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December 09, 2010 06:59 PM UTC

The Democratic Party: Past, Present... and Future?

  • 5 Comments
  • by: JO

This diary is really based on Dwyer’s comments in yesterday’s Open Thread:

I am no longer a Democrat. I wish the party well; but, I cannot support it in good faith. … As for leaving the Dems, I have been a registered Dem for almost fifty years.  Right now, I don’t know WTF they are doing; I don’t know who is charge; I don’t know what the strategy is. I am tired of fighting the apathy and the crap.  I need a break.

I know there are others who also wonder for what and for whom does the Democratic Party stand, after November, with its new coat of shellac, where is it going from here? Others who feel tired and in need of a break. BUT, can we afford the luxury of a break? Can we let others answer his question: WTF is the Democratic Party?

Dwyer’s questions need answers lest the troops begin drifting off the field of battle.

The Democratic Party for a long time has focused on getting as many people as possible for vote for its candidates — the Big Tent theory. That has meant crossing class lines, or at least perceived lines. It once meant embracing the Dixiecrats and their never-ending struggle against Abolition and its malformed twin offspring, Segregation and Discrimination. For a long time, this did not conflict with the Social Democratic trend of the North, whose apogee(s) were the New Deal and the Great Society.

Republicans, on the other hand, for a least a century-and-a-quarter have had a laser-like focus on one idea: Protect Private Property from the People. Thus have they diverted attention from economic class warfare to a set of non-economic issues. Their biggest single success in this never-ending campaign came in 1968, when Richard III Nixon persuaded Dixiecrats to pour their jugs of poisonous racism into the the malodorous River Stinx upon which he was floating to the White House.

Things have never been the same since. Carter succeeded as Not Ford. Clinton won thanks to Perot (twice) while embracing some vision of GOP Lite. Gore won, but missed out in the Supreme Precinct that had just nine votes.

Until Obama. For some, perhaps many, he was another Carter: Not Bush. For others, he was a match that relit a fire some thought had been snuffed out one ghastly June night in Los Angeles 40 years earlier. No, he was not, is not, Bobby, nor is he Jack, whom he more closely resembles. But neither is he any of those now eagerly gunning down caribou in hopes of being invited to host the Tea Party.

But back to the present and the future of the Democratic Party. We are tired. We are down. Feels good to say, Enough! I quit!

[Following comes from Everyman’s Book of Cliches: Easier Than Thinking, c. Always.]

–The finish line in this race keeps getting pushed two years ahead every 24 months.

–The winner’s name is neither “Republican” nor “Democrat.” The winner is named Persistence; the loser is Quitter. Never changes.

The answer to Dwyer’s question — my answer, at least — WFT is the Democratic Party, what does it stand for? — is this: The Democratic Party is what the people in the arena make it. Resting is a luxury we cannot afford, no matter how long we’ve been in the arena, no matter how frustrated (and I’m talking pound-the-table Goddamn It to Hell frustrated, front page after front page after front page).

Will the Two Party system, and the Democratic Party in particular, survive the digital revolution, the Great Transfer of wealth that has occurred over the past three decades, the end of the Cold War and the American Empire, the demise of pure capitalism as a viable means of organizing society?

I vote Aye for its survival for this reason: Politics is about one subject: property–who has it, who benefits from it. For Democrats, the answer is: the people who create value–people who work. For Republicans the answer is: people who have sticky-notes with the word “Mine” written on them that they can paste on as many things as they can find.

Thomas Jefferson said it best (even if he didn’t live it at Monticello): “All Men Are Created Equal…endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights…Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness…that to protect these rights, governments are instituted…”

John Locke had mentioned property; Jefferson changed that to Pursuit of Happiness. And therein lies all the difference.

So to Dwyer I say: Back to work, brother. No time off. The next campaign is well underway…has been since before you joined the Democratic Party…will be long after you have left this vale of tears. Your resignation is not accepted.

 

Comments

5 thoughts on “The Democratic Party: Past, Present… and Future?

  1. Apparently you were looking to impress someone with all your bullshit flowery turn of phrases that the entire message became muddled.

    Un-fucking-believable. Your hubris is your undoing yet again.

    1. I admit, I’m sometimes sorry I take the trouble. Wish you would write a diary, just one, to show me how.

      Question 1: How can it be a “really great message” and “muddled” at the same time?

      Question 2: Why did you bother writing your comment? Or even bother reading a JO diary in the first fucking place (to avoid flowery phrases…oh to have had you for a writing critic years ago!)? Was it to use “hubris” on a blog site?

      1. 1. It can be a great message as in, if you can dig through all the bullshit the idea you were attempting to get across was a good idea. The problem is your buried that idea. As with many of your diaries, you weigh everything down with trying to use as much overwrought language as possible. It’s unnecessary.

        2. I wrote my comment because I took the fucking time to read your entire bullshit diary. It would have been a complete waste of my minutes not to leave an opinion on your diary behind. Why wouldn’t I read one of your diaries? I tend to read most diaries regardless of who the author is. I never know who will inspire me or inform me on any given day. I choose not to close my mind to anyone.

        P.s. I use “hubris” when the word “pride” is too ambiguous.  It’s also much faster to type hubris than overweening pride.

        Class dismissed.

        1. You wrote (in response to one of my diaries), “I was not alive when our country lost JFK… My mother was a teenage girl when he was murdered,” so I’m guessing you might have been born around 1970, possibly later, roughly when I started earning a living writing for global publishing enterprises based in NYC or Boston.

          I know that you fancy yourself knowledgeable about writing. Apart from your own critique of my posts, such as “the problem is your buried that idea. As with many of your diaries, you weigh everything down with trying to use as much overwrought language as possible. It’s unnecessary,” and “I use ‘hubris’ when the word ‘pride” is too ambiguous,” plus earlier comments unrelated to me such as “I like the awesome grammar usage in these spammages!” (Dec. 3); “Very well written and extremely accurate,” Nov. 12; . and “Definitely not the poor reading skills …” (Nov. 8). That reference to “poor reading skills” strikes me as  having a distinctive pedagogical flavor, consistent with other comments, which might explain why you feel comfortable telling people how to write without ever having written a diary yourself. I have no way of knowing whether you have thoughts and ideas on your own, or whether a blank screen poses a challenge, or why it is that you’ve never posted a single diary on ColoradoPols.com. But, as of this moment, you haven’t–a mild echo of the old “those can’t do, teach” cliche. But, that’s just my conclusion, unrelated to any knowledge of who you are or what you do.

          And then there is fucking. Since you once referred to “my husband,” I take you to be a woman. And I further take you to be someone who wants to sit ’round the pot-bellied stove, sipping a brew with the boys at a get-together, virtual or real (“I had a really great time meeting everyone tonight…. It was a fun evening of great conversations. Very glad I made the effort to join the party,” Nov. 20), with or without the black Lab. ColoradoPols is a great fuckin’ way to spend time, and some “bullshit” here, some “bullshit” there, and lotsa “fuckin'” everywhere is one way to gain acceptance from the Good Ol’ Boys. I expect that you and Middle of the Road would enjoy each other’s company; maybe get together in the fucking saltwater taffy shop and chew the, well, whatever taffy is.

          From my experience, there is a difference between writing and talking. One difference is that writing doesn’t have the advantage of facial expressions or tone of voice. Some people insert 🙂 in an effort to overcome this. Another difference is that talking is spontaneous, instantaneous, usually, and drifts away; writing in public can easily be copied and pasted a long time from now. A third difference is that writing, sometimes, reflects aforethought.

          I also know–and sometimes forget–that there is a key lesson every writer must remember: “Know your audience.” If you’re writing for the Kansas City milkman, he might not, almost certainly will not, get the shorthand allusion in Richard III Nixon. Is ColoradoPols a forum for political discussion, or a potbelly stove? Plus, there is this: blogs are read casually. Sometimes, first thing that pops into your head travels down your arm, onto the keyboard, and voila! A comment is born. One example of what I’m talking about is a diary, one of mine, that you thought you approved of, titled Henryk Gorecki (d. Nov. 12, 2010). Your comment: “I know this doesn’t actually pertain to politics directly but THANK YOU…” followed by a sentence about classical music in your life. But of course, the post did pertain to politics directly. It pertained to the image in the 10th second. It pertained to the notion of turning Songs of Sorrow into songs of joy–one way of understanding what politics is about at the end of the day. It wasn’t about Henryk Gorecki at all, much less classical music as therapy. Maybe I should have been more blunt, less subtle, less obscure, since it was and is obvious that I didn’t get my point across to this audience (another commenter, someone whom I gather you had a jolly time with on Wazee was it?) was motivated to mention Dawn Upshaw, a vaguely distant relative and one of many singers who have performed Gorecki’s 3rd Symphony). Similarly I could be wrong, but I’m guessing that some people who bothered to read “Illinois Yearling Where Are You” thought I was writing about a day in the life of a fifth grader long ago.

          As for your pedagogical advice on my writing skills, thanks for the offer. I’ll pass, but I will nominate you for Front Page Editor.

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