By David Green
Mark Twain once famously quipped that “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated”, and so it may be with the Democratic Party.
For reasons sometimes morally laudable and sometimes unconscionable, the party has been in an essential free-fall for a quarter century or so, at least since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Sure, there was that Clinton fellow for nearly a decade, but the only thing Democratic about him was the ‘(D)’ following his name on the ballot. Otherwise, he was more or less indistinguishable from the Republican who preceded him.
In the category of laudable explanations for the party’s demise is the courage Democrats displayed in fighting for civil rights in this country. President Lyndon Johnson said that the cost for his party of standing up for racial justice in America would be to give away the South for a generation, and the only thing wrong about his prediction was that it now looks more like two generations and counting. The once Solid South is so again, but now solidly Republican instead of Democratic, at least where presidential politics are concerned. Conservatives, of course, opposed civil rights initiatives at the time (and despised Martin Luther King) – just as they have historically stood against women’s rights, environmental protection, fair labor standards and, for that matter, even the abolition of slavery and the American Revolution – but now reap the benefits in terms of white Southern votes going Republican. As is too often the case, unfortunately, doing the right thing comes at a cost.
Another factor working against Democrats is that they had more or less achieved their policy goals thirty years ago, and were chronically left in the position of defending the status quo against ‘reformers’ and ‘Washington outsiders’ (like George W. Bush, son of a president, grandson of a senator), who could always be counted on to mobilize and encourage latent disenchantment against the people’s own government and turn it into electoral success. This is a tough position to defend, from a marketing perspective. On one side you have those making vague promises to ‘clean up Washington’ and ‘get government off our backs’, while the other is left arguing for essentially doing nothing different from what is already being done.
Far less excusable for the Democrats has been the third reason for their undoing, which is the moral cowardice they have shown in reaction to Reagan and his ideological heir, George W. Bush, with Newt Gingrich in between. Instead of sticking to their guns and fighting for their principles (which survey after survey show are, ironically, largely supported by the public), they have repeatedly caved and tried to pass themselves off as Republican Lite. This is the greatest tragedy of Clintonism, and it was fully echoed in the embarrassingly lame presidential campaigns of Al Gore and, especially, John Kerry.
Rolled badly in the last three elections, unable to find within themselves even the courage to stand up for fair elections in America, congressional seats dissipating, the party has given signs in recent years of nearly being kept alive on life support alone, and heading toward the ash heap of history. Which is exactly where it belongs, as now constituted. Who could blame voters for rejecting a party which couldn’t stand for or against the war in Iraq, for or against Bush’s fiscal train wreck, for or against exporting American jobs, for or against torture? The only reason Kerry got half the votes he did in 2004, to choose but the most recent example, was because he was the not-Bush candidate, not because he inspired anybody with ringing calls to justice, morality, peace, prosperity, security, leadership or much of anything else.
Just lately, however, the patient’s muscles have been seen to twitch just a bit. When least expected, some members of the party have found their voice. Though they’ve yet to articulate much in the form of alternatives (still ‘burdened’ by the successful existence of Social Security, environmental protection, gender equity, etc.), some Democrats are at least now starting to attack the target-rich zone of George W. Bush’s disastrous policy choices and proposals.
Barbara Boxer provided the first signs of life for the Democratic Party, initially by registering a protest vote against the gross civil rights violations which took place in Ohio’s electoral system last year (and we’re the folks bringing democracy to Iraq?), and then by having the courage to hold Condoleeza Rice even slightly accountable for the foreign policy and domestic security disasters on her watch. Even ‘Just-In-Time’ John Kerry finally figured that one out as well (pity the poor staffer who has to break the news to him that the presidential election was November of 2004, not, as he seems to believe, 2005!). Other members of the Senate showed greater glimpses of common sense in questioning and then voting against Alberto “Hey, what’s not to like about torture?!” Gonzales for attorney general. Even hapless Harry Reid has gotten his back up every once in a while, as the Rove Machine tries to portray him – as they did his predecessor, Tom Daschle – as an obstructionist. These guys can’t even stand to have the opposition in opposition!
Meanwhile, congressional Democrats seem almost completely unified and genuinely resolved against rolling over for Bush’s mind-numbingly foolish and deceitful plan for destroying Social Security, based – like Iraq – on completely bogus fears of imminent crisis. Contrast this with the party’s complete absence of discipline and courage during Bush’s first term, in which the GOP cleverly split hapless Democrats on major issue after issue, such as the tax cuts (in actuality, tax transfers, from rich to middle class, and from this generation to the next), the Iraq war and the Homeland Security bill (really a ploy to bust federal government unions).
Of course, the most consequential among these miracles of political resuscitation was the election last weekend of Howard Dean to lead the party. What’s most encouraging for progressives who have watched the Democratic establishment desert them since Reagan is that Dean’s election was driven by the power of the angry grassroots he helped mobilize. This is much to the consternation of the “thank you sir, may I have another” hacks, bosses and loser consultants who have run the party into irrelevance over this period, whilst having a grand old time themselves. When you hear Dean talking about taking the party back, he’s talking about from Democratic Leadership Council pseudo-Democrats like Clinton or Joe Lieberman, and consultant strategists like Bob Shrum, who used the Kerry campaign to keep intact his perfect record of presidential contests, now eight losses out of eight attempts.
It will be very interesting to see whether Dean can continue to stand tall for Democratic values once he’s immersed in the saturnalia of Washington’s special and vested interests, and once he’s absorbed some of the inevitable serious body blows from right wing assassins.
But, you know what? If he does, and if he models courage in the face of personal attack and ridicule, and if he proudly articulates a progressive alternative to the Republican program for destruction of America at home and abroad – if he does these things, the high-riding GOP is actually in mortal danger (not to mention that Bush’s job approval ratings are now about 45 percent).
More than anything, it has survived these last years because so few prominent actors – most especially John Kerry and the mainstream media – have had the courage to stand up to the radical right and say that the emperor has no clothes. My own guess is that once that happens for the first time, the flood gates will open.
And then the party will be over, but not the one we would have guessed a month ago.