then packing the stuffing back in time for the next round.
The red counties can be challenged, confronted, wedged, and split.
We need a new party with a nose for the votes, money, and power in the red counties, and a taste for the jugular.
We need a leader bolder, smarter, and more visionary than George W. Bush — and the Democrats. One who realizes that the world has changed. One who can harness those changes for the forces of progress.
Not a Zell Miller. Or a Joe Lieberman.
We need a new party whose aim is not accommodation, but conquest, through the destruction of the current political travesty of disorganized Democrats and the corrupt federal system that George W. Bush now uses to buttress his rule.
It will replace the Democratic Party’s rhetoric of social justice with that of economic and social liberty.
It will call for a fundamental restructuring of the relationship between federal and state governments — because America’s house is in fundamental disarray.
It will discard our traditional call for the expansion of enfranchisement and rights and instead call to limit the powers of the federal government and judicial activism.
It will call for freedom of choice in religion, reproductive rights — and education.
And — hold onto your hats now — it will call for the abolition of Social Security.
Because the nub of our political impotence is this:
Not only the Democratic Party, but the modern liberal democracy it created, must die.
For the time being, we’ve lost the fight to convince a workable majority of Americans that income redistribution by the federal government should be used to compensate for shortfalls in earning power and deficits of well-being among the poor and old and unfortunate.
The heroic compact of the New Deal that saved America from economic depression, fascism, and communism — political inclusion and economic redistribution as the foundation for social peace and progress — has been forgotten by the older generation — even among Democrats — and has never been known by the young.
As long as we push a redistributive solution — with no stronger impetus than New Deal nostalgia, interest-group bluster, and toothless appeals to better and unselfish natures — red county America isn’t going to listen.
Don’t be too horrified. The federal government as an effective instrument of liberal democracy’s impulse toward social justice is already on its deathbed, a victim of Democratic incompetence, American indifference, and GOP venality.
Bush regards the federal government as little more than a big, fat hog the Democrats raised and he can slaughter to feast his connected cronies and imperial ego.
There is a lesson — and an opportunity — here.
Like the Democratic Party, the federal government is a sclerotic victim-in-waiting, a vulnerable takeover target with vast assets and a depressed market value due to years of mismanagement and ill-conceived and poorly-executed strategies.
The GOP has made a profitable career out of attacking and exploiting both of them.
Now it’s our turn to bang the anti-big government, anti-Democratic Party drum, and take the fight to the red counties.
And, let’s face it, the doddering Democratic Party and the insane federal kleptocracy (now the personal appanage of one George W. Bush) are a heck of an easier target than today’s GOP, now controlling all three branches of government, rolling in lucre, drunk with power, and backed to the hilt by a nexus of right wing money, media, and doctrine.
We’ve got to create a viable social and political force, and for the time being we can only do it at the expense of the Democratic Party and the federal government.
We will have to sacrifice ideals and agendas we cherish — but cannot defend.
It’s true that the poor, the disenfranchised, and the unfortunate will bear a disproportionate share of the burden.
But when has it ever been different? Is it any different now?
Compassion is no longer a federal policy.
From now on we look after our own.
We have to.
Today compassion has to become our social cause, practiced through our churches, non-profits, mass movements, and think tanks, a pressing obligation for true progressives that must transcend our traditional concentration on politics as an avenue for social justice.
We have to build a cohesive social infrastructure to serve as the foundation for our unity, our credibility, our party, our prestige and power in the red states, and our quest for political renewal.
The federal government and the Democratic Party used to be our bastion.
Now the fortress is empty and there is nothing to defend.
We have to destroy the tottering, obsolete structure of the New Deal, so something stronger can be built in its place.
Otherwise, the progressive movement once represented by the Democratic Party — and those who supported it — will simply be a distant echo, a dwindling figure in the nation’s rear view mirror as it drives off to God knows where.
Our return to the center of national political life may be quicker than we expect.
A great crisis can create a hero in a heartbeat, and rally a nation to a cause overnight.
Just ask George W. Bush, who was headed for political oblivion before 9/11 transformed his presidency.
But the progressive movement must remake itself, ideologically, socially, and politically, if it is to seize such a moment.
It has to be ready and able to guide the transformation of a nation.
It must possess ideological, moral, and political power.
They say that absolute power corrupts.
Remember, so does absolute powerlessness.
Copyright 2004 Peter Lee
Peter Lee is the creator of the anti-war satire and commentary website Halcyon Days. He can be reached at peter@halcyondays.info.
