Don't Ask a Donkey to Sing

The Conservatives are failing. Whither the Dems?

I haven't commented much lately on the Democrats' post-election soul-searching efforts, but there's a lengthy article on the state of that enterprise, such as it is, in US News and World Report (via RealClear politics). My impression has been and continues to be that there has been no meaningful soul-searching, at least not in the sense of the party faithful taking a cold, hard look at their philosophical premises. What have I seen? Ted Kennedy saying, "We have to shout LOUDER!" Nancy Pelosi calling for a "moratorium" on soul-searching just days after the elections. George Lakoff (Yeah. I know: it's "LAY-koff.") saying that the snake oil merely needs repackaging. I've seen lots more, too, and little has been very encouraging. This is particularly distressing given the state of the conservative movement today. As John Lewis puts it in an article well worth a full read:

The evidence of the past two decades is unimpeachable: the political right in America no longer stands for individual rights, limited government and capitalism. The “rightists” now advocate expanding the welfare state, increasing government intrusion into our intimate private affairs, and sacrificing American lives to foreign paupers. They call it “advancing the cause of freedom.”

With the conservative movement in the shape it's in, one can, politically, hope for one of two things: (1) a hasty collapse of the Democratic Party coupled with a Republican split, with its secular and religious wings forming separate parties; or (2) a Democratic revival. (Neither of these would negate the need for a fundamental philosophical revolution in America, but either would make such a bit easier.) What would such a revival look like? Hints come from one of my previous posts. The Democrats need to reevaluate their political philosophy in a fundamental way.

One thing has finally come into focus for me on the whole "why did we lose" debate on the left: the question can be considered from the purely "pragmatic" or political angle of voter turnout, which groups voted how, etc. or from the angle of "of what value are we to the voters if they put us in power?" These questions do not have to (and should not) be considered as if they are mutually exclusive, but I think that so far, the main thrust of whatever soul-searching I've seen has been on the former. In the long run, though, if the second angle is not considered, no amount of political strategy is going to save the Democrats. This is why I am so insistent on the Democrats questioning socialism (which I think will cause them to reject it) while proudly returning to their secular roots. Consider how these two veins of thought would affect an interpretation of strong religious turnout: a short-range, "pragmatic" view will cause the Dems to lunge for religious conservatives as a new pet constituency. A longer range view would cause them to embrace secularism and perhaps offer an alternative for voters who, like myself, fear the consequences of a mixture of church and state. In the longer range view, the Democrats would ask, "Which is really better for our country?" We could really use that sort of questioning, and not just on that one issue, on the part of the Democrats.

I added all boldface above to indicate that the Democrats could revolutionize the American political landscape by making themselves useful to American voters. How? By ending their assault on economic freedom and by returning to the defense of a secular, pluralistic society. (And by the latter, I don't mean nihilism and multiculturalism, which are both merely assaults on Western civilization. See also the PS below.)

Does the concept of an "extreme makeover" apply to foundation work?

I am afraid that the Democrats are generally unable to reinvent themselves. I have my reasons, but I think the piece in US News and World Report does a good job providing examples, upon which I'll elaborate.

Pretty soon out of the gate, we get John Kerry, who doesn't buy the idea that the Democrats didn't get their message out.

Not much of which John Kerry believes. "The naysayers are completely out to lunch; they don't know what they are talking about," a vehement Kerry told U.S. News . "On every issue that speaks to the qualities of people's lives, we won and will continue to win."

Isn't Kerry opposed to social security reform? If there's an "issue that speaks to quality of life," this would fit the bill. If we are to believe Dick Morris, the Democrats are on the wrong side of that battle:

Pollster Scott Rasmussen reports that support for private investment skews dramatically by age group. Those aged 18 to 29 back it by 65 percent to 22 percent. Thirtysomething voters support it by 63-28; those in their 40s, 59-30.

But voters between the ages of 50 and 64 oppose the private-investment option by 49-41, and those over 65, by 63-27.

So the only voters who oppose private investment are those whom the reforms won't touch. Those for whom the changes are real, generally support them.

So Bush has succeeded in anesthetizing the Social Security debate: His proposed changes will stir passion only in the breasts of ideologues of each stripe, but not in the voters most affected.

While Morris, to use a little Lakoffian lingo, frames this in terms of Bush's political adroitness -- of which it is certainly an example -- the Democrats might ask why Bush is even bothering to rock the boat, when to do nothing would have almost certainly been easier. Maybe Bush understands -- like many voters -- that the jig is up for this Ponzi scheme. Maybe voters don't see the handover of power to politicians as an end in itself, but expect their elected representatives to do things that will demonstrably improve their lives. So, contrary to what "the other JFK" might say, the Democrats neither are nor will be winning with their current positions.

So yes, the Democrats need to consider some new ideas. But will they? Not if Al Gore's ex-campaign manager, Bill Daley or Democratic strategist David Axelrod provide any indication of the prevailing culture of the Democratic party.

Others say message isn't really the chief problem. Over and over again, critics say that Democrats have become tainted by a "cultural elitism," the sneering belief that "blue staters" are better educated, more sophisticated, and morally superior, compared with "red staters." "We do sneer at red staters," said Daley. "We convey that we are out of touch with the average person. We are truly a Washington, D.C.-focused party, and that includes unions, feminists, et cetera [sic]." Many also say that while Hollywood has been good for the Democratic Party in terms of contributing money, the Hollywood connection reinforces the notion that the Democrats are a condescending, leftist elite. So even though Axelrod believes that the party is fundamentally sound, he does say, "I don't discount that we should not be exclusionary and we should not project the cultural elitism that was radiated from Kerry. Would the right kind of candidate and right kind of candidacy have produced a different outcome? I supported Edwards. I think his message would have reached people in small towns and rural areas." [all italics added]

Axelrod, in the emphasized passages echoes Daley and (1) admits that Democrats are "exclusionary", (2) says that they should not project their cultural elitism, and (3) chalks up the loss of '04 to bad charisma. Lakoff thinks that "re-framing" old ideas will make them sell again. I guess we can think of Axelrod as the "George Lakoff of Democratic social pathology." The inbred, snooty, dysfunctional culture isn't the problem: we just gave too many voters a glimpse of our disdain for them. How is a party full of people who disdain Americans going to become a font of ideas that will actually improve their lives, much less win their trust long enough to get elected? Earlier, I said to lose the socialism. Lose the disdain, too. Or leave, if that's asking too much.

I somehow think I won't be heard. Too bad for both of us. There's a party that could use my vote, and I'm a voter who could use a better party than what the Republican have become.

Elitism goes from the rank and file ...

South Carolina legislator Gilda Cobb-Hunter shows just how doctrinnaire and out of touch the Democrats have become. Remember: she's a state legislator and so is both closer to the party rank-and-file and part of its pool of future national talent.

Gilda Cobb-Hunter has been a member of the South Carolina state legislature for 13 years and is a member of the Democratic National Committee. She is an African-American, and she shocked some of the candidates for the DNC chairmanship recently. "I asked them what plans do you have to attract white, southern voters to the Democratic Party," she says. "I am not talking about NASCAR dads and Bubba--those votes are gone. [emphasis added] I am talking about attracting young whites. And how do the Democrats keep young people of color, who are increasingly independent, in the party?" Cobb-Hunter says she did not get a satisfying answer from anybody. She also believes that Democratic candidates too often don't make a connection with ordinary voters. "In the last election, we couldn't explain things in a way that made sense to people [italics added]," she says. "We got too fancy and stopped talking to people."

On the second italicized comment: What is so difficult about the concept of government entitlements? They cost money. Joe six-pack, whose vote she just snootily wrote off knows that, and wants to keep his own hard-earned money. Why does she want just young voters? Does she think they're easier to fool? As for what she probably thinks of as "the redneck vote," notice that it is they who are the problem. I've discussed the Democrats problem among whites in the South before. In particular, the Democrats might rethink an entire statist agenda that they've been peddling in the name of "civil rights" for thirty years now.

The general impression ... that white Southerners have is that the Democratic Party taxes them to buy the votes of blacks, while at the same time making blacks into a government-dependent underclass who have no incentive for self-improvement. This underclass breeds criminals, who are not held accountable for their actions. White Southerners see a vicious circle of crime and dependency perpetuated by the Democrats and paid for at their own expense. [M]any of us would really like to see blacks succeeding in life. But we wonder how this can happen in general when big government removes the incentive to learn how, runs lousy schools, and permits criminals to infest black neighborhoods. Maybe the Democrats need to rethink their whole so-called "civil rights" agenda, and not just for the shallow purpose of getting more votes. Maybe Southern whites, having lived in a South shaped by Democratic policies, can make a contribution to this dialogue besides racial epithets. Or maybe we're just a bunch of 'baccy-spittin' hayseeds who want to keep the nigras down. If the Democrats don't overhaul their domestic agenda, particularly the part they do in the name of civil rights, they will lose the South for good, but tears should be shed. For the whites and for the blacks, but not for the Democrats.

So does Cobb-Hunter write us white Southerners off as racists (How would she know? By our skin color?), or is she refusing to give up her big government social agenda despite its well-known unpalatability to a major bloc of voters? Is she an elitist or is she being doctrinaire? Or a little of both?

... all the way to the top.

Terry McAuliffe, the man who presided over the latest electoral debacle, ensuring that his own party won't "preside" over anything but electoral losses any time in the near-term, is next. Unsurprisingly, he has no new ideas. But he shows that the cultural and ideological myopia of Cobb-Hunter reaches all the way to the top of the party.

"We need to be going into the red states. We need to be going into their neighborhoods, talking about our Democratic values and what we stand for, and getting people comfortable with us," McAuliffe says. "We can't continue to allow Republicans to go in and distort our position on issues and scare people." Since the Democrats lack a clear leader and a clear path to the future, McAuliffe believes the party must fill the gap. "The next chair of the party has to begin to do message testing, message development in all 50 states. We need to start today," McAuliffe says. "We can't wait for a nominee in April of 2008 to say, 'OK, what's our message?' We don't have to wait for the nominee. By April 2008, we will know exactly what we have to do in order to win the presidential election."

McAuliffe's "Democratic values," the ideas that animate his party, are unchangeable, Platonic ideals. It's the only the message, the shadow of these ideas in the corrupt material world that needs recasting to all those things down there in the cave called "voters". I recall in college how an Aristotelian philosophy professor once dismissed a liberal classmate of mine as a "Platonist." Here we have it in real life and on a large scale. This party is out of touch and it's populated by a bunch of elitists who are so convinced that they see "real reality" that such corruption as evidence and this-worldly logic won't make a difference to them. And this just feeds their own self-image as having more enlightenment than the hoi polloi.

Is there any hope? I'm not a Democrat, but I sure wish I had a choice at the polls. But wishing doesn't make it so. And on I trudge, and on.

And ideal party will not have Platonic ideals.

Bill Daley sounds little better in his second appearance.

Bill Daley points out that Democrats have to get over certain hurdles that Republicans do not. "Sure, September 11 made it very hard to win this time," Daley says. "But Vietnam totally moved Democrats to a party that conveyed weakness, and we are still living with that. Since Vietnam, since the '60s, since Woodstock and all that, Democrats have had to convince people we are pro-American and pro-military and have values. The Democrats have an obligation to prove it [italics added], but it is a given for Republicans, even though they may have fewer values than Democrats."

The emphasis on proof sounds good. But if all he means is doing something merely to "convince people we are pro-American," this will not be enough. I am sure that there are plenty of Democrats who really believe that socialism will help America. But I've lived in the same world as they and have seen socialism fail many times. Proof of the sincere concern of a socialist for my well-being is not going to make me vote for a socialist. Proof that he has changed his mind and now won't threaten my economic freedom if I cast a ballot his way might, though.

One immutable socialist, John Kerry, who plans to run again in '08, illustrates exactly how I fear Daley's concept of proof will, shall we say, manifest itself in the material world.

"I look forward to going out and continuing this battle," he told U.S. News. "Our grass roots are very strong, and we are very optimistic. It is hogwash that we don't know what we stand for. We stand for children, not for tax cuts for the wealthy. Our values? Our values are not encouraging jobs to go overseas." Kerry also defends his campaign. "It was a hell of a good campaign," he says--and says the Democrats can go too far with their current introspection and navel gazing. "We have to reach out for folks, but not by changing into something else," he says.

He even tosses in a few of those old-fashioned, annoying false dichotomies for good measure. "[C]hildren, not ... tax cuts." Damn, but I was looking forward to Bush's "Babies for Breakfast" program to kick in permanently....

After the haughty senator reprised his appearance, the article goes on to speculate that maybe the Dems need to look to the governor's mansion rather than Capitol Hill for new Presidential material. It then ends on the following note: "We should not mourn," [Anita Dunn] says. "We should organize."

The article's title asks, "Can the Democrats find the lyrics to regain the White House?" I doubt it, but I'm hearing a bunch of Whig fight songs coming from their general direction.

-- CAV

PS (added 2-9-05): On "useful" government: Ultimately, of course, the "most useful" government is that which protects individual rights by means of police, courts, and a military. Part of protecting individual rights includes completely getting out of such spheres as the economy, the academy, and religion. On ideas not being "Platonic Ideals": I am not arguing for pragmatism here, but for a radically different approach to ideas. Ideas can and should be checked against reality at every level of abstraction rather than arbitrarily accepted despite all evidence to the contrary. In this respect, the Democrats and the religious conservatives they so disdain function nearly identically, and with similar political results, differing only in where they choose to interfere in the lives of ordinary citizens.

Updates

2-9-05: Corrected reference to quotation of David Axelrod. Added PS.