No 'Left' Left In American Politics
	found on Slate written by NH4, edited by Tim (Plastic) [ read unedited ] posted Sat 16 Nov 5:49am
		"Sit in as Joe Klein and Robert Reich kick around the future of the Democratic Party in a four-part exchange in last week's Slate." NH4 writes, "Both agree the party has to change -- Klein in particular is sick of 'the Cult of the Tactical' which is 'encouraging blind, unnuanced support of the president on Iraq, and caving on gun control' for perceived political advantage -- but is the proper direction for the party 'Republican-Lite', 'FDR', a combination of the two, or something entirely new? "Klein lambastes the Democratic Party's reliance on special interests, including labor unions (which he claims has become a 'reactionary force in American life'), trial lawyers (their 'insistence on punitive malpractice damages fuels the rocketing cost of health care'), and the AARP ('robbing our children to pay our parents'). He thinks the Democrats 'need to embrace complexity', 'stop being so ... negative and pessimistic', inspire the idealism of young Americans, and redefine environmentalism and national security (he thinks the Democrats should call for 'a high-speed, heavily funded energy independence program'). "Reich wonders if there even IS a Democratic Party. He thinks that first and foremost 'there needs to be a real party[,] [s]omething with grass roots, with the capacity to think new ideas and market them'. Such a party would have 'conviction and courage', and wouldn't hesitate to try to redefine the Center in American politics. He is sick of hearing people say 'the real action is with the 20 percent swing in the middle', adding that '[t]he party of non-voters is larger than either Republican or Democrat'. Reich is also pretty hot for a big payroll tax cut. "Even as both agree the message of the Democrats is anachronistic, they cannot seem to agree between themselves what new message should replace the old one. Will new ideas come from the party's grass roots or will they come from candidates for the Presidential nomination in 2004, and what should those new ideas be?"

[ more plastic... ]    

show almost all: 38 commentsbest: 5 comments by oldest first (ignore threads) newest first highest scores first oldest first newest first (ignore threads)

1.  Clogged ideology   by plutocracywatch       at Sat 16 Nov 6:45am score of 1     One problem is that once a government program is enacted, it generates its own constituency. Old programs rarely fade away. This denies resources needed to address new problems or even address old problems in a new way. The Democratic timewarp runs from MLK's March on Washington through Nixon's resignation. The ingredients are reactionary statism as government employment serves as an end in itself, moral posturing portraying all who oppose their agendas as later day Bull Connors, and an economic nativism protection (from competition) and extortion (for campaign contributions) racket. We are not a nation of factory workers anymore. Consumer consciousness inculcates the ethos of choice. Voucherization of the entitlement state fits that agenda. Facing down your own special interests groups won Clinton a second term, the first Democrat to win that honor since FDR. Complexity is to not insult the voters intelligence. America is not a hellhole; we are the the scourge of the plant; and life as measured statistically is improving - so knock off the lamentations and pathological self-loathing. My vote goes to Joe Klein. read   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]

29.  Re: Clogged ideology   by scareduck       at Sat 16 Nov 10:10pm score of 1   in reply to comment 1     This post, of course, won't receive any upmods, and more's the pity. No "left" left in the Democrats? What, then, are we to make of nationalization of energy? Socialized medicine? No, it's the same old yoke and harness. New ideas? Hah! Look at the kind of pathetic countries that already have nationalized their energy industries. What good has it done them? We're smarter individually. -- Larry Niven   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]   36.  Re: Clogged ideology   by Adipic Acid       at Sun 17 Nov 8:51am score of 1   in reply to comment 29     Your examples are countries that have centralized their oil-based energy industries. The main argument for a government energy initiative is about addressing a market failure. I realize that it may shock you that the invisible hand could be at all fallible, but right now their is not enough economic incentive to develop a reduced dependence on petroleum. Such a development effort will not boost the stock prices of companies like Haliburton, ExxonMobil, or Texaco. The market will say that they are pissing away profit margins this quarter for a hypothetical return in future fiscal years and say "sell". Many Americans, myself included, believe that the real way to solve the problems in the Middle East is to make oil reserves irrelevant. This will also deprive the terror organizations of their major funding source. When a national goal is not aligned with the market, it is proper for the government to step in. What I'd like to see is something more like the Apollo Program than the Manhattan Project. Although a lot of the theoretical work for Apollo was done inside NASA, a great deal of the development work was done by outside contractors, thus boosting the civilian economy a bit. The problem is that setting ten year goals requires strategic vision, which is something that has been sorely lacking in the last two administrations. They are too focused on the latest polls and what step to take to boost their side's popularity to stay the course on any sort of long term basis. That's one of the root problems in politics today. No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Churchill   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]   46.  At a minimum....   by sglover910       at Mon 18 Nov 9:27am score of 1   in reply to comment 36     ...ensuring a stable, gradually rising floor price for petroleum would go a long way toward making other energy sources economically attractive. Then the ever-popular invisible hand could figure out the best mix of technologies. A petroleum tax has never been more necessary than now, even though the need for something like it has been obvious for decades. The chaos in Southwest Asia, and our increasing exposure to it, should come as no surprise to anybody who can read an atlas and a newspaper. If we're at war, what sort of strategy is it that funnels money to people who wish us ill? It's a damning reflection on the state of the democracy that no national politician discusses this -- it suggests to me that governance is becoming almost schizophrenic, vocal about perceptions and blissfully unaware of physical reality. I'm not sure that a large federal Project -- either Manhattan or Apollo -- is likely to be as effective as establishing and gradually increasing the floor price for oil. For one thing, it's a political pipe dream -- I can already imagine the attack ads conjuring up Carter's old synfuels program. For another, I think it will get mired in technological minutiae. I like the sweeping generality of a petroleum tax, because it makes this statement: We can see nothing but trouble if we stay with this oil economy. We need to wean ourselves off it. Time will tell what replaces it; for now, we'll create conditions that attract talent toward answering that question. An argument isn't merely nay-sayings and contradictions! M. Python   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]

2.  wish list/starting points   by 1fastdog       at Sat 16 Nov 8:27am score of 2.5 astute     1st step: develop a strategy or idea that benefits everybody regardless of political ideaology. I think that the idea of a big push towards energy independence and the development of alternative fuel sources would be a good starting point. I mean, who doesn't like the idea (besides big oil) of cheap energy that incorporates renewability with limited reliance on foreign sources of energy? 2nd step: bring the teens and twentysomethings back into the fold. After the elections I was talking with some of the younger guys at the local indie music store and discovered that almost all of them are Greens. To a man, their dislike of the Democrats lack of a coherent message was as strong as their dislike of Republican dogma. Where they didn't have a Green candidate to vote for they made a write-in choice instead of voting for a Democrat. While they favor the Dems message over the Repubs, they still won't vote for the Dems. They told me they'd rather "throw their vote away on a write-in than endorse the Dems" who they view as not worthy of support because "they're weak". There's a potentially large pool of young voters out there looking for a party with some backbone and a platform that addresses their concerns. A concerted effort to woo these young Greens over to the Dems side could pay off handsomely in the long run if they decide to switch party affiliation. As an added bonus, these kids are usually enthusiastic about activism and demonstrating about causes near and dear to their hearts. 3rd step: find a leader that's charismatic and coherent. The Dems need someone that's forceful, confident, and unafraid to wade into political battle waving a battle flag that represents common sense ideas that can benefit both the AARP crowd (who we know turn out to vote) and the younger generation (who apparently despise the Dems lack of strategy almost as much as they despise the dogma of the Repubs). 4th step: free beer!!!!! Hey, it's a wish list ain't it?! Tipping The Bottle & Biting The Lime   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]

9.  Re: wish list/starting points   by NH4       at Sat 16 Nov 3:38pm score of 1   in reply to comment 2     I, too, would love to see a big push for energy independence, 1fastdog, and it is clear that such a push certainly won't come from the Republicans. I would also love to see discussion of a guaranteed minimum income (a/k/a "negative income tax") make a comeback. I understand that this idea was initially championed by Richard Nixon as a way of cutting back on social spending (his idea was to replace almost all existing social programs with a minimum income), and that the Democrats consider government employees a strong part of their coalition. Even so, it seems to me that the Democrats ought to stand for raising up the underclass, given their tradition concern for "the little guy," and that a system that feeds 76% of all social spending to the people who administer the hundreds of different social programs rather than to the poor is inconsistent with that concern. Finally, if the Democrats are going to pretend to be social liberals, they ought to be advocating ending the War on Drugs, whether by legalizing marijuana and medicalizing hard drugs or by significantly reducing penalties for possession and use. If legalization can get 39% of the vote in Nevada and 43% in Arizona, this position might well gain them more votes among the young and social libertarians than it would lose among Puritans (who mostly vote Republican these days anyway). Of course, if the Democrats find a leader (or if a leader finds them) who is charismatic, coherent, forceful, confident, and unafraid to say what s/he thinks, all bets are off. The Democrats will say whatever their leader says -- just as they did during the Clinton Administration.   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]   15.  Alternative energy is still a fringe issue   by zanzibar       at Sat 16 Nov 5:21pm score of 1   in reply to comment 2     I think that the idea of a big push towards energy independence and the development of alternative fuel sources would be a good starting point. Unfortunately, the forces that be have done a pretty good job of making energy independence of any sort sound like a tin-foil-hat pie-in-the-sky notion that only some sort of bearded hippy would ever think of. Right up there with "world peace". Of course, that's not really the case, and it's becoming increasingly less so. Renewable technologies are actually reaching the cusp where a steady investment could really bring them into prime time and significantly reduce our dependence on foreign oil. And even without new technologies, there's a lot we can do just by reducing consumption a few percent, through relatively painless measures like increasing auto fuel-efficiency. The point, however, is that the public perception of alternative energy has to be changed before any major party can build a political platform on it. That change is happening bit-by-bit (see BP's solar campaign, or the wind-farms being planned, or mass-produced hybrid-electric cars like the Prius), and maybe in a few years it'll be ready for the political mainstream. Til then, the Democrats have plenty to focus on: getting the budget back into whack, improving the economy, repairing some of the US's credibility with the rest of the world... alternative energy plans would just present the Republicans with a big Jimmy Carter-sized target.   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]   24.  Re: wish list/starting points   by Subversive       at Sat 16 Nov 8:47pm score of 1   in reply to comment 2     There's a potentially large pool of young voters out there looking for a party with some backbone and a platform that addresses their concerns. A concerted effort to woo these young Greens over to the Dems side could pay off handsomely in the long run if they decide to switch party affiliation. Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) would enable these young voters to still select the Greens as their first choice, and then if there were not enough Green votes to win, allow the voters to also support the Democratic policies over Republican ones. This would increase the number of people voting Green while eliminating any "spoiling" of Democratic candidacies by the Greens. A win-win situation. This signature has been infected with Anthrax. Take your medicine.   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]   35.  Re: wish list/starting points   by Sporko       at Sun 17 Nov 8:15am score of 1   in reply to comment 24     But you're forgetting the huge problem with IRV... explaining the ballet to seniors. After all the complaints about the palm springs ballet, I can only imagine what kind of massive republican conspiracy IRV would be seen as.   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]

3.  OT-- Perhaps   by uncarved block       at Sat 16 Nov 10:05am score of 3 astute     A more cynical person might look at the Democrats dilemma and note that it's always had a message of righteous opposition with which to motivate idealistic voters: anti-labor forces in the 30's; segregationists in the 50's; the Vietnam war in the 60's; Watergate through the 70's; the lesser evils of Reagan and Gingrich since from 1980 on. A simple minded observer might even suggest that when the conservatives finally stopped supplying (figuratively) mustachioed villains as leaders, they started succeeding. But politics could never be reduced to such a lowest common denominator, right . . . ?       In a more abstract light, I posit that liberals in general are suffering because of something apparently unrelated, from a defeat in the culture wars that has gone largely unnoticed, or at least unconnected to politics. To wit, the elimination, if not outright scorn, for the notion that collective action can accomplish anything. Someone asked in an information privacy thread last week why Americans aren't more outraged by their decreasing privacy. I would suggest they are, as nobody does righteous indignation like an American, but the anger largely dissipates because banding together to confront an issue like this doesn't seem viable.       Evidence from the pop culture front: we've gone from ensemble cast war movies like Dirty Dozen and the whole slew of Sinatra and Wayne style films of the 50's on, and replaced them with the individualist films of Stallone and Schwarzenneger-- the hero in these films has no narrative 'equals', and all interactions are viewed solely through one perspective. Westerns have gone from The Magnificent Seven to any given Eastwood vehicle (heck, ponder the Dirty Harry movies, and the notion of individual correctness; the villains in one are even considered evil as much because they act together as because they're killer cops). Even sacrifice for your country, 'correct' group action, has become difficult to sell: the new slogan "An Army of one" is telling in many ways.       When it comes to labour, liberals have been pinched from both sides. Unions have cheapened the ideal of striking, by using their power to promote affluent, not just survival wages. Needless to say, the conservatives sure haven't hesitated to attack unions at all times, both in the abstract and in the particulars. Now, one can argue that the changing face of work in America has outgrown unions; I'm skeptical, to say the least, since this idea is promoted more by owners than workers-- and the workers who do like it are, from what I've seen, very likely to consider themselves future managers or owners. Hardly an unbiased sample.       As long as the turf is a variation on the 'bootstrap' myth, conservatives will continue to dominate liberals. Can the terrain of the mythic debate be changed? Yes, but as in all things, it will take time and effort, and perhaps the removal of Boomers from the process-- they seem to have succumbed en masse to the cult of the individual, and any of their artistic or political productions will be suspect (Spielberg and Lucas, I'm looking at *you*).       This argument isn't meant to be airtight, by any means, so there are doubtless dozens of individual exceptions. But think about the unspoken message of talk show stars like Rush and O'Reilly, and not just the positive images of movies and TV, but the negative ones as well-- why is Lifetime so universally mocked, for instance? Because of the feminism, or because the solutions tend to involve collective action? ("Oh, that only happens in the movies" is the line that comes to mind). Food for thought, at least. Eschew Obfuscation Assiduously   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]

5.  Re: OT-- Perhaps   by plutocracywatch       at Sat 16 Nov 11:24am score of 1.5 compelling   in reply to comment 3     Interesting. A boomer would have a hard time thinking the right won the culture war. As the government has become ever more powerful and oppressive, the culture has grown ever more inclusive of gays, women, minorities. The range of the acceptable is manyfold more expansive than it was in boomer todland. Although Springer and his audience are much less tolerant than the 70's Donahue, the guests' revelations are much more revealing. IMO, the right won the political debate while the left won the culture, although one may suspect each side would prefer to have it the other way around. The 60's and 70's counter-culture is today's culture. The counter-culture today is fundamentalist monotheism. The popularity of sports, with team sports still dominating, offers a counter-example. Another explanation for what you call individualism is the public relations-driven cult of celebrity. Yet even that is a modernization of what was once called "damsel in distress journalism" that taught focusing on someone humanizes a story facilitating reader empathy. If the boomers and others seem inordinately individualistic, it is a response to the numbing sameness of our McWorld. What the 60's right never understood was the counter culture was as much a rejection of the post-war conformity New Deal warfare-welfare state as it was rebellion against tradition. Collectivism sublimates the I to the alphabet, conformity with a splash of coercion. It conscripts then corralls the choosen constituency or candidate as prelude to saddling and breaking. It goes down easier when by choice. read   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]   10.  Re: OT-- Perhaps   by NH4       at Sat 16 Nov 3:49pm score of 1   in reply to comment 5     I have to agree with Plutocracy Watch that the left won the culture while the right won the government. Uncarved Block seems to consider negativity toward government a "cultural" matter rather than a "political" one. But as one who embraces social freedom AND limited government, I don't see these views as incompatible. Indeed, the interests of a strong government and the interests of people yearning for greater social freedom are usually incompatible. * * * The conformity of McWorld isn't anything new in America, of course, as a quick review of Alexis de Tocqueville's classic, Democracy in America , would make plain.   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]   12.  Re: OT-- Perhaps   by thinmac       at Sat 16 Nov 4:20pm score of 1   in reply to comment 5     I think it would be innacurate to say that the counterculture of the 60's and 70's is the culture of today. Many things which were part of that movement are part of todays culture, but in very different ways. For example, (everyone's favorite) sex and drugs. Sex, although we are in a much more permissive society sexually than we were 40 years ago, is nothing like it was in the 60's. AIDS is a big factor in that, but given the situation AIDS grew out of, if it wasn't AIDS it was going to be something else. Drugs, again, are very different now from what they have been in the past. Drugs are a huge business now, for both illegal distributers and for the governments (federal, state, and local) that try and stop them. While it may (or may not, it's not something I know a lot about) be accurate to say that the place of marajuana in culture is similar, other drugs such as cocain, crack, club drugs such as extasy, and even heroin (the newer, more pure, smokeable version that doesn't require injections) are have completely shifted 'drug' culture in general. While none of this is to say that the counterculture of that era did not change culture in general or act as a precurser to the culture of today, saying that it is the same would seem shortsighted. As a counter-counter-example to your team sports point, I think it is notable that there is a growing focus on a single player on the team, rather than the team in general. Where I live (the Bay Area), this is illustrated a lot in arguments between A's and Giants fans. A's fans like to point out that the Giants would be more aptly named "Barry and the giants", as they have few other players of much note, and those that they do (Jeff Kent comes to mind) get significantly less attention than their contribution seems to merit. Weather this is accurate or not, the Giants take in a lot more money each year than the A's do, despite being in a less interesting pennant race the last few years. This is by no means a local issue, or one merly in baseball. Anyone know any players on the Wizards other than Jordan? Very serious fans might, but most people who watch sports don't. Sports have become more about individual stars with a backup team than they have about team play in general. Narrative   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]   27.  No Beginnings, No Endings   by uncarved block       at Sat 16 Nov 9:23pm score of 1   in reply to comment 5     I would never claim the right won the culture war-- in fact, I argued that very point a couple months ago. The increasing tolerance of diversity-- real tolerance, not just 'tolerance while the boss is watching'-- is indisputable. But I would argue that the basis on which this freedoms have been won lost something along the way. To put it glibly, NIMBY freedom won out over 'righteous' freedom, yet it was precisely this sense of doing good that was really the root of liberal success.       Terms: NIMBY freedom questions the questioner: "who are you to tell me what do in the classroom/bedroom/workplace?" I don't want to portray this as a vice; 'enlightened self interest' is hardly a meaningless or evil idea. But it should never be confused with righteous freedom: "you (Bull Connor, Nixon, Reagan, et al) should stop what you're doing because it's wrong, even though I would never be subject to this punishment if I never interfered". The best example is, of course, the Freedom Riders, white kids who would never, ever have gotten clubbed by cops just staying home. Righteous freedom can be misused or misguided, like any other passion, but very little changes in a culture without a passion to drive it.       I excluded the Boomers from the reformation of collective action not because they're intolerant, but because they've completely surrendered to the notion of NIMBY freedom, at least in their art and cultural input. Just think of Michael Moore, current darling of the left, and ponder just how much of his message is tied to promoting his own image.       On a lighter note, the sports world really epitomizes my title. Sure, there have been team fans-- eg. the Yankees-- but how many of their fans only were so because of a DiMaggio or Ruth? As a tennis fan, I can tell you the individualist nature of the game has hardly propelled it to national prominence (it's the William's sisters, after all. And the same sports reporters that hang their hats (and paychecks) on players like Shaq or Jordan can ask whether Lance Armstrong should properly be called an athlete! OTOH, every team (basketball, football, baseball) must have a "go to" player-- whether a player wants to be so labelled or not, he'll be judged by that standard, in the press, but more connected to my argument, in bars and offices around the nation.       Keeping it brief, I'll note that the liberal power has become almost synonymous with state power; I suggest that there was a time when this wasn't necessarily so. Barn raisings weren't coercive, at least not from the top down. By accident, choice and circumstance, the modern left has chosen not disconnect its politics with community behaviour like victory gardens and neighborhood watches. For all his/her talk about local control in the face of corporate culture, is the average anti-globalism protester willing to walk through their neighborhood once a week? I would suggest that making just such behaviour part and parcel of a 'left' message is precisely the remedy that liberals, and less importantly the Democrats, need to reinvigorate participation.       Oh, and on a cultural note, I think the counter-culture of the 60's always misunderstood the Beats, and the protest works of the 50's. But that's a small matter; the present always misunderstands the past for its own ends . . . Eschew Obfuscation Assiduously   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]   34.  Re: OT-- Perhaps   by plutocracywatch       at Sun 17 Nov 7:39am score of 1.5 informative   in reply to comment 12     Using the term "precurser" to describe the counter-culture's influence in shaping today's culture is an understatement. The world today is a counter-culture to the world that existed before. There is a reason that Pat Buchanan or sounds like the 1000-year old man. Norman Podhoretz was right when he wrote in 1992, "Will someone tell Pat Buchanan that we lost the culture war in 1972." Let's throw some examples on the table from 1963: Racial segregation was the norm where I grew up in Chicago. It was the law Down South. Ethnic intimidation speech was everyday speech. Working class neighborhoods were dominated by a single European ethnic group. The streets were generally considered safe. My grandma could take one of us to downtown Chicago by bus without a worry. The bus driver smoked. He (and it was always a he) accepted cash and gave change. There were no porn palaces in public. There were no noticeable homeless as the mentally ill were institutionalized, even against their will. Our home was typical in that grandma lived with us. In those days the old were the poorest demographic, today they are the richest. Divorce was difficult to obtain. Out-of-wedlock birth was 5% in the white community. Today's out-of-wedlock births for whites equals the late 60's black rate that Moynihan described as a social disaster in the making. Celebrities dared not flaunt it. Rock songs dared not celebrate it. Radio and TV were heavily censored. Gays were closeted. An uncle of mine emigrated to California where presumably he found some respite. To come out was to commit careericide. Even Liberace was only a rumor. When I worked for the Chicago Democrats in the early 70's, the office fixer was a man named Hayes. He was Polish but changed his name to Hayes to advance his career. Abortion was unmentionable and illegal. Birth control was banned in Connecticut. There was no shortage of priests. Bishop Sheen was a TV star. Inter-marriage meant between a Catholic and a Protestant. Mothers mostly stayed home. Neither of my grandmas ever learned to drive. One did not see women or minorities in important political or business positions. Childless adults were an oddity. And the technological changes.... You get the picture. Sports stars are not new. Red Grange and Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey were even bigger for their day than their counterparts today. Then as now, it was a media plot to sell their wares. read   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]   37.  Two Things   by uncarved block       at Sun 17 Nov 9:24am score of 1   in reply to comment 10     First, I didn't mean to equate group action with government action: the anecdote I have in mind is from the 60's, when a woman I heard discussing some Black power group (Elijah Muhammed's I think, but not positive) mentioned a neighborhood group that picked up the trash. "You don't need a government program to clean up the garbage", she noted, and it's this kind of thinking I posit is missing from the left today. It's there, don't get me wrong, but I don't think it's prevalent. Standing on a streetcorner and passing out pamphlets is easy; neighborhood watch and cleanup is work.       Second, I think of negative attitudes to the government as 'cultural' because both sides of the spectrum have a history of distrusting the state. The left called it The Man in the 60's, and a variety of dirty names during unionization in the 20's and 30's; the right, as exemplified by Reagan and Goldwater, rail against 'income redistribution', and supporting "those who will never work on the backs of those who do"-- Rush, I think, though it could have been any of them. And guns! So in my personal lexicon, this makes it more cultural than political; needless to say, I'm lukewarm at best to the 'personal is the political' branch of thought . . .       (We've chatted before, so this is just a polite clarification, and if the neutrality of print implies some hostility, it's not there.) Eschew Obfuscation Assiduously   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]   6.  Re: OT-- Perhaps   by Notyou       at Sat 16 Nov 11:27am score of 1   in reply to comment 3     Food for thought, at least. And plenty of it.   Evidence from the pop culture front: we've gone from ensemble cast war movies...and replaced them with the individualist films.   The old Shane is often presented as the Western movie that defined the genre, including the rugged 'individualist' trope. The recent Saving Private Ryan tilts toward the collective action end of the scale. I'm not offering these counter-examples to smash up your thesis, but to suggest a refinement: Americans have always been torn between individual action and collective action, and continue to be. I don't see a decisive shift away from collective solutions, just the usual split. Unions find themselves in an awful predicament (aside from steady decline in membership): Union leadership supports the Democrats with dollars, while Union membership often votes Republican (as many as 40%). How can this be? A cynic might point out that venal and self-aggrandizing labor bosses have alienated their membership. Fair enough, but that doesn't explain the high numbers. I think your thesis of the Culture War explains it better. People vote for what they believe in, rather than vote for their interests, and the GOP has done a better job expressing its beliefs than the Dems have. Still, the culture wars aren't over: Dems and unions have had a lot of success in California, particularly Southern California, connecting with the growing latino working class, where they've done a good job linking beliefs and interests. Me neither.   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]   7.  Re: OT-- Perhaps   by Airbag       at Sat 16 Nov 2:51pm score of 1   in reply to comment 3     What you are talking about is not "off topic" because the whole notion of "grassroots politics" is what is up for grabs right now. I think that people are quite conscious of the power of association as a lever to influence the course of events but are also quite aware of how such "combinations" are so easily absorbed by interests that co-opt, distort, or otherwise betray the reason why a certain set of folks got together. A savvy national political strategy would throw all of its resources toward protecting the power of association and letting the chips fall where they may. The interest in third parties is the interest in something that isn't a done deal. It is so easy if you know how.   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]

4.  "Reports of my death are premature"   by charlies       at Sat 16 Nov 11:10am score of 3 helpful     I am quite encouraged by the discussion that has followed the recent election for two reasons: First, this is the fourth time in my brief lifespan that the pundits have announced the death of the Democratic Party: 1968, 1980, and 1994 before this. They may be wrong. Second, I hear an odd echo in this triumphalism. The echo is from Election Night 1964. Recall with me that shining night of yesteryear: Lyndon Johnson received the highest percentage of the popular vote ever. Democrats won more than two-thirds of both houses of Congress. Pundits announced the obvious: The Republican Party was dead. The Democrats would rule for at least the remainder of the Twentieth Century. And since the wise men said it, it must have happened, nicht wahr? I modestly suggest there is a good reason the Congressional Republicans are lining up to hit the ground running: If they are lucky they will have a whole year to work their agenda. If the Congressional Democrats actually develop a spine, they have much less than that. If the economy rebounds and the war, whatever that may be, goes well, Shrub may limp into a second term. But this election should be seen for what really happened: Republicans turned out to vote by a marginally higher percentage than usual, and Democrats turned out in slightly lower numbers, in four states. If political parties traded on the stock market, this is the time to sell Rs and buy Ds. We're fighting in a war we lost before the war began.   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]

8.  Does it really matter?   by mightygodking       at Sat 16 Nov 2:56pm score of 3 compelling     Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt are prepping their runs for President in 2004 as I type this. They're both energizing the remnants of Democratic power for their campaigns. The fact that nobody in their right mind would ever vote for Daschle or Gephardt on a presidential ticket seems to have escaped their attention. Hell, Gephardt already tried running for President once, in one of the weakest Democratic fields ever (1988) and got trounced in the primaries by the likes of Jesse Jackson and Michael Dukakis. Yet, somehow, these dumbasses think that they are the saviours of the Democratic party. This is why I don't think you're going to see a resurgence of the Dems anytime soon, unless some young, charismatic and above all passionate candidate presents himself and beats these two chumps into the ground - and by that, I don't mean John Edwards, whose primary call to action for his presidential campaign seems to be "I have good hair, and people like a man with good hair!" In short: if Russ Feingold runs for President, there's an outside chance of a Dem resurgence. If they put all their money on one of them what brought them to this point (and that's what their plan appears to be), they're only going to sink further. It's not just a government any more!   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]

16.  My Proposed Platform:   by Jeff Jorgensen       at Sat 16 Nov 5:37pm score of 3.5 astute     1) Balanced Budget, Balanced Budget, Balanced Budget. This should be the most important plank. Republicans can't bring themselves to do this and Democrats should absolutely hammer them on it. 2) Sensible security. Stress the erosion in liberty championed by bush, show innocent people are getting tossed in jail, long lines at airports, highlight all the stuff that makes people uncomfortable and scared, contrast this with the inability of republicans to prevent more terrorism and catch bin Laden. Formulate a tough but reasonable security approach. Promise to get tough on the Saudis highlighting the bush families questionable business dealings. Suggest that pandering to the Saudis and Hunting down Saddam is more important to Bush than the actual security of the US. Gun fingerprinting here too. 3) Crack down on corporate crime. No brainer here. Highlight the effect of corporate malfeasance on the 401Ks of the baby boomers. 4) Treat people as equals. Show the connections between the Bushs and the financial elites, the tax cuts, the fund raising etc. Take a populist approach, make a bigger tent than the republicans. Play the race card, this is the demographic key to future success. 5) Environment. Fully fund national parks, allow some moterized access to national forests. Take the video of bush admitting there is a global warming problem and make some juicy ads leading to: 6) Energy. Demonstrate a coherent vision of a post petroleum world. You have to show people that you can live a better and more healthy life in an energy efficient USA. 7) Seniors. Single payer drug coverage. Highlight the hassle of dealing with insurance companies and cover the horror stories of people that are denied coverage. 8) International relations. Show how the go-it-alone Bush policy has hurt our stature abroad, and how that working together with our allies makes everything easier. 9) Economy. One question: are you better off today than you were four years ago? Very few people can honestly answer yes to this. Realisticly there isn't much you can do here, but the republicans are soft here. Warm up some footage of Bush senior kvetching about "voodoo economics" 10) Over-arching themes: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Quality of life, Security (both financial and anti-terror), Stress that an America where we work together toward common goals has a bright future. Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]

21.  One more thing...   by Jeff Jorgensen       at Sat 16 Nov 7:41pm score of 1   in reply to comment 16     Organize, organize, organize. At the grassroots. I know it sounds like a cliche but... Dems biggest weekness right now is a relative lack of organization. The republicans are brilliantly organized and funded, and it barely got them half the vote. Another way to look at it is that the Democrats were barely trying and almost won. This is the area where a small effort will pay off in a big way. Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]   23.  Re: My Proposed Platform:   by Subversive       at Sat 16 Nov 8:33pm score of 1   in reply to comment 16     These are all great ideas, especially: 4) Treat people as equals. Show the connections between the Bushs and the financial elites The consideration given Noelle Bush should be extended to every other drug addict. This signature has been infected with Anthrax. Take your medicine.   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]   31.  War on drugs.   by Lemmy Caution       at Sun 17 Nov 12:33am score of 1   in reply to comment 23     The biggest shock of the last election wasn't the democratic losses - I pretty much saw that coming - but rather the defeat of the marijuana legalization initiatives. I had truly been laboring under the impression that most Americans had enough common sense to see that the war on drugs was a flop, and the the Noelle Bush situation was just more grist for the mill. Instead, I am startled to learn that exceptionalism and hypocrisy, and the application of different types of justice for different classes of people, actually resonates with the American people. That's a sad thing.   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]   32.  Re: My Proposed Platform:   by nedder sieben       at Sun 17 Nov 1:42am score of 1   in reply to comment 16     11) Campain reform. Limit personal contributions to $100 per year, and non-personal to $500. Stop taking campaign donations from the likes of Eli Lilly, AOL-TimeWarner, Microsoft and other unsavory (ie; morally corrupt) corps.   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]   33.  Re: My Proposed Platform:   by Brian Jones       at Sun 17 Nov 5:25am score of 1   in reply to comment 16     Let me just tweak 3). More later... 3) Crack down on corporate crime. No brainer here. Highlight the effect of corporate malfeasance on the 401Ks of the baby boomers. Not quite an entire no-brainer. A growing number of voters realize that government's own accounting corruption dwarfs anything for which Big Business is guilty. All it takes for the corruption crackdown to collapse is for Republicans to start tying government accounting corruption to projects in Democrats' own districts. (ad copy: Here's some accounting corruption Tom Daschle doesn't want you to know about) Yes, there'll be accounting corruption found in Republican districts - but by that time, voters will again be thinking "everybody does it". And the Dems will be back where they started. Cheap crass attention-whoring plug goes here.   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]   38.  Maybe there should be a "Good Government" plank   by Jeff Jorgensen       at Sun 17 Nov 9:58am score of 1.5 astute   in reply to comment 33     Well, it's a problem in that erodes peoples confidence in their government, but it will be hard to blame Daschel for anything in two years. An emphasis on good government for the benefit of everyone is important. Some pork is needed to grease the wheels of government, and realistically you will never get rid of it entirely. Vetoing pork is what killed Carters chance of advancing his agenda when he was president. Maybe a little reform requireing honesty in the naming of bills. So no more "leave no child behind" or "USA patriot" bills would help. Also combine the funding bill with the actual legislation. Right now they are separate and unfunded mandates are getting to be a real problem. Also by attaching the money to legislation at the first step it allows everyone to be honest about the costs and benefits of new laws. Maybe a regular external audit of congressional spending? The real problem is the way congress handles these spending bills. By combining all of this spending into 13 omnibus spending bills it basically becomes impossible for any one person to really know what's in them. The potential for abuse is amazing. I'm not sure exactly how to handle this. Deep organizational changes would be required and institutions are highly resistant to that kind of change. It's not really a partisan issue. Frankly I'm not sure either party really wants to fix this. Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]   45.  2) 4) 7) 8) 9)   by Brian Jones       at Sun 17 Nov 6:20pm score of 1   in reply to comment 16     2) Sensible security. Stress the erosion in liberty championed by bush...Promise to get tough on the Saudis highlighting the bush families questionable business dealings... You don't even need to bring Bush's business dealings into it - that's only going to sound like Whitewater tit-for-tat. Skip it. And the gun-fingerprinting idea didn't gain any traction during the sniper story. Skip that, too. It sounds too much like same-old same-old. Lean on the Saudis, by all means. Appoint every woman, Jew and gay you can find to key positions dealing with Islamic nations. Draw the hatred inherent in radical Islam into the open. 4) Treat people as equals. Show the connections between the Bushs and the financial elites... You're talking about the same party that two years ago "suggested" that several strong New York Democratic candidates for Senate make way for Hillary, or else. Some people are more elite than others, it would appear. If you want the Democrats to stand apart from the Republicans on this issue, they will have to give up their reliance on name-brand politicians - and that means booting anybody named Clinton, Gore or Kennedy. 7) Seniors. Single payer drug coverage. Highlight the hassle of dealing with insurance companies and cover the horror stories of people that are denied coverage. No ground will be gained here. For every insurance hassle, there's a government hassle - and Republicans can point to problems with single-payer health in Canada, the UK and elsewhere. To paraphrase P.J. O'Rourke - when business screws somebody, at least they make a buck off it. The government can't even get that part right in its other endeavors, and there's no reason to believe their handling of health care will be any different. 8) International relations. Show how the go-it-alone Bush policy has hurt our stature abroad, and how that working together with our allies makes everything easier. Working with our allies? With the exception of England, they can't keep up. And very few voters care about "stature"; what they care about is not getting blown up by some freak screaming Allahu akbar. 9) Economy. One question: are you better off today than you were four years ago? The absolute wrong question to ask. What is this, 1983? If you're the forward-looking party, then don't ask played-out questions that were popular during Reagan-era debates. Cheap crass attention-whoring plug goes here.   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]

18.  There's no "left" left in American politics...   by Anonymous Idiot       at Sat 16 Nov 6:22pm score of 0.5 obnoxious     because the "left" continues to make itself increasingly irrelevant by slavishly clinging to 19th century ideals and worldviews (pseudo-Marxism, imperialist boogeymen, etc.) and putting on puppet shows with interpretive dancers and big paper-mache Bush dolls. It's hard to take such a group of un-progressive "progressives" seriously. Maybe if the left started addressing social ills like grown-ups, those of us who might actually agree with it on certain issues wouldn't feel utterly embarrassed associating ourselves with it. People complain that the mainstream right has been taken over by extremists and demagogues, but the exact opposite is true: the Democratic party has shifted toward the center, leaving the vocal left to the puppeteers and disgruntled college kids-gone-wannabe-revolutionaries. The extreme right, on the other hand, the Klan, the neo-Nazis, the Fallwells, etc., have relatively little support. You don't see several hundred-thousand people gathering in cities across the country screaming that we should kill all Muslims in the same way that you see "anti-globalization" protesters come together. While I suppose it's just easier to blame the Republicans and cook up conspiracies than to address the massive ills that plague the left, the "hometown conservative" will continue to appeal to the average American simply because the form that it takes in this country is simply less extreme than that taken by "grassroots leftists."   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]

44.  Re: There's no "left" left in American politics...   by blather       at Sun 17 Nov 5:37pm score of 1.5 astute   in reply to comment 18     "You don't see several hundred-thousand people gathering in cities across the country screaming that we should kill all Muslims in the same way that you see "anti-globalization" protesters come together. " Behold the psychic power of Carl: He managed to call out correctly the above poster without advance knowledge of the content of their email. Seriously now, WTF?? You seriously suggest that anti-globalization protesters and people advocating death to all Muslims, or the neo-Nazis, are comparable in some way? Have the anti-globalization folks started advocating hanging the last bureaucrat by the guts of the last capitalist and I missed the memo? On a separate issue, are you suggesting that Neo-nazis are part of the natural constituency of the Republicans? The shift to the right of the Republican party has been discussed here and elsewhere to death. Your comment actually does not disprove it (neo Nazis aside.) -- that's exactly what would happen if the right-wing crazies and their positions find room in the big tent of the Republican party: you don't see them or hear them independently as much, since the gospel is now preached by the party itself. The fact that the Dems have followed suit and moved also to the right has also been recently discussed on this forum (slow connection, tough to find link, sorry). (As a side note: The NYT partially disagrees. The article has -1 disingenuous and -1 lazy written all over it: no evidence or argument is provided for the assertion that the house democrats have grown more liberal than 15 years ago, or that the positions the parties take differ more now than 15 years ago.) As to the extremism or lack thereof of the hometown conservative, I am not sure what you're trying to say: If the democratic party decided they wanted to adopt some cause that today is represented by left-wing bozos, the image of the representatives of that cause could change in a matter of months. By the way, I totally agree that in the US the left has been left to the bozos.... The price of liberty is eternal vigilance   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]

19.  Minor parties are key to the future of Democrats   by Subversive       at Sat 16 Nov 6:56pm score of 1     The Democratic Party needs to realize that they are in a death spiral of stagnation and that continuing the same practices will yield more of the same results. Moving even further to the Right will not inspire those who are committed to vote Republican to do otherwise. What I think Democrats should do to reinvigorate their party is to become the leaders in measures that promote the issues of minor parties, such as Instant Runoff Voting (IRV). IRV would allow voters to mark additional, ordered choices on their ballots, in case their first choice gets quickly eliminated from consideration. IRV would remove the "spoiler" aspect of minor candidacies, while bringing new voters to the polls (which could then be competed for) and new issues to the party. Alternatively, the Democratic Party can keep doing more of the same, until eventually even a minor party such as the Greens attracts a larger share of the voters, causing it to become moderated and in doing so, viable. And at this point the Democratic Party would simply fade into history, as the political parties before them did. But that could take generations, leaving the American Left without any influential political representation for a very long time. This signature has been infected with Anthrax. Take your medicine.   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]

26.  Corporate domination and social justice   by JulianA       at Sat 16 Nov 9:08pm score of 1.5 astute     Klein's complaints about special interests were aggravating since he never mentioned corporate America, which has a far more powerful and damaging impact than labor unions, trial lawyers, etc. It's unclear whether he doesn't notice the corporate impact or whether he thinks that it's a good thing. The corporate agenda dominates both major parties, the Republicans to a greater extent than the Democrats. Reich alludes to that corporate influence in passing, but doesn't emphasise it. Related to that, one of the worst thing about America is the number of citizens whose basic physical needs - food, shelter, clothing, medical care - are being met poorly, if it all. Klein dismisses liberal ideas as obsolete and irrelevant, even though fundamental moral principle underlie those ideas. The Democratic Party should emphasise increased social programs to help the less fortunate, along with, as Reich advocates, abolishing the payroll tax for people who are struggling to get by. Julian's Jabberings   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]

30.  Re: Corporate domination and social justice   by Mad Ogger       at Sat 16 Nov 10:18pm score of 1   in reply to comment 26     Related to that, one of the worst thing about America is the number of citizens whose basic physical needs - food, shelter, clothing, medical care - are being met poorly, if it all. Klein dismisses liberal ideas as obsolete and irrelevant, even though fundamental moral principle underlie those ideas. The Democratic Party should emphasise increased social programs to help the less fortunate, along with, as Reich advocates, abolishing the payroll tax for people who are struggling to get by. We tried increased social programs in the 70s with that LBJ guy. The programs were moderately successful in supplying fish, but not successful in teaching how to fish. Except the housing projects, which were a disaster. I think more voters would be interested in ideas for reducing poverty than trying to alleviate its effects via handouts. For example, improved inner city schools. That may change if inequality of wealth keeps rising, but for now "generically increase social spending" is an obsolete idea.   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]

28.  I Agree with Robert   by kcwookie       at Sat 16 Nov 10:05pm score of 1     See my comments: Georga Turncoat Comments A worker without a union is like an Arctic explorer without a coat.   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]

39.  old news!!!!   by pdesimone       at Sun 17 Nov 10:29am score of 1     This is OLD NEWS! It was true way before Nader ran for President. THE PROBLEM IS NOT BEING ABLE TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT! And that's why we'll see more articles and more proclamations that the two-party system has been co-opted by interests of corporate powers and class. Its dead! And the media won't do the issue justice! We'll just continue in the vicious circle of Reps and Dem others.... This is old news! And this country is really in for it!   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]

41.  young persons' vote   by hmmm       at Sun 17 Nov 12:31pm score of 0.5 obnoxious     The Dem's are anti-male, and the Rep's only slightly less so. Still, given that anti-male hate groups like NOW are firmly in the Dem camp, it's a wonder that the Dem's get any men's votes at all. Young men and women don't want the government running their sex lives. The Dem's go blabbing on about being pro-choice, but if a guy sleeps with a girl, and she gets pregnant, a judge and the cops might totally ruin his life because he had sex (think paying 30% of your wages as "child support", and going to jail if you lose your job and can't pay). The first political party to show some serious concern about male reproductive rights will get a lot of votes, at least from persons young enough to still be interested in having sex.   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]