Resolved: The Democratic party has moved too far to the left

Great Debates
21

Not all conviction has to be religious, that’s just projection on your part.

There are religious grounds and there are stupid religious grounds. A vote based on nothing but religious bigotry is a stupid vote.

Churches don’t vote, individuals do. Any individuals who voted based the anti-gay religious sentiment exploited by the Bush campaign are idiots regardless of their skin color.

As far as I know, Kery and Edwards were not making any attempt to appeal to any base stupidity or bigotry. Those things are not synonymous with religion but they are found in religion. Bush targeted that part, that ugly, base aspect of many religious Americans.

Gosh, the inconsistencies are legion.
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22

The problem may take care of itself. The unity of the right on religious issues exists only because it is unexamined. How many here know the difference between “evangelical” and “fundamentalist”? Or even that there is one. (I do. I kinda like evangelicals, fundamentalists creep me out…)

GeeDubya has thus far managed to convince everybody that he is on their side, by making vague gestures and using “code words” that pass by the radar of the largely secular public. But these people expect to be paid, they have been loyal and true blue. So far, the Pubbies have been able to buy them off by claiming that, somehow, the liberals have managed to thwart God’s Will. That excuse is wearing thin.

If money is to move toward “faith-based” project, somebody is going to have to decide who gets what. If there is 100 million to share out, and the “Bob Jones” set gets the lions share, the grumbling will start.

23

I think they are mainly centrist. They have ‘leftists’ like Howard Dean or Hillary Clinton, and they have really far leftist pundits like Michael Moore, Paul Begala or Carville, but the right wing has those types too.

Sadly the democrats will start being right wing now I bet to appeal to the ‘morality vote’. They probably don’t understand that they will alienate all of us social libertarians in the process, don’t people realize/care that even if 55% of americans dislike gay marriage, abortion and seperation of church and state that 45% of us support these things? I hope they just make token movements to morality and still support social libertarianism.

24

The difference of course is that Gay activists are a mere drop in the bucket when compared to all the Democrats, and Americans, who find homosexuality off-putting but see no reason that homosexuals shouldn’t have the same rights and opportunities as other Americans – the ability to inherit from each other or have a big PR job with Coors Brewery, for instance. Black church goers may not be comfortable sharing a motel room with some Gay activist but both recognize that the political agreement that protects the interests of one protects the interests of the other. The costal metropolises, with the Midwestern metropolises, are at the heart of the Democratic Party and have been ever since the onset of the industrial revolution and the decline of the idea that the Party was the bastion of Rome, Rum and Rebellion. By and large the Democratic Part is an urban party adhered to by people who know what it is like to live and work with people who are different that them selves and are willing to cut a deal for the common good. That some of those urban people are in the entertainment business hardly makes the Democrats a Hollywood Party or means that the views of the entertainment celebrities that some like to hold up as typical Democrats are outside the views of many democrats. For every Barbra Streisand, after all, there is a Mel Gibson.

It may well be that both major parties are collations. The difference as I see it, however, is that the Democratic collation has accepted the American consensus while the Republican collation rejects it, with each internal faction at war with another part of the overall consensus, be it guns, abortion or homosexuals or public education or the church-state balance of power or taxes or international cooperation. I suspect that sooner or later the disparate factions will realize that the controling core of the Core Party is interested only in having the federal and state governments do no more that facilitating the greater accumulation of wealth and power by those who already have wealth and power and will give the guns, abortions, homosexual, etc. interests groups no more that lip service and crumbs.

I see no reason that the Democrats should let go of the principles of the national consensus just to appeal to some sect that has temporarily allied its self with the GOP, especially when the Party cannot appease that sept’s demands without rupturing the consensus.

25

Yep, that attitude worked so well for your side in this past election. I strongly endorse your carrying it on for four more years, really! :smiley:

26

It doesn’t matter if it “works.” Elections don’t determine who’s right, only who’s more numerous.

27

This suggests that the most effective Democratic strategy is to target one of those internal factions for conversion or at least neutralization. The most promising one is the gun-rights faction, since a pro-individual-rights position in this area is easier to fit with other Democratic positions (gun owners would be considered another portion of society in need of civil-rights protection) than the anti-abortion-rights, anti-gay-rights, etc. positions that the other factions would want.

28

Nope… these interest groups will always cling to hope. I’ve seen the same topics being debated over here about helping out the poor for example… and its the same debate every election. Somehow voters never catch on to the fact that these issues should have been solved or given attention a long time ago.

29

Hey, that’s even better. You don’t care about winning in 2008, just about being “right”. Well, carry on then. See you in what, 2016? 2020?

30

On a couple of the issues, at a minimum, you’re begging the question with talk of not rupturing a consensus, when that consensus may or may not exist. I don’t believe it does, and I believe there’s some fancy footwork going on when the “consensus in favor of abortion rights” is invoked as a basis for the Democratic Party’s absolutist insistence that the decision as to the degree of abortion regulation can never be returned to where it resided for 200 years, i.e., with the country’s electorate (who presumably make up the “consensus”). Or is it one of those “consensuses” that only counts the nice people with the right ideas, and not “fringe-types” or those we don’t want in the soon-to-be consensus?

Another question: I’m curious about your math (not challenging it, just want to see where you’re going with this).

GOP:
X1 million “core party” (internationalist amoral businessmen who want to accrue wealth)
X2 million “consensus Americans”
X3 million fringe factions who don’t fit into X1 or X2

Dems:
Y1 million core party (as above)
Y2 million “consensus Americans”
Y3 million fringe factions who don’t fit into Y1 or Y2

Your estimates for X1, X2, X3, Y1, Y2, Y3, and how they add up roughly to produce the popular vote we saw?

If there’s a small core cabal controlling the GOP, and (implicitly) relatively few “consensus Americans” in the GOP;

and if the Dems have the large bulk of reasonable “consensus Americans” –

Then where are the GOP picking up a 4 million popular vote margin? I’m not endorsing the popular vote as the be all end all – but it may be the closest thing we have to a national referendum. How did these disparate, unrepresentative, and true-consensus-shunning Republicans exceed the huge numbers of Y2s, plus no doubt a few Y3s as you’ll concede?

Or is it your dystopian vision that MOST of America is a bunch of reactionary X2 factions or interest groups? A greater number of them than the allegedly-consensus-representing Y2s? Again, makes me wonder about exactly what kind of Dem. consensus can lead to these numbers. Clearly not a numerical majority, but is it even a plurality that you say share the “consensus?” If this plurality is much smaller (in your math/view) than the combined numbers of X2 reactionaries, sounds like you’re almost working up to an argument to leave the country. With numbers like that, you might not hate America or the Dems or even the GOP, but you’d just about have to despise the largest single group of people who can rally behind a common set of causes? Not very inspirational, but that’s where your analysis tends to lead, IMHO. But I’d like to see your estimates., if I’m missing something in your analysis.

31

I think the Dems will carefulluy examine any issues they move right on to see how many people they lose vs. how may they pick up. A lot of issues, like abortion, civil rights, the environment etc., will be off the table because the Dem base will vanish if they drop those. There are some peripheral issues like gun control that might not be so important that might be on the table. Dems are also gonna drop gay marriage like the hot potato it is.

32

I certainly hope that the Democrats won’t nominate an anti gay marriage candidate for President ever. When you look at the polls it’s clear that the oldest voters are most stringently opposed to gay marriage while the younger ones are more likely to support either marriage or civil unions. If the Democrats stick to a record of nominating candidates who will stand up for at least civil unions, they’ll be able to collect strong loyalties from the socially liberal voting block for decades to come.

33

I would be delighted if the Democrats actually turned out even slightly liberal.

34

Well, this is a problem. Kerry opposed gay marriage and favored civil unions, but the Republicans seemed to successfully paint him as pro gay marriage.

35

Did you write the Onion’s lead story this week?

WASHINGTON, DC—

“The Republican party—the party of industrial mega-capitalists, corporate financiers, power brokers, and the moneyed elite—would like to thank the undereducated rural poor, the struggling blue-collar workers in Middle America, and the God-fearing underpriviledged minorities who voted George W. Bush back into office,” Karl Rove, senior advisor to Bush, told reporters at a press conference Monday. “You have selflessly sacrificed your well-being and voted against your own economic interest. For this, we humbly thank you.”

“The alliance between the tiny fraction at the top of the pyramid and the teeming masses of mouth-breathers at its enormous base has never been stronger,” a triumphant Bush said.

Added Bush: “God bless America’s backwards hicks, lunchpail-toting blockheads, doddering elderly, and bumpity-car-driving Spanish-speakers.”

36

By which time they’ll probably be irrelevant, either becauset he Repubs have grown so huge that the Dems have about as much clout as the Greens have now, or some new party willing to work the lines more smartly will replace them as the major opposition party. Either way, Pubbies win big time for decades to come. That what you want?

37

I think the Dems have plenty of room to move to the left on issues like economic fairness, the environment and freedom of speech. These are core beliefs they share with the mainstream. Problem is, the Dem leadership has a fundamentally gutless approach to everything, including the issues they could go left with and win.

38

Think that might change if Howard Dean becomes chairman of the DNC?

39

As someone who’s not a consistent supporter of the Dems., I think foreign policy could hold some promise if properly handled. I’ve posited above that they’re just to afraid of the wuss tag to do anything but ape GOP policies and think that advocating “multilateralism” or “giving the process more time to work” will make it okay to implement the worst of policies.

GWB apparently heard somewhere that to be a conservative or Republican means to be in favor of war and foreign military action and massive military spending in all circumstances, for its own sake, as the solution to everything. Problem is, this distorted view of what conservatism stands for is basically a crude liberal caricature, ca. 1984, of “Bonzo” and his “crazy” “Star Wars” proposals and his “ignorant” notions of evil empires. Reagan gave the lie (if you disagree, save it for another thread) to the caricature of him as some Dr. Strangelove who’d drag us into war (unless the “Russians loved their children too,” as Sting urged us to hope) against chimerical enemies because, well, Republicans view war as the solution to everything and view their enemies as the enemies of God.

GWB is in the process of acting out, and validating, this crude Dem. stereotype. So . . . why don’t the Dems. jump right back in as though it were 1983? The notion that military action and spending is always, in itself, the solution to what ails America was never really conservative doctrine – but GWB seems to think it should be. The reason the Dems. painted Reagan in these clownishly-ridiculous colors is because it’s superficially persuasive; it can’t be that our national and foreign relations policy is to always be finding a war – yet the GWB/PNAC plan pretty much destines the U.S. for this kind of future.

Real conservative doctrine is to use measured force against direct threats to your country, overwhelming force against such threats when acute, and to marshal your resources the rest of the time; not to maintain and constantly be itching to use large standing armies.

Don’t the Dems have any Southern war veterans to make this point and outflank Bush by being simultaneously more genuinely liberal and genuinely conservative on foreign policy, as opposed to his just plain irresponsible adventurism?

40

No, But I like to think that there is more than a little truth to it. The best humor has more than a grain of reality.

I am starting to suspect that you and I disagree on the nature of what I see as a national consensus. I think there is one on any number of topics. On a hot button issue of the moment, abortion, I think that as a nation we agreed some time ago that access to safe abortion should be preserved, albeit with some restrictions but none the less preserved. You must agree that there is a vocal faction that is opposed to abortion. Some of those folks are opposed to the existence of any lawful abortion of any sort and some of those people are willing to resort to violence and intimidation to get their way. Others are willing to tolerate abortion under limited circumstances, as when carrying a pregnancy to term will certainly kill the mother. Those people have found a home in the Republican Party and the Party has embraced them with open arms – not because Republican principles of fiscal responsibility, decent behavior, public order and individual self-sufficiency are consistent with prohibiting abortion but because without the Party the anti-abortion faction has no political clout and without the anti-abortion faction, and several other factions, the Party cannot generate an election winning plurality. It is a marriage of convenience for both.

I know too many people for whom abortion is not only the most important issue in any election it is the only issue. They will climb on the wagon of any political candidate who mouths the litany of anti-abortion. They don’t care about tax policy. They don’t care about economic development. They don’t care about foreign policy or immigration or social security or a hundred other issues that are before the body politic. All they care about is abortion. They reject what I see as a consensus on the subject. For so long as the GOP gives them lip service and hope they will vote Republican – at least until a substantial portion of them realize that lip service is all that they are going to get.

Those anti-abortion Republicans are not alone enough to give rise to a plurality but when put together with the core of the Party (which I see as Big Business) and other discontent factions who do not buy other aspects of the national consensus they do give the GOP a plurality.