What's Wrong With Democrats.
The New York Times is featuring a symposium on how to fix the Democratic Party called "Directions for the Democrats." The symposium features entries by Donna Brazile, Gary Locke, Rahm Emanuel, Howard Wolfson, and Jamal Simmons. Brazile and Emanuel I've heard of before as insiders in the Clinton-Gore administration; Locke is the former governor (or is it the current governor until who knows when?) of Washington; the others are new to me and are described as "communications consultants," whatever that is.
What strikes me is how entirely idea-free the exercise is. They all talk about process, not purpose or principle, much less the ways in which they might put their principles into practice to fulfill their purpose. It's an entirely fact-free exercise.
Here's an example from Governor Locke:
What does any of this mean? Or, put differently, how will any of this rhetoric reach the middle-class middle-American red-state voter they apparently want to reach? When people like me hear "champion of working people," we think you're going to raise our taxes and that you're in the pocket of the Teamsters and the AFL-CIO. When people like me hear that you fight for opportunities and fairness for everyone, we think you're talking about affirmative action. When people like me hear you talk about educational opportunities, we remember that you're against school choice and that your proxies, the teacher's unions, work tirelessly to make life difficult for home-schoolers. When you say you embrace rural values like "family, community, hard work, love of country, etc.", we remember that you are the party for abortion on demand and gay marriage, you are the party that wants the federal government intruding into how we run our communities, you are the party that fought welfare reform, and you are the party whose "love of country" extends only so far as the UN will permit us to go.
The closest anyone comes to giving a practical suggestion for what the Democrats should be for is Emanuel, who says the tax-code should be simplified and made more progressive. OK, fine. But how progressive? And whose ox gets gored and by how much?
The reality is that the these elitist Democrats think they lost because they think average middle Americans are stupid. (Brazile gives the game away when she talks about the need for Democrats to learn how to talk to people who like to fish.) But the Democrats are wrong. They lost because average middle Americans are much more informed and intelligent about politics than they used to be; they have greater access to facts about the world, including economic facts -- Bill Clinton's demogoguery about the "worst economy in fifty years" wouldn't work now that people can instantaneously access and disseminate longitudinal data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics; and they are thus much less likely to be taken in by fact-free "progressive" rhetoric.
What strikes me is how entirely idea-free the exercise is. They all talk about process, not purpose or principle, much less the ways in which they might put their principles into practice to fulfill their purpose. It's an entirely fact-free exercise.
Here's an example from Governor Locke:
The Democratic Party has long been the champion of working people everywhere. We are the party that fights for economic, educational and social opportunities and fairness for everyone, whether farmers, blue-collar workers, the elderly, women or minorities. We have always embraced rural values - family, community, hard work, love of country, respect and trust. Our next committee chairman must reach out and reconnect on those core values.
What does any of this mean? Or, put differently, how will any of this rhetoric reach the middle-class middle-American red-state voter they apparently want to reach? When people like me hear "champion of working people," we think you're going to raise our taxes and that you're in the pocket of the Teamsters and the AFL-CIO. When people like me hear that you fight for opportunities and fairness for everyone, we think you're talking about affirmative action. When people like me hear you talk about educational opportunities, we remember that you're against school choice and that your proxies, the teacher's unions, work tirelessly to make life difficult for home-schoolers. When you say you embrace rural values like "family, community, hard work, love of country, etc.", we remember that you are the party for abortion on demand and gay marriage, you are the party that wants the federal government intruding into how we run our communities, you are the party that fought welfare reform, and you are the party whose "love of country" extends only so far as the UN will permit us to go.
The closest anyone comes to giving a practical suggestion for what the Democrats should be for is Emanuel, who says the tax-code should be simplified and made more progressive. OK, fine. But how progressive? And whose ox gets gored and by how much?
The reality is that the these elitist Democrats think they lost because they think average middle Americans are stupid. (Brazile gives the game away when she talks about the need for Democrats to learn how to talk to people who like to fish.) But the Democrats are wrong. They lost because average middle Americans are much more informed and intelligent about politics than they used to be; they have greater access to facts about the world, including economic facts -- Bill Clinton's demogoguery about the "worst economy in fifty years" wouldn't work now that people can instantaneously access and disseminate longitudinal data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics; and they are thus much less likely to be taken in by fact-free "progressive" rhetoric.
posted by PDB at 6:52 AM
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