Ever since 1992 the Democratic Party has been dominated by the politics of the “neoliberal” Democratic Leadership Council: Cultural liberalism combined with pro-big-business economic policies. Bill Clinton gave us, on the one hand, NAFTA and “the end of welfare as we know it”; on the other hand, an abortive attempt to allow gays to serve openly in the military. In 2004 the Republicans won by combining pro-biz economic policies with cultural conservatism*; obviously that’s more of a winning formula under contemporary conditions (e.g., the groundswell of social-conservative furor over gay marriage). How can the Dems improve on that model? How can they win in the “red states”?
I say the Dems need to jettison cultural-liberal issues like gay marriage and gun control – or at least relegate them to a clearly secondary priority – and center their agenda on economic-populist issues like a national living wage, national health care, more progressive income tax, more progressive Social Security tax, and protecting American jobs from outsourcing. Those are issues which will resonate with the economically stressed middle-class and working-class voters of the red states – who, at present, won’t vote for the Dems because they can’t square it with their moral and religious values. I’m a cultural liberal myself in practically every respect; but politics is the art of the possible, the perfect is the enemy of the good and, as Clinton said at the 1992 Democratic Convention, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting it to produce a different result.”
And with militarism and aggressive foreign-policy neoconservatism, of course – but since the Dems didn’t really offer an alternative in that field, I have my doubts as to how decisive a factor it was.
Increased taxes and protectionism? Yikes, sounds like a recipe for disaster. If that was the way to go, France would be killing us economically.
How about just focusing on fiscal responsibility and national security? There are plenty of non-military national security areas that the Dems can ride on: better border controls, cargo security at ports of enrty, real intelligence reform to name just a few.
Aren’t those some of the very issues Kerry got creamed on? There’s an ingrained perception that Democrat = Big Govt. Spender and Weak On Security. When you consider, after four years of Bushonomics and neglect of homeland security in favor of waging foreign wars, Republicans still liked him better on those issues, I’m at a complete loss myself to come up with any message that would be sufficiently persuasive. It would take something miraculous.
BG, I disagree. What is the point in Dems becomming pubbie-light on social issues? They already lose with that strategy. All the Republicans have to do to counter the other arguing points you’ve listed is scapegoat illegal aliens, and pretty soon anything more nuanced than “Benito Juan is stealing your job” (while they scramble to get their nannyies’ papers through INS), and Joe Sixpack glazes over.
No, sometimes I think doing the right thing, over and over, even if you lose, is better than abandoning your ideological core solely to win votes.
My suggestion would be to simply dig under Republican sociopolitical strategy by laying claim one of their more darling philosphies (which they serially abuse): State rights. I see little hope, in the near term, on a national scale, for “liberalism” of any kind. But regionally, there’s much that can be done that is good, so long as Washington can’t meddle. Trick them into ceding their own influence, if possible. And live with the consequences of other regions becoming even more backward. In other words: Dems need to tend our own gardens. If Blue States prove to be a better model for America, the evidence will eventually speak for itself. But it could take a long time.
You have to seperate the man from the message. Kerry was a wooden figure, and a Senator for the Northeast to boot. Give the same message to someone more charismatic, and the story is different. And Kerry didn’t get “creamed”-- the race was still pretty darn close.
There’s big government and big government. The huge spending binges of Republicans over the last four and a half years provide an opportunity to dissociate from the big government label while still holding strong to some spending priorities. But it has to be played right. I think the Democrats should devise campaigns that focus simultaneously on spending from the Republicans that looks bad while also highlighting their own ideas. “The Republicans give billions in pork barrel handouts to the rich, but they won’t pay for safety equipment for America’s firefighters”, and similar comparisons, might actually pry away some red state voters.
Eh, maybe. My impression from the polls was he actually suffered relative to Bush on those issues, especially security. Right-leaning folks who voted for Kerry voted “Not Bush”, with grimacing faces, largely out of dissatisfaction over the war (as opposed to left-leaning folks like me who think Bush is “Satan”). Sure, these folks are concerned about the deficit, but they’re more concerned about taxes, and always will be. They’ll drink the “spend&spend” Kool Aid over the “tax&pay off” bromides any day.
Increased taxes on the rich. IOW, a simple rollback of Bush’s tax cuts which have benefited only the rich (and the middle-class and working-class red-staters know it well). And perhaps a revenue-neutral restructing of Social Security payroll taxes so that the system is progressive, like the income tax is (in theory) now. Those payroll taxes take a huge bite out of a working person’s paycheck, and it needn’t be so. And not necessarily “protectionism” in the protective-tariffs sense – there must be other ways to help Americans find and keep jobs. E.g., publicly subsidized retraining programs, and real national industrial policy, to revive manufacturing here. (Have you noticed that practically everything you buy at Wal-Mart is made in China?) The important thing is to put it at the center of the agenda and start brainstorming. Under the present Admin, it’s not even a priority. They could care less. And, I also propose focusing on other things that will help the less well-off, like national health care.
I dunno about France, but Europe as a whole might be killing us economically in the near future. The Euro is already stronger than the dollar.
Practically anybody could do a better job than Bush is on fiscal responsibility, but that, by itself, does nothing to improve the lives of the nonrich. As for national security – I agree, the Dems could and should do a much better job in pointing out Bush’s failures in that area.
The last three words will be lost in the storm. You’re playing to type.
That’s better.
Run to the Pubs right on border control. They can’t for fear of being demogogued as racist, but the dems can. There’s a lot of traction in that with your $8.50 an hour workers. Combine that with a promise of leiniency for those already here and you’ll control any damage in the latino vote.
Fine as far as it goes, but don’t overdo it.
The challenge will not be convincing people you’re cleverer than Bush, though; it’s to prove you’re tougher. Nobody doubted that Kerry was a smart guy; they doubted his resolve.
What is the basis of your parenthetical statement?
You are proposing turning SS into true welfare. That will KILL whomever proposes it.
Why do you want to compete with people who make $.50 per hour? It’s a lost cause.
Everyone wants “free” healthcare, but no one wants to pay for it. If you can figure out a way to do this w/o increasing taxes, let’s hear about it.
Unlikely. Highly unlikely. And a strong currency is a mixed blessing. Exchange rates cause problems when they are manipulated from their market value-- either too strong or too weak. There’s nothing inherently good about a “strong” currency.
See http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=34039; also, http://www.bushtax.com/. In sum, only the upper-income brackets are paying significantly less tax, while the federal government has reduced financial support to the states, thereby relegating the financial burden of a lot more public services to state governments, which are mostly financed through regressive sales taxes. So, yes, nobody but the rich has benefited from Bush’s tax cuts.
The first proponent, perhaps, and maybe even the second, but not the third. Just my WAG.
That’s what American workers are doing now, John.
So? Your personal annual budget includes certain outlays for taxes and certain outlays for health insurance and health care. Raise the one, eliminate the other, and most people will come out ahead. The Canucks seem to have made it work well enough. Their single-payer system gets trashed a lot in this forum, but I visited Canada a couple of years ago, and sounded out people of various ages, and none of them could think of any downside to their system. Certainly nobody complained their taxes were too high.
God, this irritates me so much about politics. We don’t really want the smartest, most competent person for the job. We want one which looks good on TV and can reduce a social issue to a quip.
Wasn’t it Plato who said a people get the government they deserve? God help us. We sure as fuck aren’t willing to help ourselves.
It’s only worth an automatic “yikes” if you think that economic performance is an end in itself. Progressive tax structures and expanded social programs probably will reduce growth and overall wealth, but they’ll also reduce economic inequality. I think there’s a continuum between unchecked corporate capitalism and communism, and I don’t think either end is a good place to be. But given our relatively high levels of poverty, increasingly unavailable healthcare, and growing wealth inequality, I think we’re sliding too far towards the “unchecked corporate capitalism” end and I find BrainGlutton’s proposal is very palatable, if not realistic in the current political climate.
Abortion. Abortion. Abortion. I think it dwarfs just about any other red/blue issue. And given Roe v. Wade (an unambiguous example of judicial activism, IMHO), it’s going to be a very sticky issue to deal with. David Brook’s wrote a good op-ed piece on it in today’s NY Times.
If the Democratics run a candidate who has embraced social-conservative values, they can forget my vote. And if the Repubicans field a social-moderate / economic-conservative against such a candidate, I vote Republican. And send them money. Even if the economic agenda calls for replacing income tax with sales tax at a one-rate-fits-all level across the board.
Who the fuck cares what downplaying cultural liberalism might or might not do for the success of the Democratic Party? If they do that, there’s no longer any reason to care about their success or lack thereof.
Well, a member of the working poor earning minimum wage and lacking health care might care a great deal about the success of the Democratic Party if they adopted that platform.
Social issues like gay marriage and access to abortions are important to me, but not nearly as important as social issues like health care and poverty.
I give you Montana governor Brian Schweitzer, who obviously knows what it takes to win. (You’ll have to sit through a short ad to read the whole interview.)
[quote]
On Nov. 2, George W. Bush beat John Kerry in Montana by 20 percentage points. On the same day, Montana voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage – and elected as their governor a populist, pro-choice Democrat. Are Montana voters as schizophrenic as the governor’s fashion sense, or is Brian Schweitzer just that good?
I’m unsure the Dems CAN jettison their ‘cultural-liberal’ issues…they are too intertwined in the Dem platform. Assuming they can, I am also unsure how ‘economic-populist’ the issues you are claiming are BG. National living wage? I have doubts this is all that popular except to the converted. National health care? As has been pointed out, lots of folks would love this, they just don’t want to pay for it. The paying part is not so polularist. More progressive income tax? Well, that might be popularist, though if you attempt to soak the rich (which is essentially what you are getting at), I’m unsure how popularist you will stay…most folks don’t really want to soak the rich. More progressive Social Security tax? Another code word for ‘soak the rich’, and it will make the system something different than it is today. Again, I’m unsure how popularist this is. Protecting American jobs from outsourcing? lol, I KNOW this isn’t all that popular, especially with anyone who has a clue.
Do you have some cites that any of these positions are all that popular with the general public? Because my impression is they aren’t really…so saddling yourself with them (most sound like the same ole same ole the Dems have been pushing) while cutting your ‘cultural-liberal’ ties (if thats even possible) sounds like the recipe to lose bigger next time as cultural liberal types flee to a third party, while you alienate the fiscal conservative crowd and don’t really bring in the masses. Who exactly do you expect to get on board with this that wasn’t in, say, 2004?
I think John Mace hit it on the head with this:
If the Dems REALLY want to make some inroads become the party of fiscal responsibility and national security. Drop all of your ideas in your OP on what you THINK people want as far as social planning (i.e. soak the rich to provide European style social programs with some European style trade protectionism thrown in for good measure) and instead imbrace a sane fiscal policy and you will see disenchanted ex-Republican and independant types flock to your banner…even if you keep your ‘cultural-liberalism’.
The Whig’s demise was a lot more complicated than that, and you know it. It was primarily because they refused to have much of a social stance one way or the other in the years leading up to the Civil War that most of their membership were essentially siphoned off to the new Republican party. It’s tough in such an environment to survive when all you’re really about is expansionist infrastructure.